This morning, the government released what it called “New measures to increase competition in the wireless sector“. There were a number of elements to the release, including a clear statement of the objective driving the measures: “To be clear, our government wants to see at least four players in each market.”
To that end, there were four key elements to the announcement:
- expanding—and extending—the requirement for wireless companies to provide roaming on their networks to competitors;
- tightening the rules to increase cellphone tower sharing, thereby helping to limit the construction of new cell towers;
- use the upcoming wireless spectrum auctions to promote four competitors in each region of the country;
- review the policy on spectrum licence transfers with the objective of promoting competition in the wireless sector.
The government news release contains a number of links to various background pieces, including a Commercial Mobile Spectrum Outlook that identifies more than 300 MHz of additional spectrum (beyond the 700 MHz and 2500 MHz bands) that could be made available by 2017.