Published reports out of Canada suggest that Verizon Communications is shopping for an entry into the country’s wireless market, which the Canadian government has vowed to make more competitive.
Canada’s The Globe and Mail reported today that Verizon is looking at investing in either Wind Mobile or Mobilicity, two struggling Canadian operators that have seemingly run out of funds in trying to compete with the country’s three dominate wireless carriers Rogers, Telus Mobility and Bell Canada.
Wind just last year won court approval for its current ownership structure that was dominated by Egyptian-based Orascom Telecommunications, which had previously violated government regulations preventing majority foreign ownership of telecommunication providers. Orascom has since sold the operations to Amsterdam-based Vimpelcom.
The Canadian report indicated that Vimpelcom has since put the operations up for sale with a $500 million price tag.
Mobilicity recently had its attempt to be acquired by Telus squashed by Canadian regulators that said they did not want to see more spectrum fall into the hands of incumbent operators.
That decision making came after Shaw Communications sold off its 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum holdings earlier this year to Rogers Communications. Shaw had originally picked up 18 wireless spectrum licenses covering parts of western Canada and Ontario during Canada’s 2008 spectrum auction for $190 million. Those licenses included 20 megahertz of spectrum per license. Shaw had initially said it planned to launch a HSPA+ network in early 2011, before pushing back those efforts until 2012 with the idea of using LTE technology. Citing competitive concerns, Shaw in late 2011 ditched its cellular efforts all together in favor of plans to rollout wireless data services using Wi-Fi technology running across unlicensed spectrum.
For Verizon, getting into the Canadian market in the near term could be a good play as the Canadian government has set up rules for the recently delayed auction of 700 MHz licenses in order to attract new entrants. That spectrum band could work well in Canada’s population-challenged regions and Verizon would be able to garner additional scale as it uses that band for the bulk of its current LTE deployment in the United States.
Verizon itself is also trying to consolidate its U.S.-based operations, which are currently co-owned with Vodafone Group. Reports have repeatedly surfaced that Verizon is looking to acquire the 45% stake in Verizon Wireless it does not own from Vodafone for in excess of $100 billion.
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