Rogers, Bragg extend Canadian auction

Actually, it seems that Rogers move was rather benign. They simply withdrew one of their high bids in New Brunswick, and placed it on a license in the A block. Simple, to the point, and, it seems, unchallenged. So everyone would have been ready to move on, except… Yeah, Bragg Communications didn’t play so nicely. They wanted a different license in New Brunswick — Rogers’ vacated spectrum is deemed unusable. Problem was, it was held by Bell Mobility. So after Bragg upped the bid, Bell shot back. They still have the license; they’re just out an additional $700,000. That wasn’t all, though. Bragg, realizing that they weren’t going to get the license in New Brunswick without vastly overpaying, upped a bid in Windsor/Leamington. Of course, Bragg had little to no use for the spectrum. Some analysts called it “spiteful bidding,” and those analysts probably aren’t wrong. That one cost Bell another $500,000. So, on the day the auction was supposed to end, Bragg Communications upped Bell’s stake by $1.2 million. It doesn’t seem likely that Bragg will be receiving any Christmas cards from Bell this year.]]>