Canada kicked off its 700MHz spectrum auction on January 2014, 2014 with 10 participants after five fell out in the lead up, including WIND Mobile the day before the auction was set to start. Just over a month later, the auction has wrapped up and Industry Canada today announced the winners.
After a total of 108 bidding rounds, 97 licenses were won, earning the Canadian government CA$5.27 billion, significantly more than had been expected after a number of participants dropped out.
Here are the winners:
| Bidder | Number of Licences Won | Final Price (CA$) |
|---|---|---|
| Rogers | 22 | 3,291,738,000 |
| Bell | 31 | 565,705,517 |
| TELUS | 30 | 1,142,953,484 |
| MTS | 1 | 8,772,072 |
| SaskTel | 1 | 7,556,929 |
| TBayTel | 0 | — |
| Vidéotron | 7 | 233,328,000 |
| Bragg | 4 | 20,298,000 |
| Novus | 0 | — |
| Feenix | 1 | 284,000 |
| Totals | 97 | 5,270,636,002 |
| Unallocated | 1 | 284,000 |
As expected, Canada’s big three carriers took home the majority of the licenses, taking 83 of the 98 that were available. Rogers and TELUS were the big spenders with TELUS spending over CA$1 billion and Rogers spending an amazing CA$3 billion by focusing on the paired blocks which are the most desirable.
Perhaps most interesting is Videotron. The Quebec-focused regional carrier secured licenses in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia as well as Quebec. This could be a sign that the Quebecor-owned carrier is ready to expand operations beyond Canada, perhaps with Mobilicity’s assets furthering its expansion plans.
Two participants, TBayTel and Novus, failed to secure any spectrum in the auction.
The next major auction of Canadian wireless spectrum licences will be the 2500 MHz band is set to kick off in April 2015.
Source : Industry Canada