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The federal government has not been friendly to deals in the telecom sector lately, but Ottawa has actually approved an agreement for Telus Corp. to acquire startup mobile carrier Public Mobile.

If the deal receives final approval from the Competition Bureau, Telus will take on Toronto-based Public Mobile’s 280,000 customers and integrate them on to its network.

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However, in the same statement announcing Ottawa’s approval Wednesday afternoon, federal Industry Minister James Moore sent a strong signal that a similar deal for fellow startup Mobilicity will be a much tougher sell.

The minister made a clear distinction between the spectrum licences Public owns, which are in the G-block frequency, versus the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum owned by other new entrants to the mobile market.

Public, Mobilicity and Wind Mobile all purchased spectrum in the 2008 auction but the G-block spectrum, which was not considered as valuable as AWS airwaves, was not subject to rules barring its transfer to any of the country’s incumbent players for five years.