I'm a big believer that in order to provide Canadians with effective, modern, advanced telecommunications services, 5G has to get rolled out in Canada. Canada is a little behind some of the other major economies on this. One of the big barriers to that is scarcity of what's called mid-band spectrum.
Telesat was a very active participant south of the border at the FCC, where the FCC repurposed about three bits of the mid-band spectrum that the satellite operators use, has repurposed it for 5G. Now we all use that spectrum today for satellites. The FCC provided $18 billion to the satellite operators to clear that spectrum and build new facilities and preserve all of those existing important services.
Our two biggest competitors, already four times bigger than we are, are splitting that $18 billion.
Canada, ISED, just started a consultation on this. Telesat came forward proactively and proposed to accelerate the clearing of mid-band spectrum because the wireless carriers need it, but we're using all that spectrum today for rural broadband and broadcast services and public safety. We propose that we be allowed to repurpose some of the spectrum, make it available quickly to the wireless operators, take the proceeds, build LEO and then get the rest of the spectrum back to the government so that they can auction it and send the cheque to the treasury.
We need them to do this. We need it to finance our LEO. At a minimum we need it so that we can maintain a level playing field with our great big international competitors that have cleared the exact same spectrum south of the border and are getting $18 billion that they're investing in ways that are competitive and threatening to us.
Thank you for the question.