ESMR decision greeted with satisfaction from Telus, disappointment from Rogers

Telus Mobility representatives say that Industry Canada made the right decision in capping the amount of enhanced specialized mobile radio (ESMR) spectrum at 10 MHz that would be calculated under the department’s spectrum aggregation limits. Bob Simmonds, executive VP of regulatory at Telus Mobility, tells Report on Wireless that the ruling solves a significant problem for the wireless carrier. "The biggest thing prior to this decision was that even when we had already acquired spectrum we weren’t allowed to use it for ESMR necessarily. It actually forced us in some instances to keep it in an analog mode," he explains. "That’s why in a way it’s sort of backhanded … it’s a rule that actually works against the policy of the department in the sense that it prevents the spectrum from being used in the most efficient way." Last month, the department sided with Telus Mobility on the contentious issue and agreed to limit the amount of ESMR spectrum that would count towards the calculation of the company’s spectrum cap (DGTP-004-03; RoW Update, April 7/03). Dawn Hunt, VP of government and regulatory affairs at Rogers Wireless Inc., tells RoW that while the company is disappointed with the decision, she saw the writing on the wall last year. "When I read the spectrum licensing fee paper, given that they had excluded ESMR from the methodology they proposed for calculating fees for PCS and cellular, (it told) me basically that we had lost on the issue of whether the ESMR spectrum is in or out of the cap calculation," she explains. (See article in this issue regarding the spectrum licensing fee regime.) Hunt says the department missed the opportunity to look at the broader issue of the entire spectrum cap policy. "If you’re going to look at the cap issue, rather than doing it in piecemeal fashion of should ESMR be included or not, you should look at the cap and whether it should be raised or eliminated similar to what they went through in the States," she says. "Industry Canada decided that they were going to adopt a similar methodology for accounting for that spectrum as the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) did," she adds. However, the department has now aligned its ESMR spectrum policy with an FCC directive that is outdated, Hunt notes. As of Jan. 1, 2003, the FCC scrapped the spectrum cap. Despite the disappointment, she maintains that spectrum re-use through cell splitting is a far more efficient way to use the spectrum than simply adding more channels. She admits that while it would cost Telus Mobility more money to use cell splitting techniques, that shouldn’t matter. "We felt that if you don’t put those requirements to be an efficient user of spectrum on them there is no incentive, financial or otherwise, for Telus to do it," Hunt explains. But the ruling doesn’t mean Telus Mobility will be going out and acquiring significant slices of ESMR spectrum in the near future. Simmonds notes that in a spectrum congested area like metropolitan Toronto there isn’t even that much more spectrum to acquire. "It’s not like we’re going to be going out and buying up the world and somehow getting this huge (amount) of spectrum," he explains.

ESMR decision greeted with satisfaction from Telus, disappointment from Rogers

News | 04/15/2003 4:00 am EDT

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