3800MHz band

The Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development has laid down the rules for the 3800MHz spectrum auction set to take place next year.

According to a press release announcing the requirements, the rules include measures that will lead to competition and deploy services faster.

The government will impose large carriers providing services nationally to a 100MHz cap on the combined 3500MHz and 3800MHz spectrum they can obtain. They’ll also reserve 150MHz across the two spectrum bands for smaller carriers. The government will also subject service providers to deploy the spectrum in a timely fashion, or they might risk losing it.

The complete list of rules is available on the government’s website.

“Today’s announcement of the new rules for the 3800MHz spectrum auction is an important step in our ongoing efforts to ensure Canadians have access to affordable and high-quality services from coast to coast to coast,” Minister François-Philippe Champagne said.

The government announced in 2021 that it would repurpose the spectrum to support 5G devices, following the auction of the 3500MHz spectrum last summer.

Rogers, Bell, Telus, and Vidéotron spent a collective $7 billion at the last auction. The Big Three rolled out access to the 3500MHz spectrum earlier this month.

Image credit: Minister Champagne/ Twitter

Source: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

The federal government has received 62 separate documents from more than 50 groups sharing opinions on the 3800MHz band spectrum.

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) opened the topic for comments in December and was looking for input on three pro-competitive measure options.

The first is a 50MHz set-aside, which means only some service providers will be allowed to bid on that part of the spectrum. It won’t be available to national mobile service providers (NMSPs) — those who possess at least 10 percent of the national wireless subscriber market share.

The second measure is a 100MHz cross-band cap applying to both the 3500MHz and 3800MHz bands. The third measure is a combination of the previous two options.

According to documents filed with the ISED, Telus is against the first option, favouring the 100MHz cross-band cap instead. The company says there’s “a disparity in NMSPs holdings that drives the need for a cross-band cap to facilitate post-auction competition and support investment.”

In a stance against Telus, Rogers says the 100Mhz option “should not be adopted under any circumstances, as it could destroy facilities-based competition between the two national networks” as Bell and Telus will pool their winning spectrums together “into their joint radio access network.”

“There is no justification why the Bell-Telus joint network (which combined only has about half again as many customers as Rogers) should effectively be gifted with the opportunity to assemble and benefit from 200MHz of mid-band spectrum while the Rogers and other networks are limited to 100MHz.”

Bell is against all three options. The company says the pro-competitive measures have “proven that they distort the auction process to the significant benefit of set-aside spectrum recipients and the detriment of Canadian taxpayers.”

Anyone wishing to respond to any of the comments has until March 21st to reply.

Source: Cartt