Canadian spectrum experience cited at IIC conference in South Africa

Canada’s approach to awarding spectrum licences is serving as a template for other less developed countries developing their own methods. They are taking Canadian experiences and are learning what to do and what not to do. This was illustrated clearly at the recent conference of the International Institute of Communications (IIC). The group held its annual meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, the first time it has taken place there. Bernard Courtois, executive counsel at BCE Inc. and Bell Canada, is president of the IIC. He was struck by the lessons South Africa learned in awarding its third spectrum licence. Government officials decided early on that licence conditions weren’t carved in stone, according to Courtois. "They solicited bids for the licence and they had some basic conditions and basic requirements. But they indicated they would be prepared to negotiate with the bidder they thought was the most attractive to see whether there were trade offs between the government’s needs and the bidder’s needs that would work well." The country had several policy options it wanted upheld. Jobs must be guaranteed for disadvantaged members of the population. Consumer issues had to be balanced with investor confidence concerns. If a prospective wireless service provider could not reach particular goals in one area, it could compensate by overachiev-ing in another. "They didn’t do a straight, pure monetary option," Courtois notes. "They had some public benefits they wanted to focus on and they learned from other countries’ bad experience with the straight economic option. But they also had this notion of being flexible and being open to a very common sense approach. "What this conference again showed is that Canada’s experience can be extremely useful, as it is on subjects like the role of the public broadcaster versus a private broadcaster, the role of an integrated regulator, opening up markets to competition," Courtois states. "We seem to have experiences, real life experiences, in things that work that we can share." Telecom experts, academics, regulators and others led several plenary sessions over the six-day gathering, held September 28 to October 3. Courtois moderated a panel on regulation for competition while representatives from NTT DoCoMo and Platform Wireless International of the U.S. participated in a discussion of future communications scenarios. For more on the IIC conference, see the Oct. 21/02 issue of Network Letter and the Oct. 24/02 issue of Canadian Communications Reports, both RoW affiliated publications.

Canadian spectrum experience cited at IIC conference in South Africa

News | 10/28/2002 5:00 am EST

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