You might remember that the Canadian Government was sued by Telus at the end of July over their wireless policy. Well, they’ve sued them again. The Financial Post has the details:
This action follows a similar case Telus launched in late July concerning the minister’s power to make unilateral changes to the policy around transfers of spectrum licences.
However, the latest legal maneuver from Telus relates to the upcoming auction for wireless spectrum and it is a direct challenge to the policy Canada’s big three carriers say could give a foreign player like Verizon a huge advantage over them.
“We are asking the court to determine whether it is lawful for the Industry Minister to single-handedly establish a new eligibility criterion for the issuance of spectrum licences – something he did when he determined that a ‘large wireless service provider,’ such as Telus, will not be issued a licence for more than one prime block of 700 MHz spectrum in the upcoming auction while other competitors are eligible for two prime blocks,” Ted Woodhead, Telus senior vice-president of government and regulatory affairs, said in an emailed statement Thursday.
The Government has ten days to respond, and that response should be interesting to see. Clearly the fact that Telus is third of the of the big three carriers in Canada has made it feel that it has to go this route to protect itself from Verizon. Something that is further highlighted by the absence of similar lawsuits from Bell and Rogers.
Keep an eye on this one as it will be interesting to watch.
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This entry was posted on August 30, 2013 at 7:42 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Lawsuit, Telus, wireless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Telus Sues The Feds Over Their Wireless Policy…. Again
You might remember that the Canadian Government was sued by Telus at the end of July over their wireless policy. Well, they’ve sued them again. The Financial Post has the details:
This action follows a similar case Telus launched in late July concerning the minister’s power to make unilateral changes to the policy around transfers of spectrum licences.
However, the latest legal maneuver from Telus relates to the upcoming auction for wireless spectrum and it is a direct challenge to the policy Canada’s big three carriers say could give a foreign player like Verizon a huge advantage over them.
“We are asking the court to determine whether it is lawful for the Industry Minister to single-handedly establish a new eligibility criterion for the issuance of spectrum licences – something he did when he determined that a ‘large wireless service provider,’ such as Telus, will not be issued a licence for more than one prime block of 700 MHz spectrum in the upcoming auction while other competitors are eligible for two prime blocks,” Ted Woodhead, Telus senior vice-president of government and regulatory affairs, said in an emailed statement Thursday.
The Government has ten days to respond, and that response should be interesting to see. Clearly the fact that Telus is third of the of the big three carriers in Canada has made it feel that it has to go this route to protect itself from Verizon. Something that is further highlighted by the absence of similar lawsuits from Bell and Rogers.
Keep an eye on this one as it will be interesting to watch.
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This entry was posted on August 30, 2013 at 7:42 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Lawsuit, Telus, wireless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.