Ottawa opens up wireless industry to more competition

[Mr. Analog]

The Conservative government on Wednesday paved the way for new cellphone companies by announcing new rules for an auction of radio airwaves designed to spur competition in the wireless industry.

About 40 per cent of the spectrum will be reserved for new entrants, with the remainder open to all bidders, including Canada's big three providers ? Rogers, Bell and Telus.

The government will also mandate roaming agreements, which will force existing carriers to share their networks with newcomers for five years, plus another five if the new entrants can build up their own networks nationally. If a new carrier is unable to reach a "reasonable" roaming agreement with an existing provider, an outside arbitrator will be brought in, Industry Canada said.

The government is also forcing existing carriers to rent space on their cellphone towers to newcomers, again at "reasonable" rates, or risk having an arbitrator come in.

Article.

[Tom]

I think they should just mandate what Verizon in the states is doing with its new open access plan.  At least I hope they have actually reasonable rates for it, instead of what an incumbent will consider "reasonable" for "any device, any app, any data" type access.