Wind Mobile Corp., which is locked in an uphill battle to make inroads against Canada’s telecom giants, won three key licences for more wireless spectrum in the government’s latest auction.

“It’s a great day for Wind and Wind’s customers,” said CEO Anthony Lacavera in an interview.

He confesses he was holding his breath when the results were announced at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, and was pleased to come out on top.

In addition, Wind paid much less than analysts expected after smaller rival Mobilicity, which is operating under CCAA court protection, pulled out. Mobilicity declined to comment.

Wind paid the reserve price of $56.4 million for three licences in southern Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.

“It was obviously a good outcome,” said Lacavera.

The AWS-3 spectrum covers invisible radio waves that carry signals for Internet and mobile communications — whether it’s a smartphone or tablet — and companies are keen to get more access so they can offer faster speeds and more coverage.

The federal government will collect $2.11 billion in this auction, much less than last year’s 700-megahertz auction, which generated $5.27 billion.

Next month, the government is holding another spectrum auction, this time for licences that cover mostly rural areas.

“Spectrum is the foundation or the real estate of our business,” said Lacavera. “Getting the spectrum allows us to build — it’s acquiring the land to expand your capacity and your network.”

Wind is focused on expansion that will take place down the road, but Lacavera said customers should see better reception and improved speed as soon as next month when the licences take effect.

While the company will have to spend even more on equipment, as well as pay for the licences, he is promising to keep current prices on existing plans.

“There is no change in the Wind pricing as a result of this investment,” he said, adding the company is hoping to boost its customer base from the current 800,000 users.

As part of Ottawa’s continued push for more competition in the wireless market, it set aside 60 per cent of the spectrum available in this week’s auction for newer entrants, while the remainder was open to bigger companies.

Among the established telecoms, Telus came out the big winner, paying $1.51 billion for 15 licences across Canada including in southern Ontario.

Bell paid almost $500 million for 13 licences that include the Toronto area.

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The country’s largest wireless carrier, Rogers, was shut out on Friday, but at last year’s 700-megahertz auction, it paid $3.29 billion for 22 licences across the country.

“We won the beachfront property we wanted last year,” said Rogers spokeswoman Patricia Trott in an email.

“Some AWS-3 spectrum would have been nice to have when it’s usable in a few years,” she said. “But we’re comfortable we can continue to meet our customers’ need for speed and capacity now and in the future.”

Rogers’ wireless business has struggled of late compared to rivals Bell and Telus, losing 58,000 postpaid customers in its fourth quarter of 2014. It said it is focused on adding the most valuable customers rather than total subscribers.

Halifax’s Bragg Communications Inc., which operates Eastlink in Atlantic Canada and northern Ontario, and Quebecor’s Videotron, which operates in Quebec and eastern Ontario, each took four.

Federal Industry Minister James Moore, who announced the auction results at a news conference in Toronto, defended Ottawa’s decision to restrict bidding on 60 per cent of the spectrum to smaller new companies.

He said the auction’s goal wasn’t just to raise revenues, but also to make policy choices that would impact consumers in the long term.

“If the goal of the government was simply to raise revenue for Ottawa, you could take all the spectrum and lasso it together into one national block and auction it off to the highest bidder, and perhaps loosen foreign-ownership rules,” Moore said.

“That would draw in the most money for the government to be sure, but the goal isn’t just to release spectrum,” Moore said, adding the key was to ensure choice and competition for consumers.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Dvai Ghose wrote in a note to investors that while Wind “has won a lot of spectrum at a bargain basement price, it is not clear who will finance its network upgrades and operating losses,” which Ghose estimates at about $1.5 billion if financing is required.

He also notes that as Mobilicity’s future is increasingly unclear, regulators may eventually allow it to be sold to an incumbent, though Moore seemed to dismiss such a suggestion at the news conference.

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