Wind Mobile has filed a complaint against Rogers Communications with Canada’s Competition Bureau, alleging advertising for the wireless giant’s flanker brand contains numerous falsehoods designed to exploit a regulatory loophole and paint them as unreliable.

“It is the most blatant example of abuse of market dominance that I think could ever be imagined,” said Wind chairman Anthony Lacavera following a speech to the Toronto Board of Trade at First Canadian Place on Thursday afternoon.

The complaint stems from claims in Chatr advertising that the new offering offers consumers fewer dropped calls and a more reliable network than new entrants, which includes Wind, Mobilicity and Public Mobile.

Lacavera dropped call claim as “ludicrous” noting that in other countries when a customer moves from one carrier network to another there is a seamless transition. In Canada if a customer moves from an entrant’s designated area to roam on an incumbent network the call is immediately dropped, he said.

“How can we have a competitive market when an incumbent with that kind of market dominance and market power takes a regulatory loophole, capitalizes on it and uses it as a marketing advantage?”

The claim was launched a few weeks ago and the bureau is now investigating the claims in Chatr’s advertising, said Lacavera.

Wind is the second new entrant to file a complaint to the competition bureau. END

In early September Mobilicity filed a complaint, maintaining that Chatr’s low cost unlimited talk and text plans were created to drive them from the market.

Lacavera stressed that he welcomes the competition on pricing and offerings, this complaint is strictly about the misleading marketing and the fact there is no technical basis for Chatr’s claim.

When Chatr first arrived in July Lacavera and chief executive officer Ken Campbell spent the day selling $1 hot dogs in a highly publicized event designed the flaunt their fearlessness in the face of increased competition.

Mobilicity almost immediately cried foul, maintaining that Chatr too closely resembles the low-cost, urban-focused offerings from new entrants and Rogers is violating a section of the Competition Act that prohibits the introduction of temporary offerings designed to reduce or lessen competition.

Lacavera said when it comes to network reliability or superiority the only accurate comparison of Wind to Chatr could be made by comparing network infrastructure.

Wind’s network is capable of evolving to handle 4G networks – to meet growing customer demand for multimedia messaging — and by comparison Chatr is run on Rogers’ 2G network.

Incumbent networks are “built on patched together, aged legacy systems intermittently integrated with newer technologies, and are simply not designed to accommodate the rapid pace of technological growth,” said Lacavera, during the speech.

During the presentation Lacavera also called for decreased restrictions on foreign investment in Canadian wireless companies and increased regulation surrounding areas he said stifle competition, specifically acquisition and control of spectrum, tower sharing and roaming agreements. Incumbents essentially squat on large unused spectrum holdings and new entrants should have access to spectrum in upcoming auctions, he said.

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There should be incentives for tower sharing – or at least disincentives for not sharing – and roaming agreements between entrants and incumbents should ensure customers don’t experience dropped calls while roaming, he said.

Lacavera also said Canadians should be “concerned about the concentration of ownership of legacy media assets in Canada,” noting Rogers’ purchase of CityTV properties, Shaw’s acquisition of the old CanWest media properties, and Bell’s recent move to purchase the TV assets of CTV/GlobeMedia.