The ongoing saga involving wireless carrier giants Rogers and Bell and upstart Sugar Mobile has been going back and forth since the latter came on to the scene last year. Back in February, Sugar filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission against Rogers, hoping to force Rogers to continue to allow it to use its network. Sugar Mobile is so-called mobile network virtual operator (MNVO), meaning it doesn’t operate its own cell towers; instead, any phone on Sugar hops on Rogers’ network when on WiFi.
Since that complaint was filed, Rogers and Bell have both pushed back, saying neither has a roaming agreement with Sugar Mobile.
What makes the situation complicated is that Bell and Rogers do have agreements with Sugar’s sister company, Ice Wireless, which operates a network in Northern Canada that the big three carriers use for roaming in those territories.
Rogers has filed a 34 page report to the CRTC this week, alleging these breaches of contract by Ice Wireless, claiming that the company isn’t actually a true MVNO, and primarily uses WiFi for network connectivity.
Ice Wireless has apparently been using Rogers and Bell’s network infrastructure to connect Sugar Mobile’s users to the Internet. Given that the CRTC has already ruled that carriers are not required to allow network access to MVNOs, Sugar Mobile’s days in the wireless space may be numbered.
[source]iPhone in Canada[/source]
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