Thunder Bay's Tbaytel fails in bid to win new wireless frequencies

The federal government announced the results of its latest auction of wireless frequencies Friday and TBaytel, which is owned by the city of Thunder Bay, Ont. was not among the winners. The frequencies are the wireless infrastructure over which cellular networks transmit voice and data to customers.

• Rogers buys no new spectrum as AWS-3 wireless auction raises $2.1B

Industry Canada was auctioning available AWS-3 spectrum holdings, which support a number of applications, including voice and data services, but is not widely used by most mobile devices on the market now.

However, as manufacturers catch up to spectrum availability demand for AWS-3 is expected to grow, said Tbaytel spokesperson Katie Crowe.

"It's important to stress that while this is a nice to have, it's not a need to have to meet the needs of our service for the foreseeable future. This was really more about long range planning," she said.

There were 10 companies on a list of qualified bidders in the March auction. Telecom giant Rogers did not participate in the bidding.

Tbaytel entered a similar auction in 2014, but was not able to acquire any additional spectrum.