Toronto Star: Petition pushes for competition as mobile phone behemoths seek to gobble wireless spectrum

Image from alumroot on Flickr

By Morgan Campbell for the Toronto Star

A grassroots organization is planning the biggest online petition in Canadian history, hoping to encourage the one thing they think can keep cellphone charges in check.

Competition among mobile phone providers.

When a new swathe of ultra-high frequency (UHF) spectrum goes up for auction later this year, it seems inevitable that Canada’s three mobile phone behemoths – Rogers, Bell and Telus – will gobble up most of it.

And that is exactly the problem, says a British Columbia-based Internet advocacy non-profit intent on making the bandwidth auction more accessible to smaller mobile providers.

So OpenMedia.ca is organizing what it hopes will become the largest online petition in Canadian history, collecting more 40,000 signatures since last Wednesday, trusting widespread grassroots support will persuade Industry Minister Christian Paradis to set aside a portion of the new spectrum for bids by smaller mobile companies.

Otherwise, say organizers “Stop the Cell Phone Squeeze” campaign, the “big three” providers will take over the radio real estate and consumers will suffer.

“We’ve been hearing from our supporters about rising cell phone prices and disrespectful customer service,” says OpenMedia.ca spokesperson Lindsey Pinto. “Canadians are clearly very upset about this and hopefully politicians will take notice.”

Auctioning the 700 MHz frequency has been a sensitive topic for North American cellphone users since 2007, when the auction process first began in the US. The frequency was once used to broadcast terrestrial TV channels but became available as TV broadcasters switched to digital signals. Taking it over allows mobile phone providers to reach remote areas and feed customers ever-growing demand for data.

Paradis is expected to decide on the auction’s rules when Parliament resumes on Jan. 30, and the process is scheduled to wrap up by the end of the year. Read more »

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