OTTAWA — The federal government announced a series of initiatives Thursday it says will help smartphone users get cheaper, faster service — though it will take time and there will likely be lots of arguing about those rules among industry players such as Rogers, Bell, Quebecor, Shaw and Telus.

The government is set to begin re-drawing the rules for Canada’s wireless communications sector, now dominated by Rogers and Bell, with a goal toward ensuring that in every region of the country, consumers will have a choice of at least four service providers.

“Our government’s priority is to provide greater wireless coverage at lower rates for consumers,” said Industry Minister Christian Paradis.

The changes, though, will take some time.

Companies that want to bid for new wireless spectrum, for example, can’t start submitting their bids until Nov. 19 and the government cannot say when that auction will close. And once the winners are announced, it could take weeks or months before new services are made available using t hat new spectrum.

One of the reasons it will take a long time is because Industry Canada and the country’s major wireless providers have to sort out some complicated rules to conduct the radio frequency spectrum auction.

The wireless i ndustry is divided on a lot of those issues. The big national players, such as Rogers, Bell and Telus, are often at odds with smaller regional players such as Quebecor ( the owner of QMI Agency and Sun Media), SaskTel and Shaw Communications.

The government is trying to walk a tricky line by setting rules that allow regional players and new service providers to compete with the big national players, but avoid being seen as interfering too much in the marketplace.

“I firmly believe the basis of a strong economy is a competitive marketplace and consumer choice,” Paradis said.

The stakes are huge, both for the service providers and for the government.

An auction of wireless radio frequency spectrum in 2008 netted the government a whopping $4.3 billion.

Industry Canada officials won’t put a number on how much this auction will put into the government’s piggy bank. The bidding, for all the available new spectrum space, starts at about $900 million.

And while there is less spectrum or space in this auction, the radio frequencies being sold this time are relatively more valuable because more data can be carried with a smaller slice of the available radio frequencies.

There are also many more industry players who might want to bid this time around than there were in 2008.