BAI Communications Canada is spending about $200,000 on a six-week ad campaign asking Toronto subway riders to tell their cellphone providers they want to be able to use their phones underground. (Globe and Mail)

Talking point: BAI won an exclusive 20-year contract with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in 2012, letting it install hardware to provide underground cell service on the city’s subway lines. But it’s spent the past seven years unsuccessfully trying to get Bell, Rogers and Telus to sign on. While BAI has secured a deal with Freedom Mobile, the Big Three have 90 per cent of the mobile market in Canada, and unless they’re willing to play ball, few TTC riders will be able to use their phones. So far, the major telecoms have objected to BAI’s proposed terms, with some suggesting they’d have preferred to install their own hardware. That happened in Montreal, where the Big Three partnered with Vidéotron to build subway internet infrastructure—but it’s unlikely to be the case in Toronto, where BAI’s deal for exclusivity runs another 13 years.