[PhotoJim]

Here is the brief synopsis:

- the incumbents bought lots of new spectrum
- we are going to have one new national carrier likely: Yak. It bought spectrum everywhere in Canada except southern Quebec. Quebecor bought huge amounts of spectrum throughout Quebec and none outside. A joint venture, a favourable roaming agreement or a merger of these two carriers is highly likely. With each other, they could have great coverage nationwide.
- there are some regional players: Shaw Communications, Data and Audio-Visual, Eastlink (an Atlantic Canada cable operation), etc. Canada is ready for some regional carriers; some favourable roaming agreements could do wonders here.

All these carriers will be using 1700 MHz spectrum. There are few phones that currently support it, unfortunately. There will be more.

The incumbent CDMA carriers are of interest. No one knows what technology they will deploy. There are strong rumours that they are going to shift to UMTS/HSPA or LTE.

Rogers, the existing GSM provider, will deploy UMTS/HSPA almost certainly. It is widely believed that all the new carriers will do the same.

It's expected that the new carriers could be on the air as soon as Easter 2009.