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Google et al. Want 700 MHz Auction Opened Up
The 700 MHz spectrum could give birth to the much-anticipated third pipe, but phone and cable lobbyists are currently pressuring the FCC to sell companies like AT&T and Verizon our airwaves — in a flawed auction process — so they can hoard this valuable spectrum and stifle competitive alternatives to their networks. Google and other would-be providers are not taking it lying down. They want the FCC to mandate that whoever wins the auction be required to sell access to those airwaves, at wholesale prices, to anyone wanting to provide broadband Internet service. They also want anonymous auctions to prevent the giant incumbents from manipulating the results against small players (as they have done in the past).
What is this third pipe? What are the other two?
Well one's normally referred as a tube.
God spoke to me.
FTFA:
"The 700 MHz auctions will not give birth to the much anticipated third pipe if the licenses are auctioned to the very same vertically integrated telephone and cable incumbents that dominate the wireline market."
Reading that leads me to believe that "telephone and cable incumbents that dominate the wireline market" are the first two pipes.
Pipes of course referring to internet connectivity.
You have to have a pipe to connect to the tubes... (couldn't resist)
Ramen
But they know that if they can get the "telephone and cable incumbents that dominate the wireline market" bumped out of, or at least have them given a reduced presence in, the auction they have a better chance of winning the auction with less up front out of pocket.
Does that mean free, high speed, wireless internet access paid for by Google Ads? Probably not. But it might. There were several companies doing the same with dial-up a few years back.
Ramen
The users should rent it from the government that is enforcing their property rights over this natural resource.
This is a principle called "economic rent".
Milton Friedman has declared such taxation the "least distorting" kind of tax.
The way to set the rental agreement is to determine the liquidation value of the "land", and then charge a rent on it equal to the interest rate on short term US treasury instruments.
As with any rental agreement there would be other terms but the basic idea is that such resources enjoy liquidation value changes that are primarily a result of the economic environment -- meaning economic externalities drive the liquidation value -- and allocation of externalities is a social function.
Seastead this.
Why not just leave the spectrum completely open to the public like 900MHz and 2.4GHz? Although, require that the spectrum must use intelligent radio devices that comply to a single standard (through IEEE for example).
Why wouldn't [Google] simply outbid the competitors and sell the space themselves?
The "competitors" can collude and form a much larger bidder than anyone else. They drive the price up where real competition advances but leave prices low for themselves elsewhere. If bidding is anonymous, it will be harder for people to collude and everyone will have to pay what they think the airwaves are worth.
There are still problems with the proposals. The first is that the incumbents won't treat their competitors fairly, even if forced by law to share. They will screw them over and pay whatever fees the government levies but then pass the costs back to you and me. The second problem is that the incumbents can overbid because they know there will be no real competition and they can charge whatever they like in the long run. These are not shortcomings of a free market, they are failures in regulations for a scarce resource which some say is not scarce afterall. It's ultimately a failure to share equitably.
How much do you really want to pay for your airwaves? I want mine free. The FCC should change it's mission to the above mentioned report and enforcing peaceful co-existence. The only problems with spectrum would be accidental disruption, which can be fixed, and willful disruption, which should be punished.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Google has enough money to compete in these auctions. Why wouldn't they simply outbid the competitors and sell the space themselves?
Actually, they do have enough money - Google has a market cap roughly equal to Verizon and Time Warner combined
The problem here doesn't (only) involve money, though - Basically, it sounds like these auctions have most of the "fairness" of EBay, where unscrupulous sellers (sadly, our own government in this case) and bidders can drive a price up far beyond its fair value. In this case, the existing broadband companies (the first two pipes referenced in the FP) would presumeably like to keep their regional duopolies and would either use the 700MHz range for their exclusive use, or if they can, buy it cheap just to prevent anyone else from using it.
Thus the requested condition that the winner MUST license it to competitors - That prevents Verizon (for example) from using various tricks to get the spectrum cheap and then do nothing with it.
Not so sure I understand the reason for some of the other mentioned terms of the auction (anonymous? I know our government has some corruption, but so bad that a non-anonymous auction would give the existing players an unfair edge?)
How does a tube differ from a pipe? And what's the third one called? Is it a straw? I hope it's a bendy straw! I always loved those as a kid.
The Farewell Tour II
Google TiSP... amazing that they found a way to let you use the "third-pipe" to deliver broadband access to your home months before the competition. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/ 01/1331238
File Deletion is Murder.
People have given up on DSL?
It's been way more reliable for me than my neighbors' cable internet. Sure, their highest burst download speeds are better than my paltry 3 meg connection, but I have that 3 meg connection with very little variation day and night. Their cable connection slows down noticeably after school and in the evenings--when most of us are using the net. Our DSL does not slow in any detectable way.
Cable still has a stronghold here (semi-rural Kansas) due to the number of people out of reach of the DSL service area, but still within cable service.
I just don't see DSL as dead, or even threatened. Not around here, anyway.
No matter who wins this fight, we all lose.
No, it's possible to lower the cost of wireless by fixing the bidding process. If ATT and friends know there will be real competition, they will be less able to run the prices up. It won't be impossible but it will be harder.
A real sharing of spectrum is possible but politically unlikely. Really, we should claim the air for ourselves and no further regulation is required other than policing intentional disruption.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
- establish a service rule for broadband services operating in the 700 MHz band that protects the consumer's right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider.
- allow third-party access to spectrum owned by other companies. This "open access" plan to include wholesale access to networks would enable more competitors to offer services
- institute anonymous bidding in auctions to lessen the possibility of bid signalling and bid rigging that studies found to have taken place in prior auctions.
Also, what about open spectrum? Does it work well in practice? Would that be a better solution? (though I know it's a moot point for the upcoming auction.)The whole premise behind the FCC was that if spectrum was unregulated you would have a tragedy of the commons were everybody would pollute it so much that it would become unusable. However in practice that has turned out to be a complete and absolute lie. In the unregulated spectrum's, the more the spectrum got "polluted", the more people created technologies that could intelligently allocate, detect, shift, and route around. So now all spectrum regulation does is lock in obsolete technologies and wasteful inefficient use of the frequencies in place.
The governments lie of just focusing on selling it to the highest bidder, who just it turn feels they will be able to charge us the most for access , means they are no in any way shape or form representing the interests of the people but only establishing yet another part of the public wealth as a closed off private area for profit by corporations at the expense of the general public.
So will this auction be held and this release of spectrum be in the public interest or will it be yet another demonstration of the corruption and inherent ignorance of a typical corporation controlled government administration.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The FCC has intentionally let the market collapse to a false competition between a local cable company and a local phone company. Very few phone companies have come through with their promisses so Cable is really the only option most people may have. Cable everywhere has blocked ports and intentionally low upload speeds. The US 16th in the network world and falling fast.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Yeah, I've been trying to get my wife to go for that for a while, but she's afraid of getting Santorum all over the place.
Firstly this just demonstrates that the public airwaves are not 'public' at all. They merely belong to the corporations who are the biggest campaign contributors. I love how people who use airwaves without FCC approval are pirates and criminals - but if give to the right politicians and fix the auction then you are legit. Its amazing that if you bilk the customer because either you can get away with ignoring anti trust laws because your Verizon or AT&T then it's ok. Steal a CD and you go to jail.
Secondly this story is another example of the lack of competition in cell phone service and wireless data service. There is enough spectrum for at least 8 national companies. Yet there really are only 3 or 4 depending on how you count them. This I bet is why service is still absurdly expensive. Thirdly, I dream of the re-division of the airwaves. Its a quite a mess. Of course the changeover period may be difficult - but it would be doable. Finally I don't see why CBS, FOX, ABC and NBC should get them for free when so much of what they do is hardly serving the public. They get to refuse ads they don't like. They dont have to justify what they put on the air much. Why not give them for free for 20 years to others and see if they do better?
Im also in Kansas and have DSL, as my understanding was the cable in this town is lousy. The DSL, through SBC/AT&T has been reliable, though getting it in the first place was a serious hassle.
;)
I have the option of wireless internet, as I work for a WISP who just put up an ap about 6 blocks from my place. They offered me service but....meh, that stuff has lousy bandwidth in the 900mhz range
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
They have argued it, but it's clear they have no actual knowledge of wireless communications. Read just a few of the comments under that story to see a few reasons they're completely mistaken.
As technology improves, you can do more with less, but no amount of technology is going to make a limited resource like spectrum, infinite.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Technically, those are just opposite ends of the same tube.
Redundancy is good And also good.