Industry Canada has published today a qualified list of bidders for the upcoming AWS-3 wireless spectrum action, set to take place next month on March 3. The qualified list of bidders contains familiar companies from the initial list of applicants, which includes Rogers, TELUS, Bell, Videotron, WIND Mobile, Mobilicity and more:
Industry Minister James Moore previously stated by May of this year, the Federal government expects ‘new’ wireless companies to hold 25% of total wireless spectrum available once wireless actions are complete. Part of this will be possible because the AWS-3 auction will include a set-aside chunk for newer entrants, which incumbents such as Bell have publicly opposed.
Below is a graphic from the Federal government’s More Choices website, emphasizing the change in total wireless spectrum holdings, once the AWS-3 auction has ended, including the upcoming 2500MHz action on April 14, 2015:
It’ll be interesting to see how much of an impact these wireless spectrum auctions will really have on prices and data plans. Will ‘more choice’ lead to greater wireless competition once and for all?
