Electronic Spectrum Case Analysis

This report is meant to advise Mr. Van Hanebanker and his partners on my recommendation in regards to investing in Wind Mobile. A decision must be made regarding this investment before the spectrum auction in April. This spectrum auction is crucial to Wind Mobile growing in the wireless industry in Canada. The wireless industry in Canada presents a unique opportunity for investment due to the oligopolistic structure and market breakdown. Currently, there are three major players in the industry and there is extensive room for growth and development as an industry and for Wind Mobile itself to gain significant market share. Some of the factors I will consider over the course of this analysis and recommendation include: the wireless communication industry in Canada, growth and competition in the industry and growth of Wind Mobile, and Canada’s current economic state. Within these brackets, assessments of the average revenue per user, the growth in subscribers and other indicators of Wind’s performance will be analyzed. They will be compared to industry standards and may demonstrate how Wind compares with the “Big 3” firms, who benefit from aspects such as economies of scale. I believe my assessment will give Mr. Van Hanebanker a good overall idea of the pros and cons, and considerations he and his colleagues need to consider when making their final decision.

The Canadian cellular service’s industry is comprised of approximately 15 cellular providers. These operators employ approximately 16,000 individuals and generate more than CAN$10B in revenues annually, which represents almost 30 percent of the Canadian telecommunications market. The Canadian wireless industry has been experiencing an annual growth rate three times that of any other Canadian telecommunications sector. This is very significant as Canada is in the top 10% in the world for broadband penetration.

One month has to look at competition since the early 1990’s, especially since the act 1996 act. The most effective competition has come from technology evolution that enabled multiple platforms with different product-characteristics and economics to compete. They, in turn, then forced each other into cycles of further innovation. When the telecommunications act of 1996 has passed, there were hints of incipient competition in both the long-distance and video-distribution markets as a result of new technology. Local telephony was still essentially a monopoly. Although wireless was thriving, it was seen primarily as a purely mobile service.”

The Federal Communication Commission or FCC was created by the Communications Act of 1934. The Federal Communication Commission is responsible for regulating interstate and international communication through modes of communication like radio, television, and satellite. Although the Federal Communication Commission does have some negative consequences the positive implications that resulted because of the creation of the FCC outweigh them.

The FCC has been monitoring large radio stations throughout the country for a long time now. This organization is a seven part group which is all run by Frank R. McNinch, who used to be the chief of the Federal Power Commission (Rockwell 217). This organization is primarily a licensing and monitoring assembly, which has technical regulatory powers. The licenses they give out are only valid for a period of time, and then must be renewed. These licenses decide the power and coverage the station has to broadcast on (Rockwell 218). These guidelines are very strictly enforced by the FCC because of how the public has reacted to some of the situations that have occurred. The FCC has also created criteria which has a “public mandate” that they are instituting into

Unfixed, data caps made by Mobile Phone Providers in the form of surcharges and roaming fees that occur either when zero data remaining on a service plan or outside of the network (i.e., traveling across- border), is up for debate. The effect of roaming for the end-user is slowed or dropped calls and high penalty fees. Those roaming fees initiated the European Commissioner to “Telecom Single Package” Regulation that was amended to become a policy that defined the difference between roaming charges and domestic tariffs should reach zero rates were guidelines amended Regulation No 531/2012 to add Article 6 (a). Mobile telecommunications operators and government official co-regulated this policy to make the wholesale charges

In the early days, the radio industry was in chaos due to poor regulations and uncontrolled rapid growth. The Radio Act of 1912 was an unsuccessful attempt at regulation because it didn’t allow the government to deny radio broadcasting licenses [1]. In fact, the law did not even mention radio broadcasting since radio was not common when the law was made. Even though the law required that radio operators to be licensed, it did not allow the denial of radio licenses. Over the span of 21

“The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was created when Congress passed the Communications Act in 1934 which abolished the Federal Radio Commission and transferred jurisdiction of radio licensing to the Federal Communications Commission. This also included the telecommunications jurisdiction which was previously handled by the Interstate Commerce Commission. The

President Bill Clinton created the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to promote fair competition in the United States telecommunications market. President Clinton’s goal was to establish an open market so that any business can compete in the telecommunications field. Since the creation of the Telecommunications Act, there has been a bevy of radio and television mergers. One can safely say that with all the recent mergers, some companies have become monopolies in their respective fields. The Telecommunications Act primary focus is to help businesses compete against other businesses so that the consumer can reap the benefits of lower prices for services, a wider selection of services from different companies, more jobs, and a better

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent Federal regulatory agency authorized by Congress by the Communications Act of 1934 as the replacement to the Federal Radio Commission and is charged with regulating all non-Federal Government use of the radio spectrum including radio and television broadcasting and interstate telecommunications wire, satellite and cable as well as international communications that originate or terminate in the United States. The FCC took over wire communication regulation from the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1934 and congress had not changed the FCC’s regulatory authority until congress passed the Telecommunication Act of 1996.

In order to understand why Federal Communication Commission has legal authority to regulate media ownership and should be allowed to continue to regulate media ownership, you must first know the statues that gave way to the regulation. The FCC was created by the Communications Act of 1934. The Communications Act of 1934 replaced the Radio Act of 1927, and the FCC superseded the FRC (Federal Radio Commission). This act “called for the government to regulate in the public interest and foreign communications by radio and wire.” The FCC can be traced back to the Wireless Ship Act of 1910. The Wireless Ship Act of 1910 “required large ships to have wireless equipment and radio operators on board…made it illegal not to retransmit or answer wireless transmissions from ships.” This law was the first U.S. regulation on devices that used electromagnetic spectrum. The Chain Broadcasting Rules, was the first national ownership limit passed by the FCC in 1941. These rules regulated major national radio networks, in relation to local stations. “These regulations also included a structural ownership rule limiting a radio network from owning more than one broadcast station within a market area, reflecting the Commission’s earlier presumption that a single entity holding more than one broadcast license in the same community contravened the public interest.” This idea was upheld in the Supreme Court

The telecommunications coverage in rural and regional areas in Australia has monopolistic characteristics. Telstra has a competitive advantage over Optus with 99.3% coverage of the population compared to Optus with a 98.5%, this is equivalent to an estimated 192,000 more potential customers. Although Telstra has this competitive advantage they claim that the revenue received from their rural base stations does not cover the cost of development and maintenance.3.

I. BACKGROUND: CelluComm and GMCT and the Industry AT&T’s Bell Laboratories cellular telephone networking innovation had enabled several cellular network operators to get licenses from the FCC to operate in separate license territories right about the same time AT&T was broken up in early 1980s. These operators were either companies like Cellular Communication Services, Inc. (CelluComm) or small entrepreneurs who had won license territories through the lottery system. CelluComm’s  president  and  founder  Ric  Jenkins  was  known  for  being  an  aggressive businessman  who  had  extended  it  to  a  200  million  dollar  enterprise  ranking  in  the  top  20  of  the industry.  Key  to

This market allows organization a free long term ability to adjust their good services and prices with the changes in the market conditions. Thus AT&T should take advantage of the freedom in this market structure and ensure that their supply and prices are correlated to their demands.

In practice, one major problem that occurs with the Standard English Auction is the present of inadequate reserve prices. Many of the adversities in the English auction were due to auctioneer’s failure to produce a realistic reserve price – (the minimum price below which no bids are accepted). For example, the devastating revenue involvement of the New Zealand’s spectrum auction was caused by the government’s failure to set suitable reserve prices in