Ottawa has rejected another attempt by Telus to buy financially struggling wireless carrier Mobilicity.
Industry Minister James Moore says the transaction wasn’t approved for a second time. The federal government had killed a similar bid from Telus last June.
Telus declined to comment on its latest attempt to buy the Toronto-based Mobilicity. Mobilicity also wouldn’t comment if it had been in talks again with Telus.
Ottawa did not give reasons for the rejection, instead repeating that it won’t approve a sale that decreases competition in Canada’s wireless industry. A spokeswoman for Moore says the government will continue to enforce the moratorium on the transfer of spectrum – radio waves needed to operate cellphone networks – which was set aside specifically for new startup wireless companies in 2008.
Last week, Telus was given federal approval to buy small talk-and-text provider Public Mobile, which was not under any sale restrictions.
Mobilicity launched in 2010 and has about 215,000 no-contract cellphone customers operating in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.
