The founder of discount wireless company Mobilicity says he is disappointed Rogers will discontinue the brand and blames Ottawa for the lack of a fourth national cellphone carrier in Canada. “There’s a lot more the government could have done to sustain all the new operators,” John Bitove told BNN. “At the end of the day (the federal government) just took the check and ran.”

Rogers announced it was pulling the plug on the Mobilicity brand earlier this month – almost a year after buying the company for $465 million from Bitove and other investors.  The previous Conservative government tried to boost competition by setting aside mobile phone spectrum for several upstart telecom companies. Most of those companies have since been swallowed up by Canada’s incumbent telecom companies.  “This was about raising proceeds of auctions and getting Bell, Telus and Rogers to pay the most,” says Bitove “It wasn’t about long-term competition.”

Bitove and other wireless start-up backers have filed a $1.2-billion lawsuit against Industry Canada claiming the government reneged on assurances it would enforce foreign ownership takeover rules and prevent unfair competition.

Investors are also angry at the looming disappearance of Sirius XM Canada Holdings  – another Bitove founded company.  Last week SiriusXM Holdings Inc. (SIRI.O), its biggest shareholder said it was taking the satellite radio service private in a $351 million dollar deal. Bitove defended the deal that one shareholder advocate labelled "one of the most egregious abuses of minority shareholders in the last 10 years."

A higher price was not possible, says Bitove. “We negotiated as long and as hard as we could with the Americans,” he said.

Bitove is perhaps best known for helping to bring the Raptors basketball team to Toronto.  The Raptors defeated the Miami Heat on Sunday advancing to the NBA Eastern Conference finals for the first time in the team’s 21-year history.