RSSGoogle Wants in to Spectrum Auction
By Ed Oswald | Published July 20, 2007, 11:44 AM
Google has said that it will commit to spending at least $4.6 billion in the upcoming 700MHz wireless auction if the FCC commits to greater competition and consumer choice as a requirement for using the spectrum.
Television broadcasters will vacate the frequencies in early 2009 when the switch from analog to digital television takes place. It is considered highly valuable spectrum as the characteristics of the frequencies allow signals to travel at long distances.
Many public interest groups have promoted the auction as a way to bring more competition into the wireless sector. Thus many have urged the FCC to adopt an "open" license scheme.
Google specifically is pushing for four conditions: open applications, open devices, open services, and open networks. The first two allow a consumer to use any application or device over a wireless network, while the last two allow third parties to also benefit from the spectrum.
"In short, when Americans can use the software and handsets of their choice, over open and competitive networks, they win," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a new letter to the FCC on Friday.
The FCC has agreed to at least two of the terms, but not the open services requirement, which allows resellers to acquire access to spectrum on a wholesale basis. Google says that without this requirement, it will not bid.
Telecom giants are not too pleased with Google's proposal. When it was first introduced earlier this month, AT&T responded to the plan by calling it "fatally at odds with the basic purpose of auctioning spectrum."
Google has their hands in everything, its crazy. I sit here and wonder hmmm, how could messing in this area benefit them? I mean what next, they become a cell phone carrier now as well?
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|I don't think they actually plan on becoming a carrier, much in the same way as they aren't apparently interested int he OS arena, and probably for the same reasons.
It's much easier and lucrative to just provide the content. Hence my belief that this is a play to lease it for content deals.
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|Please do. I feel much safer having Google own the spectrum that the greedy telcos.
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|Wow... $4.6 billion is enough to persuade just about anyone. Google can't be that altruistic. No one is. In this case, I think the "what are they up to?" comments are reasonably justified.
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|Keyword: Comments.
I didn't mean *we* shouldn't discuss the possibilities. Ed could also have gotten away with asking the question, and perhaps even giving some of the current speculations.
As I said below, I lean towards the mobile device market. It's not as much fun as some of the other speculation, but reality rarely lives up to such things.
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|I agree. That's why I didn't post my comment as a reply to yours. I was talking more about the anti-Google comments in general.
Typically, I hate how hating Google is the cool thing. It seems like most posters here act paranoid of everything Google does just so they'll look smart. This time, I think those comments from the usuals would be justified.
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|I'm amazed that you didn't try to draw conclusions as to what reasons they might have to be doing this.
Most folks reporting on this are trying to claim that it is so they have a hedge against the anti-neutrality bunch, others claim it's so that they can pretty much guarantee mobile devices will be "googlefied".
Glad you didn't take part in that. That kind of supposition is best left to the commentors and not the article's authors.
Cheers.
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|I entirely agree with you, you tool..err PC_Tool :P, but ironically I finished the article looking for a why.
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|Heh...
Well, that's what the comments sections is for (regardless of how it is used by the majority). :P
I lean more towards the mobile device issue. If they wanted their own network, they already have plenty of fiber for it. All they'd need to do is light it up. (well, there'd be much more involved than that, but the basic premise holds)
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