Slashdot Mirror
FCC Goes Halfway On Opening 700 MHz Spectrum
The FCC has set rules for the upcoming auction of 700-MHz spectrum and they went halfway on the four open access principles that Google and others had called for. The agency said yes to "open devices" and "open applications," thus requiring the auction winner to permit consumers to use any device or application on the network. But the FCC turned down "open services" and "open networks," so the winners will not be obligated to let others buy access at wholesale prices in order to offer network services. This vote would seem to mean that Google won't bid in the spectrum auction. Ars has a more in-depth look at the outcome.
Shouldn't google bid so that they can enforce the openness they want, rather than letting someone else win and keep it closed?
Put its power in the hands of the people! What could go wrong?
Only if you aren't paying attention--
Read the top of this page in this interview:
If Google were to win the bid, then they could do those other things if they wanted. Google not bidding means they never really intended to win, they were just using this as publicity to try an force the stipulations they wanted without having to be the high bidder.
Google sure has been trying to throw their weight around a lot lately.
It means you can only use single-sideband modulation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-sideband_modul ation
Engineering is the art of compromise.
See, "open devices" and "open applications" probably means that you are free to use any device or application that has been approved by whoever wins the auction in question. I fully expect AT&T (or whoever wins, but they look like they will) to announce some kind of ridiculously elaborate and expensive "open licensing program" where if you want to make a device or applications that works with their network, you'll have to pay them gobs of money. They'll say it's for "adminstrative fees" or "Homeland Security Wireless Management and Auditing Charges" or some such crap.
Personally, while I like what Google is trying to do, I think they should stay in the bidding anyway. I'd much rather have Google own the spectrum than literally ANY other telco corporation. Google isn't nearly as evil as those guys are.
Obviously the FCC is no longer concerned with the purpose it was created for (encouraging competition in communication related industry) so why do we still have an FCC?
"The agency said yes to "open devices" and "open applications," thus requiring the auction winner to permit consumers to use any device or application on the network. But the FCC turned down "open services" and "open networks,"
Can you have one without the other? If the winner is required to allow free use of the spectrum for devices and applications doesn't that include devices used to provide services? I mean sure, they wouldn't have to let you use their infrastructure or buy access at wholesale prices, but they couldn't stop you from building your own infrastructure.
In the United States, the electric industry also has open access requirements that are comparable to those at issue here. Except, instead of "spectrum" the open access condition applies to power lines.
The US essentially has two types systems for moving electricity around: the Transmission System and the Distribution System. Transmission System lines are typically high voltage and used for wholesale sales of electricity. They are predominately federally regulated. Distribution System lines are typically lower voltage and used for distribution of power to retail end-use customers.
However the open access requirements are quite different. Transmission Systems are open to any user (with lots of strings, but in theory anyway). So someone who wants to sell power at wholesale essentially has the same right of access to the transmission lines as the utility that owns the lines does. In other words, the utility's transmission functions are no longer vertically integrated (at least in theory) with their power generation functions. This concept is known as "comparability." Sadly, the FCC rejected this type of open access.
For distribution systems, the utilities are still far more vertically integrated and largely control who has access to their power lines. While they still have to provide some level of access to competing users, there's no comparability concept and no sense that the utility is in the business of "renting" its system to all users and that its affiliated branches are just another user. Instead, we are going to continue to see integrated networks where the owner of the spectrum is able to stiffle innovation. Requiring that the purchaser of the spectrum re-sell it to competing companies would have guaranteed far more interesting uses of this spectrum.
Of course, allowing for phone transferability and the other items are good; but is a public safety system really the biggest concession that the FCC could extract? Yes, it is important. But nobody was going to object to giving fire fighters the communications equipment they needed.
Sad.
Half way in this case refers to yet another instance of a bureau of the US Government (FCC this time) implementing a vast project with half-vast methods.
But don't worry, twitter, you spin it to make it sound like the FCC turned down $4.6B just to be in bed with the telcos.
It doesn't have any basis in reality, but it's hardly like that has stopped you before, has it?
Or will it go into expanding the ad service, infiltrating it further into our lives. I don't know, but that seems a logical end-result of "Hey, ad revenue is up ten per cent this quarter!", not "Hey, that extra $500M we made on ads, let's blow it on that FCC auction".
Forgive me, but I have little to no interest in funneling money to a for-profit corporation that, all mottos, blinders and fanboys aside, has profit and its success, not mine, as its goal.