Downloadable Files

NOTE: MapInfo Pro or another GIS software is required to open following zip files.

• Authorized Spectrum Licence Service Areas by type of service
• Competitive Licensing Service Areas
• Spectrum Grid map layers
• User Defined Service Areas
• Remote Rural Broadband Systems map layers (RRBS)
• Data formats supported

Authorized Spectrum Licence Service Areas

The following table contains geographic objects describing spectrum licences service areas awarded for Railway Association, communication systems in the 38GHz frequency band and Fixed Wireless Access systems (FWA) in the 3.4GHz frequency band. The files contain the following information for each service area: the service area name, the total number of households in the area, the area (in square kilometers), the licensee, the number of cells in the area and the province in which the service area is located. The Railway spectrum licence was awarded to the Railway Association of Canada, on April 1st, 2000. The remaining spectrum licences are awarded on a first-come first-served basis.

Table 1: Authorized Spectrum Licence Service Areas

Type of service	MapInfo native format	MapInfo import format	Last date updated
38GHz	spec38g (zip, 13.9KB)	spec38gmif (zip, 12.3KB)	2012.03.22
FWA in 3.4GHz band	specfwa34g (zip, 12.8KB)	specfwa34gmif (zip, 13.5KB)	2011.06.06
Railway	racacfc (zip, 34.6KB)	racacfcmif (zip, 39.7KB)	2002.06.14

 

Competitive Licensing Service Areas

The following table contains the lists of the provisional winners at the closing of the spectrum auctions. For further information, please visit the Spectrum Auctions site.

Table 2-1: Closed Spectrum Auctions Provisional Winners

Date	Closed Spectrum Auction	MapInfo native format	MapInfo import format
2008	AWS and other spectrum in the 2 GHz Range	a5 (zip, 1.14MB)	a5mif (zip, 1.70MB)
2005	Residual in 2300 and 3500 MHz Bands *	a4 (zip, 378KB) a4 combined (zip, 1.19MB) a4 incumbents (zip, 19.2KB)	a4mif (zip, 440KB) a4 combinedmif (zip, 1.12MB) a4 incumbentsmif (zip, 17KB)
2004/02	In 2300 and 3500 MHz Bands	a3 (zip, 1.01MB)	a3mif (zip, 1.01MB)
2001	Additional PCS in 2GHz	a2 (zip, 1.60MB)	a2mif (zip, 1.12MB)
1999	In 24 and 38GHz Bands	a1 (zip, 831KB)	a1mif (zip, 1.15MB)

(*) The map layer a4_combined includes the existing licences based on the Tier areas resulting from the February 2004 auction and the map layer a4_incumbents contains other existing spectrum and radio licences falling inside the frequency bands of interest before the initiation of the auction.

The following table contains the map layers defined for the service areas competitive licensing. There are four tiers of service areas that the Department may use for future licensing activity as described in the document "Service Areas for Competitive Licensing". Tier 1 is a single national service area. Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 service areas are provided in three sets of files below. The files contain geographic objects describing the service areas, the service area number, the service area name, the total population and the area (in square kilometres). The 2008 Tier includes the data from Statistics Canada Census 2006.

Table 2-2a: Service Areas Competitive Licensing Map Layers (2008)

2008 Tier	MapInfo native format	MapInfo import format
Tier 1	tier1_2008 (zip, 139KB)	tier1_2008mif (zip, 182KB)
Tier 2	tier2_2008 (zip, 179KB)	tier2_2008mif (zip, 236KB)
Tier 3	tier3_2008 (zip, 225KB)	tier3_2008mif (zip, 289KB)
Tier 4	tier4_2008 (zip, 288KB)	tier4_2008mif (zip, 364KB)

Table 2-2b: Service Areas Competitive Licensing Map Layers (2004)

2004 Tier	MapInfo native format	MapInfo import format
Tier 1	tier1_2004 (zip, 137KB)	tier1_2004mif (zip, 181KB)
Tier 2	tier2_2004 (zip, 178KB)	tier2_2004mif (zip, 237KB)
Tier 3	tier3_2004 (zip, 223KB)	tier3_2004mif (zip, 290KB)
Tier 4	tier4_2004 (zip, 286KB)	tier4_2004mif (zip, 362KB)

 

Spectrum Grid map layers

The following table contains the spectrum grid map layers. The spectrum grid cell is a geospatial object of hexagonal shape with a surface of approximately 25sq km. Each spectrum grid map layers contains grid cells for a given geospatial area. Each grid cell is accompanied with the latitude & longitude geographic coordinates of the grid cell's center (centroid) and the calculated population & number of dwellings inside the grid cell. The population values have been calculated with Statistics Canada Census 2001 & 2006 Dissemination Areas. A column containing a unique identification number to each grid cell has been added on 2007-12-10.

Table 3: The Spectrum Grid Map Layers

Coverage	MapInfo native format	MapInfo import format
Canada	canhex (zip, 44MB)	canhexmif (zip, 29MB)
Atlantic	atlhex (zip, 1.47MB)	atlhexmif (zip, 973KB)
Quebec	quehex (zip, 3.29MB)	quehexmif (zip, 2.22MB)
Ontario	onthex (zip, 2.33MB)	onthexmif (zip, 1.52MB)
Prairies	prahex (zip, 4.16MB)	prahexmif (zip, 2.80MB)
Pacific	pachex (zip, 3.16MB)	pachexmif (zip, 2.17MB)

 

User Defined Service Areas

The following table contains map layers for user defined service areas, such as for the Local Telephone which generally correspond to the wireline service areas of the local telephone companies operating in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, PCS-Cellular, Automatic Meter Readers, Public Safety and Tier subdivisions. Population data is based on Statistics Canada 2001 and 2006 census data.

Table 4: User Defined Service Areas

Service Areas	MapInfo native format	MapInfo import format	Last date updated
TEL	tel (zip, 17MB)	telmif (zip, 18MB)	2011.06.06
AMR	amr (zip, 2KB)	amrmif (zip, 2KB)	2010.07.29
SPS	sps (zip, 20KB)	spsmif (zip, 20KB)	2011.08.08
Subdivisions	subdiv (zip, 110KB)	subdivmif (zip, 120KB)	2011.06.06

The following table contains the map layer of calculated 1996 census household density at spectrum grid cell resolution. This layer is used to calculate the licence fee for AMR service areas in the 1.4 GHz band as specified in Notice No DGRB-003-01. Only the cells with household density values larger than 25 are included.

Table 5: 1996 Census Household Density map layer

Map layer	MapInfo native format	MapInfo import format	Last date updated
Demogridurban	demogridurban (zip, 47KB)	demogridurbanmif (zip, 33KB)	2011.02.16

 

Remote Rural Broadband Systems map layers (RRBS)

The following table contains the map layer showing the geographical areas where a Remote Rural Broadband System (RRBS) operating in the band 512-698 MHz is not at a sufficient distance from major population centres so as not to cause interference. It should be noted that this map layer is generated with specific conditions and do not represent a definition of remote rural communities for other purposes.

Table 6: Remote Rural Broadband Systems map layers (RRBS)

	MapInfo native format	MapInfo import format
RRBS	rrbszone (zip, 107KB)	rrbszonemif (zip, 20kB)
Canada/US border - 121km zone	canus121km (zip, 56.8KB)	canus121kmmif (zip, 35kB)

 

Data formats supported

Data formats supported are the MapInfo native format and the MapInfo import format. The MapInfo native format is used by the MapInfo Professional desktop mapping software of MapInfo Corporation. The MapInfo import format is an import/export text format supported by major desktop mapping and GIS softwares.

All the map layers are compressed into standard ZIP files and can be uncompressed by the WinZip utility or other utilities that support the ZIP format. The MapInfo native format compressed files may contain 4 or 5 separate files. The MapInfo import format compressed files contain 2 separate files. The projection for all the map layers is NAD83 latitude/longitude geographical coordinates.