CRTC To Undertake Ownership Review Of A Cell Carrier….. Again

I guess they didn’t learn their lesson the first time around with Wind Mobile.

The CRTC in their infinite wisdom has decided to look at the ownership structure of Public Mobile. Who are Public Mobile? They are a new wireless company that hopes to bring a low cost wireless phone network offering $40 a month unlimited voice plans to Quebec and Ontario. Here’s the weird part, the major backer of this company is OMERS which is one of Canada’s largest pension plans. So there’s no logical reason why this should even come up as an issue. But the CRTC doesn’t see it that way:

At this time, and based on the information available, the Commission considers that the ownership structure of Public Mobile is of a complex nature and could hold precedential value for the industry and the general public. The Commission does not consider, however, that the evidentiary record would be improved by third-party submissions.

The CRTC really needs to get a clue here as it’s a safe bet that even if they find that Public Mobile doesn’t comply with their rules, the Canadian Government who are no fans of the CRTC will simply overturn it as they have made it clear that competition in the wireless market is a good thing. After all, they’ve done it once before so there’s no reason to believe that they won’t do it again.

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