The air is (not) free!!

When my girlfriend wants to be annoying she will wave her hands in front of my face and call out "the air is free, the air is free!".

In most countries though the air is most definitely not free, and Canada is the latest to be selling off portions of it.

Canada are opening up the airwaves at auction to smaller companies. 40% of the airwaves will be reserved for new bidders and the rest will be open to all. Existing mobile service providers will be forced to rent space to newcomers on their masts.

At first glance this may seem like a good thing, and in many ways it is. It encourages new businesses, thus helping the economy; fosters a spirit of healthy competition amongst the providers; ensures that none of them attains anything near the status of a monopoly and in the process means that prices, support and services will likely improve from the point of view of the customer.

"But I assume you think there is something wrong with it, otherwise why blog about it?" I hear you cry.

Well, it's nothing to do with any of the above, it is simply the fact that the powers that be think they have the right to auction off the air in the first place.

Do the people not get any say in this, after all there are many property owners in Canada, some of them with pretty decent sized properties. I'm not sure what the law is there but I'm pretty sure they own the airspace up to a certain height above the ground (or maybe sea-level). That's certainly the way it is in the UK.

OK, so you need planning permission if you're going to put up a monstrosity in your backyard, but equally your neighbour can't build a leaning tower bends over your fence and hangs across your garden.

So what gives the government any right to sell off this space. After all it's not like you can opt out of it.

Brits may remember the 22 billion pounds raised by the Spectrum auction in 2000, which really only served the bigger companies who could afford to pay through the nose.

If Canada really wants to level the playing field they'll give the frequencies away free to all-comers, be they big Telecoms companies or Fred Jones next door who wants to run a local pigeon-fanciers radio station.

But then that has no potential to generate massive profits ...