Here is some good news from Canada:

“Ottawa announced it will hold an auction of the wireless spectrum in May 2008, which could mean more competition and lower cellphone rates for Canadians next year.

“Industry Minister Jim Prentice told a press conference in Toronto on Wednesday that about 105 megahertz of spectrum will be sold to bidders. Forty megahertz will be set aside for newcomers to the industry.

“’The introduction of new service providers will help to make Canada’s wireless market more dynamic, more competitive, and more innovative so as to meet the needs of Canadians,’ Prentice said.”

If that is not good news, then I certainly do not know what it is. The report mentioned a few reasons why the Canadian government set aside the 40MHz for the mobile service newbies. The biggest reason is that there are fewer Canadians than Americans who avail of mobile phone services and other wireless services because they have to shell out more cash every month to keep enjoying those services.

Of course, this move by the Canadian government had an unpleasant side effect – the bigwigs of the Canadian wireless networks crying foul for this so-called display of the government’s preferential treatment. One of them is none other than Telus.

To quote Janet Yale, Telus’ executive vice president:

“We thought this was a government that believed in market forces, that believed in not trying to create special concessions to help new entrants, and at the end of the day we believe this is not the best interest of consumers or telecom industry overall.”

Yeah, right. I am no economics major and I certainly do not know exactly how market forces work, but I sure know that the more players there are in the market, the better the pickings will be for us consumers.