New entrants generally pleased with new rules for tower sharing and roaming

New entrant wireless carriers are applauding Industry Canada for the rules regarding tower and site sharing and roaming as well as new dispute resolution guidelines for negotiating such agreements. They say the arbitration rules will allow them to strike deals with incumbents in time for their service launch deadlines."I was very happy to see them basically implement the policy framework that they had previously outlined. They provided a lot more clarity on specifics on the rollout," Tony Lacavera, president and CEO of Globalive Communications, told Report on Wireless. Another new entrant contacted by RoW was just happy the rules have been released, noting that now meaningful negotiations can take place.BMV Holdings was contacted for reaction to the new guidelines. Spokesperson Robert Thomspon said after going over the Industry Canada documents, the company decided not to comment on the rules.To facilitate speedy negotiations, Industry Canada adopted final offer arbitration (FOA) and this was a positive step for new entrants. While this will be the default method of arbitration, the department has given the arbitrator the flexibility to choose portions from each terms sheet to make a final decision. While not ideal from the new entrants' perspective, it will still help the party with the least amount of bargaining power in the negotiation.Another positive for new entrants was the department's decision to give the arbitrator the right to issue interim awards. This becomes important if there aren't any technical barriers to tower sharing, for example, yet the process is prolonged by ongoing commercial negotiations. In this scenario, the arbitrator can order the incumbent carrier to allow equipment on the tower, while the arbitrator makes his final decision.The rules also require the arbitrator to look at objective market metrics as opposed to vague concepts such as market forces, which was proposed in the original framework. The final rules point to terms such as market information and relevant economic data, which are much more objective.Communications consultant Mark Goldberg, of Mark H. Goldberg & Associates, says the arbitration regime is pretty balanced in not favouring incumbents over new entrants. "I don't think there's anything inherently imbalanced with the regime that's here. If anything, what it does is it attempts to simplify, which probably accelerates the time for a decision," he told RoW. "It seems to me that what does is it forces the both sides towards a fair offer faster."Not all was rosy for the new entrants as could be expected. Lacavera was disappointed that nearly all cases will end up in arbitration, lengthening the overall time that it will take to finalize agreements. This was something he didn't expect."We expect the arbitration to be the de facto outcome in a lot scenarios and we would have liked perhaps a more rapid progression towards arbitration," he said. "Obviously we want things to happen as fast as possible. Of course, the incumbents want things to take as long as possible."The Globalive chief executive acknowledged the incumbents' concerns that tower sharing or roaming might affect their operations and that 20 million wireless subscribers could experience outages if things are done properly. "They have legitimate concerns," Lacavera said. "Do I think their concerns have been overblown? No question about it, but that's the nature of the game."As a whole, new entrants contacted by RoW say they are satisfied with the tower and roaming conditions of licence as well as the arbitration rules. They appear to balance the interests of both new entrants and incumbent wireless carriers.

New entrants generally pleased with new rules for tower sharing and roaming

News | 12/04/2008 8:34 pm EST

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