Industry Canada has published the list of provisionally qualified bidders for the country’s upcoming 700MHz 4G mobile licence auction scheduled for January 2014. However, a deadline for receipt of the remaining 95% of pre-auction financial deposits is on 29 October, and the publication of the final list of qualified bidders will be on 8 November. Auction bidding opens on 14 January.
TeleGeography notes the provisionally qualified 14 are: Rogers, Telus and Bell Mobility (the three nationwide mobile incumbents); provincial operators MTS and SaskTel; cablecos (with regional mobile divisions) Videotron and Eastlink (registered as Bragg Communications); cellco Wind Mobile (registered as Globalive Wireless Management Corp); TBayTel (a local full-service telecoms operator in Thunder Bay, Ontario); Novus Wireless (an associate of British Columbian fibre triple-play operator Novus Entertainment); communications equipment vendor Vecima Networks (parent of Saskatchewan fixed-wireless internet provider YourLink); 1770129 Alberta Inc (owner of Corridor Communication, a minority shareholder in Albertan rural internet provider Forty Mile Gas Co-op under the CCI Wireless brand); Feenix Wireless (100%-owned by Mobilicity’s chairman John Bitove, whose Obelysk investment firm owns a majority voting share and minority equity share in the financially stricken cellco); and private equity firm Catalyst Capital Group (owner of roughly 30% of Mobilicity’s senior secured debt).