Wirelessnorth.ca

Quebecor is out of Toronto. After showing some spark in Ontario, Quebecor has made a surprising move. They’ve withdrawn a 97Million dollar bid on their 10MHz D-block over Toronto. It seems their feint against Telus yesterday was to see if they could hold a block in E for the same price. But it seems the price was too rich. At wirelessnorth.ca we are somewhat disappointed by Quebecor’s apparent retreat. Of all the new entrants, they have been the most vocal about becoming a disruptive influence on the industry especially with regard to open networks and open data. Perhaps only our friends now in Quebec will get to find out what that promise means.

With Shaw and Quebecor now sticking to their regional corners, it looks like Globalive and Data AV are the last in the race for stitching together a new National network. Globalive is by far the stronger, currently holding 511M worth in standing high bids, and Data AV 210M.

No one has yet stepped up to take over Quebecor’s withdrawn bid on Toronto. And if no one does soon they may not have the eligibility points (or the cash left at this stage) to do so and, paradoxically, a slice of the most valuable per-capita spectrum in Canada could go vacant.

UPDATE: huzzah, Round 41 and Quebecor is back in the running for the full 96M of licence number 37 of D block covering 10MHz Toronto. It’s not a huge width of spectrum, but good to see a third new entrant remaining a player in Canada’s most populous city. No word yet on what they were thinking. Why withdraw in round 37 and leave it fallow for 4 rounds before reentering? A funny gambit that is. With that re-infusion auction proceeds now approaching 3.4B.