Industry Canada preparing to release multi-year spectrum plan

As the telecom sector gears up for a mobile spectrum auction in late 2012, Industry Canada is in the final stages of developing a multi-year plan to make further spectrum available in the long-run, department officials confirmed this week. “Growth in mobile services over the next 10 years is expected to have an impact on spectrum availability and the ability to meet mobile services demands in a timely fashion,” Industry Canada spokeswoman Stéfanie Power wrote in an email to The Wire Report. “To ensure Canada does not lag in the new mobile Internet economy, Industry Canada is developing a multi-year plan to make spectrum available.” The development of a multi-year plan began in earnest last July when the department tendered a contract to determine and compare spectrum demand and potential supply between 2011 and 2015. The first of those studies was released earlier this year, providing a snapshot of broadband spectrum usage across Canada between the 52 MHz and 38 GHz frequencies. A second study on expected spectrum demand will be released this fall, Power said. That will be followed this year by a multi-year plan about the release of available spectrum. “These reports will be the next steps towards ensuring that all services are provided with enough spectrum to meet their needs including, in particular, mobile broadband,” Power wrote. The multi-year plan is expected to please telecom insiders. They had been quietly pushing the department to adopt a long-term plan for spectrum release during the previous session of Parliament, Bernard Lord, president and CEO of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), said in an interview. Speaking on behalf of CWTA members, including new entrants like Wind Mobile and incumbents like Telus Communications Co. and Bell Canada—Lord said the industry typically agrees that a long-term plan would save them time and money and allow them to cater to emerging consumer demands more quickly. “All our members agree that there is a need for a plan for more spectrum, and a schedule for more spectrum,” Lord said. “All our members agree that we need this in order to enable our members to put up towers and put up antennas so they can use the spectrum that is being released.” Earlier this month, the CRTC granted the CBC the right to continue using some of its 700 MHz spectrum for one year beyond the Aug. 31 digital transition deadline, which had been set in advance of next year’s planned auctions. The transition from analog to digital television broadcasting, happening this month, will free up portions of the valuable 700 MHz band for mobile wireless services. The CRTC deemed an extension as necessary for the CBC when the broadcaster was unable to convert all of its analog transmitters to digital in mandatory transition markets by the deadline. The failure to meet the Aug. 31 deadline raised the possibility that millions of Canadians could lose access to the public broadcaster's over-the-air signals. In another email statement from Industry Canada, spokesman Michel Cimpaye said the extension for the CBC will “have no impact” on the timing of the 700 MHz auction. “Industry Canada will ensure that the 700 MHz spectrum is made available for next-generation wireless networks and services, including public safety applications,” he wrote. “The extension of analog TV transmissions will also respect Canada's commitments with the United States in its cross-border coordination agreements.” Several industry sources said in interviews that they expect the 700 MHz auction to go ahead in late 2012. The department has not yet announced whether that auction will be combined with the licensing of the 2500 MHz band. Still, industry insiders say the CBC extension is an example of why a long-term plan to auction off bands and blocks of spectrum would be beneficial. A long-term plan would give carriers a better understanding of when they might be asked to vacate spectrum blocks and when others may be available. It could also help reduce service providers’ delays in utilizing the spectrum once it is acquired, industry insiders say. “By the time you set the process going for an auction, it’s some months then before the auction takes place,” Bernard Courtois, outgoing president and CEO of the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), said in an interview. “Then the winners of the auction have to go through a whole process , so by the time you’ve installed facilities with the spectrum you’ve got, you’re talking quite a lag.” With an eye to accommodating increased mobile usage, other countries have started developing long-term plans for the release of mobile spectrum. In the U.S., for example, the 2010 release of the National Broadband Plan and the Broadband Action Agenda by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC0 set benchmarks for broadband spectrum usage over the next 10 years. The FCC has called for an additional 500 MHz of spectrum to be made available for mobile broadband in that time. The U.S. regulator has also undertaken a review of the incentives and mechanisms necessary to redistribute and repurpose unused or underutilized spectrum as well as any barriers that may prevent or delay the process. Industry Canada continues to face hurdles before it can move ahead with spectrum auctions, such as what role foreign-owned companies should play. Canada's broadcasting and telecom regulatory frameworks currently limit foreign investment at maximums of 20 per cent in the operating company and 33 per cent of the holding company. In June, the C.D. Howe Institute called on the government to relax those restrictions to spur greater competition, as did the government-appointed Competition Policy Review Panel in 2008. “One of the first steps is they have to decide what they’re going to allow on foreign ownership,” Wayne Stacey, a spectrum expert with Wayne A. Stacey & Associates in Ottawa, said in an interview. “If they’re going to change the rules about foreign ownership, you certainly want to do that before you start holding spectrum auctions. Otherwise, you’re unnecessarily limiting the scope of the bidders.” Stacey said that, for a long-term plan, the department should also consider the way new technologies can change spectrum requirements with little advance notice. New technologies can often be assumed to fit with a band range but later prove to be incompatible with the frequency, he said. In other cases, new technologies may spring up quickly and place unforeseen strains on spectrum. This was the case when the iPad first hit the Canadian market, Lord said, with each iPad consuming as much as 500 times more bandwidth than a traditional cellphone. As tablets increasingly use spectrum that is already strained under Canadians’ heavy use of smartphones, the need for more spectrum is expected to increase exponentially. nkyonka@thewirereport.ca

Industry Canada preparing to release multi-year spectrum plan

News | August 24, 2011

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