Canadian Cellphone market will be opened to more competition

Stella said:

While not iPhone related, this is great news for Canadian cell phone users. It does offer a glimpse of hope that any iPhone monthly contract won't be in the $hundreds.

This includes forcing the the 3 current carriers to share their network with competition for the next few years. Whoo hooo!

Additionally, hopefully this encourage the carriers to do away with the ( non regulatory ) system access fee.

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/280886
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/11/28/auction.html

Click to expand...

Two of the big three (Telus and Bell) already do share their networks quite extensively, both with each other and with virtual operators.

If I recall correctly, the last time the CRTC auctioned off new allocations of spectrum, they also set aside a certain percentage of it as off-limits to the "big three" and intended exclusively for introduction of new competitors. Within a few years, most of those new networks failed to become profitable and they usually ended up being acquired by the "big three". All this despite the regulator's attempts to create new competition.