Superior Wireless wants digital roaming with TBayTel turned back on

John Lyon, a VP with Superior Wireless Inc., won’t say what the CRTC should do to settle a digital roaming dispute between his firm and rival Thunder Bay Telephone (TBayTel). But he notes the simple solution would be for TBayTel to turn digital roaming back on, then get back to the table and negotiate a longer-term solution. "The solution that makes the most sense is to turn back on and negotiate some kind of timeline for that," Lyon tells Report on Wireless. "Something that’s reasonable and gives us a chance to adjust without disadvantaging our customers and our company." The two Thunder Bay ON-based wireless operators have been waging a war of words at the CRTC for about two months, since Superior launched an appeal with the CRTC in December 2005 asking for some relief from the situation. TBayTel used to allow Superior customers to roam on its digital network in the Tel-24, a region that encompasses Thunder Bay and some rural areas surrounding the city. But after Superior launched a rival digital service in Tel-24 last fall, TBayTel decided to cut off digital roaming to Superior customers shortly thereafter. This left a substantial number of Superior customers without service. The city-owned telephone company says that it is within its right to turn off digital roaming because normally two carriers with overlapping digital networks don’t offer roaming services. The problem is not just that Superior’s network doesn’t mirror that of TBayTel, but that network and handset issues also prevented Superior’s customers from roaming on TBayTel’s analog network. In its application to the commission, Superior requested 30 to 60 days to notify and make changes to customers’ phones so that they could roam onto TBayTel’s analog network. "They didn’t give us adequate notice to deal with our customers," says Lyon, adding that upwards of 4,200 customers were still affected. He estimates that the company would have to set up multiple public sessions in 20 communities where customers could bring their handsets in to get fixed. Superior now believes that a viable solution would involve a period of greater than two months of digital roaming with TbayTel. "Now we understand what the permanent solution is going to involve and that’s going to involve us building out our network in Tel-24 to match theirs, and we can’t do that within 30 to 60 days," Lyon says. Superior acknowledges that since the two companies’ digital networks overlap, this is a competitive dispute and TBayTel can use its greater network coverage as a competitive advantage. "There is nothing wrong with that and we’ve never said there is anything wrong with that. We’ve said because of that change that made without notification that it has put our customers out of service," Lyon says. He also takes issue with the roaming agreement the two companies share, highlighting the fact that there is nothing in the deal specifying analog or digital. "They’re maintaining that they’re well within their rights because we’ve moved into Thunder Bay without notifying them, which we’re disputing," he says. "So, we’re content just to let the CRTC deal with this. We’d like to negotiate something with Thunder Bay, but they’ve told us so far they’re not interested," states Lyon. Report on Wireless was unable to secure an interview with a TBayTel representative by press time.

Superior Wireless wants digital roaming with TBayTel turned back on

News | 02/23/2006 5:00 am EST

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