After nine rounds of bidding, Industry Canada’s auction of 62 individual personal communications services licenses covering 16 markets across Canada garnered $142.3 million in total high bids.
Seven companies qualified for the bidding, including the country’s four incumbent operators, Bell Mobility Inc., Rogers Wireless Inc., Telus Communications Inc. and Microcell Telecommunications Inc. The remaining bidders include Nova Scotia Ltd., a partnership with Sprint Corp., Thunder Bay Telephone, owned by the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario, and W2N Inc.
Bell Mobility, a division of BCE Inc., led all bidders with 13 high bids totaling $43.1 million. Rogers Wireless had high bids totaling $30.8 million on 14 markets, with Nova Scotia Ltd. controlling high bids totaling $30.1 million on 3 markets. Nova Scotia will need to find a Canadian-based partner before the government will turn over any licenses won by the company.
Telus Communications Inc., had high bids totaling $29.3 million on 5 markets.
The biggest surprise of the auction was Microcell Telecommunications, pulling out of the bidding after seven rounds. Microcell was expected to be an aggressive bidder in the auction.
Of the remaining two bidders, W2N had high bids totaling $8.6 million on 4 licenses, with Thunder Bay claiming a high bid of $396,343 for one license. Thunder Bay placed deposits prior to the auction on licenses in northern Ontario only.
Analysts predicted the auction could raise as much as $2.3 billion for the Canadian government, and expect the bidding to last as long as six weeks.
