We’ve already told you that Verizon won’t be entering Canadian market and now that’s pretty much confirmed, with no U.S. carrier taking part in the country’s 700Mhz spectrum auction.
Jeff Fan, Scotia Capital analyst, reported that “We have received confirmation from Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile USA that they did not submit applications for the Canadian 700 MHz auction. We believe the absence of a large U.S. operator removes a threat for the Canadian wireless carriers… Although there is still speculation about other large global operators being involved, we do not believe they would have the same impact on Canada as the U.S. carriers.”
So the Big 3 Canadian carriers are safe for now. Until some other network explores the legal loophole in legislation and grabs spectrum (and a smaller telco) for next to nothing. However, I don’t see that happening; Canada’s 35 million people are well served with existing carriers and it’s hard to imagine some big operator network exploring business opportunities up in the North when it can grow like crazy in parts of Africa and Asia…
[Via: MobileSyrup]