Backgrounder—Facts About Competition: More Choice, Lower Prices

The Government has introduced new policies to create more competition in our wireless telecommunications industry to provide Canadians with more choice at lower prices.

Through these rules and consumer-first policies, the Government has already delivered for Canadians: the average price of wireless services has decreased by nearly 20 percent and jobs in the wireless industry have increased by 25%.

Before 2008, Canada's largest wireless companies held 99 percent of wireless airwaves (frequencies) available for mobile services and a similar level of the market share. In the last auction of these frequencies in 2008, the Government set aside a portion of the airwaves for new competitors. New competitors have since emerged, providing new choices for consumers.

Currently, the major companies still hold more than 85 percent of Canada's wireless airwaves and have a 90-percent share of the market. In 2012 and 2013, the Government took action to further promote competition in Canada's wireless market and to facilitate the delivery of cutting-edge technologies to all Canadian families at affordable prices. These were as follows:

• Lifting foreign investment restrictions for companies holding less than a 10-percent share of the total Canadian telecommunications market. This change will promote competition by improving access to capital.
• Applying caps in the next two wireless auctions that limit the amount of additional wireless airwaves companies can acquire in order to enable both new wireless competitors and the major carriers to have access.
• Introducing specific measures in the 700 MHz spectrum auction to promote the timely delivery of advanced services to Canadians, including those in rural areas.
• Improving and extending roaming and tower sharing policies to promote competition and to slow the proliferation of new cell phone towers.
• Clarifying the review criteria for licence transfers of Canada's wireless airwaves.

The Government's policies were not created overnight. They are the result of open public consultations that started with a broad range of stakeholders: industry, consumer groups and everyday Canadians.

Many governments are supporting competition in mobile telecommunications services through auction rules and other requirements. U.S. regulators have taken action to limit how much of the wireless airwave top companies can hold, and also to protect competition. France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. have adopted caps on control of new airwaves, which limit how much a company can acquire.