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Google Ready to Bid on 700 MHz
Seppanen Style writes "The 700MHz spectrum auction looks like it's going to be heated. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has all but confirmed that Google will make a play for the spectrum that will be on offer next January. 'In effect, this could give Google control of the entire pipe between customers and Google servers, a move that could be very good for business strategy, even if the wireless network is not a major profit center. Companies never like to be at the mercy of other companies, and Google is no exception.'"
Evil empire #2 is really sticking it to the long standing telecommunications industry...and for the good of the general public at that. Now if they could just topple Comcast, and maybe buy up some of the dark fiber around the country...then they could conquer Microsoft and maybe the People's Republic of China.
I have one in my closet they can have. I'll even throw an extra 128MB of SDRAM!
Ah.... a classic.
Last big spectrum givawa^d^d^d^d^d^d^d auction I think most of the spectrum went for some sum just north of the cost of a large mocha. If the telco's get scared pissless from Google here we might just see a very heated auction rather than the collusion assgrab many of these things are in America.
and maybe buy up some of the dark fiber around the country
Google IS buying up some dark fiber, from what I understand.
Google doesn't want to be controlled by Comcast's Tiered Internet proposals. Therefore, they might just work around Comcast.
Does anyone know the specifics of what sort of limitations the FCC will put on the 700Mhz spectrum? Will they be able to transmit up to 15miles? Up to 100,000 watts? Something like that? Who is to say that the G people will be able to convince everyone in the US to use their pipes?
...but this being slashdot, I rarely rtfa's. Are all of arstechnica's articles well laid out like that? I'm used to some other websites whose articles are 3 paragraphs spread out over 17 pages or the like. I got to the end of this one, expecting more article. Turns out it was the end of the thing.
Kudos to them, I say.
This major for Google, and thus major for the Telecoms.
Google has many multiple billions in cash, and can always raise more.
vs.
The entire sucky telecom industry.
Not only that, but Google ace is open-standards.
May the best bidder win, and I hope it is open standards.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
I think the 2.4GHz spectrum is where all the heat is.
Here's what I want:
$29.95/mo 3G wireless internet w/ basic voice plan.
Free text. because paying for text when it costs the telco so little needs to stop.
Bluetooth data access that actually works.
If they can achieve that (by 2009, not too hard), the phone system is done.
Only problem? the cell towers.
Private spectrum is not really any different to any other kinds of lock-in.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Google is playing with the worst of the worst kind of competitor with the telcos and I doubt they have the finances much less the dirty tricks to pull it off.
I'm very interested in hearing how others think it will play out.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Most of their shareholders support GWB, and his policies benefit the Filthy Wealthy such as Brin and Page. Why would they fund his removal? It's an interesting commentary on the "good" and "evil" thing to consider who, Google (Brin and Page) or Microsoft (Gates et all) have given the most to organizations that benifit the public good? Hmmm...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
we need a new foreign meteorology policy enacted, this is good politics.
You never forget the first time you ate a turd (whether it was done willingly or not).
The fact that Google offered to make a $4.6 billion bid for the spectrum implies (1) Google has $4.6 billion in capital available, and (2) Google has a use for that spectrum.
It seems reasonable to assume they would make a bid, even without the four openness rules - after all, if they win they can make their own openness rules, and if they don't win, it costs them nothing.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Most of their shareholders support GWB
Like Al Gore? Brin and Page own special preferred stock that effectively means they still retain control of the company. They (as well as Google employees, many of whom live in liberal California) vote (and donate) overwhelmingly democratic.Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Hey, better yet, why don't they convince the UN to send peacekeepers to Darfur? Why don't they fund alternative energy research? I'm sure they have enough money to get a fusion research lab up and running. Why don't they fight cancer?
The problem is even if they did set up a lab to do research with the intent of "fighting cancer", some asshole like you would complain they're not fighting AIDS.
Anyone who wants to fight to do good in this world only has limited resources to work with, as such, one must pick their battles. Taking on the crooked telco companies is worthy enough for me.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
They have the money to be the loss leader.
They can go in and undercut everyone to bring some sanity to the cellphone market.
Paying to text is absurd. Paying to send email is absurd.
They will probably come in with some kind of deal where you pay for voice and everything else is free. Given their infrastructure, they can probably pull that off.
If they go GSM with some advanced, high-speed data underneath. They will win, big time.
Get the google quint-band phone with GSM (700Mhz, 850 MHz, 900Mhz, 1.8Ghz, 1.9Ghz), bluetooth, cameraphone with automatic youtube and picasa updates. Total market ownage.
"Yeah it's me... I wanna give you some good frequencies; 1710, 2.6, 2245..."
"Yeah"
"3032, 700"
(Surprised) "Seven hundred?!"
"Yeah."
"I'm coming right over."
"Do that."
"I'll be there in two seconds"
(Later)
"You bastard! You sold me 700 Terahertz!"
"That'll teach you to be more careful with your units next time."
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I consider myself a die hard republican and even I can recognize that we have a bunch of incompetent, self-serving grab asses in office. Given that this is the FCC this money should be put to opening a up public spectrum, researching lost cost internet or even contributing to NPR or PBS (yes... I'm a conservative who loves Nova, Frontline and All Things Considered). Instead it will be used to have a go at random super-bowl boobies and censor TV shows that are on when children should be in bed.
Not that I want an Democratic administration to have the money either.
Hmm... don't Australians have topless beach, beer, grilled shrimp and beer?
As of today, Google has a market capitalization (stock price x outstanding shares) of $160 billion. They could easily issue, say, 10% more shares and collect over $10 billion, even when considering the dilution that would cause. Even without that, their balance sheet shows total cash of over $12 billion, and zero debt.
It's not a problem for them.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
There are are more constraints to leasing rooftops than meets the eye. In most residential areas, Joe Blow can't lease his rooftop to a commercial entity without an insane amount of hoopla. Otherwise, all cell phone companies would have 100% coverage everywhere - and it's taken them years just to get to the 90-something percent coverage they have now.
In my neighborhood, the Metricom wireless network of yore (fairly cheap flat-rate 50 - 100k service, ubiquitous in the SF Bay Area in the 90s) was not available in my town, because the NIMBYs wouldn't allow it. Lot's of other towns with the same bad attitude as mine.
"Are you radio transmissions going to give my babies cancer?"
"I dunno - now, how many packs a day do they smoke?"
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Some of his major investors include Buffett who is very opposed to W. As to W's policies helping Brin/Page, that is VERY false. To date, the top 10 wealthiest ppl in America have come out SOLIDLY opposed to W's tax cuts and his ongoing deficits. To that end, Buffett, Gates, etc have been moving their money out of dollars and buying up other currency (mostly euros). Why? Because they believe that W's deficts on top of reagans is destroying our ability operate. I think that they are right.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Do they accept paypal?
From the Summary This portion of the spectrum also happens to be the one with two open access conditions attached to its sale mandating that all devices be allowed to access the band and that all applications can be able to run across the network. This means that it may become the dominate frequency for off the shelf parts, since they know that no provider can actually keep their product off the market. Honestly you combine these rules with a device like the N95 or iPhone, add a little Skype, and what you get is Nerdvana, a network where you only pay for the pipe, but you can flush anything you want down it.
The majority of those towers are owned by the telcos. Normally, the cross license their towers with each other. But they all want this 700 MHz and now Google is saying that they are going to make wireless be CHEAP. Think that they will be in the mood to share? I think not.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So, are there any estimates of market cap or onhand cash of competitors like Verizon, AT&T, or others?
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
We don't need no stinking estimates. It's not hard to look up the real numbers.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Here's my wild guess at what they'd do if they got it:
1. Make up some specs/standards for accessing this bandwidth.
2. Licence out spectrum usage to anyone making the hardware while playing by their rules.
3. Lease out the internet access on this spectrum to local provider services.
4. For the end user, other than buying the access device - the service will be free.
5. Where the money will be made is in advertising. Somewhere in the hardware/software spec will be something that runs an ad. Probably during every log on or after X amount of hours. Local providers would get revenue from the ads, and by running the ads they could afford to lease the bandwidth from Google.
6. ????
7. Profit!
I am not sure Google is really interested in winning the auction. Their play might be to put pressure on the telcos in order to strike an access deal with them.
The telcos have something that Google wants: unfettered and maybe even exclusive access to their users. Telcos however are notorious for their habit of restricting their devices' access to services that net them more profit. Google knows that and knows that wireless devices may be tomorrow's prime mean of accessing the Internet. If this were to happen, search and content providers would have to strike very onerous deals with telcos in order to maintain access to their clientele.
As a result, the FCC's decision not to require open access to the Internet for users of the 700Mhz spectrum threatens to put Google's future in the hands of the telcos.
The menace to enter the telcos' market strenghtens Google's barganing position because
a) Google has the money to make good on that threat and may chose to do so as a defensive measure
b) the telcos need that spectrum a lot more than Google does.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear in the coming months that Google has struck many major long term deals with several telcos and has finally decided to bow out of the auction.
If i had to choose between Google and at&t, id choose google.
Read radical news here
Google needs this spectrum. Information tablets, streaming wireless Youtube. Sure we will be bombarded by targeted ads, but rather softly, maybe we like to click on them.
See where this is going?
For all their foibles, the telcos are regulated, at least in some sense of the word -- either by laws or by competition. Google doesn't like laws or competition. They'd love to acquire another monopoly they can leverage.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
"If they're not working for my party, they aren't good." Aren't they, now? Google has been more supportive of free resources to the public than a lot of companies out there. How can you change the good that they do into bad by saying they vote Republican?
In my experience companies are perfectly happy to be at the mercy of other companies. It's hardly unknown for a company to source software products from a single company, for example, with no easy migration path to any other product.
Perhaps Google is the exception after all.
And making Dick Cheney the president is going to help us how?
Creative Demolition
Is my guess at what the winning bid will be, and it's still chump change.
It translates into roughly $280 per household, which translates into $23.33/month. Currently the exclusive iPhone/AT&T packages run $50+ per month.
Quick ROI even at $28 Billion, methinks.
Hope is the currency of fools
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Can you say anti-trust lawsuit?
And the many survivors shall flee to the north, their refugee status granting them instant legal residence in any country of their choice :)
Telcos make money by charging a customer (you a corporation etc..) to access their network. I read here everyone saying "Google give me free wifi....". Sure they will... and how will Eric Schmidt recoup this $4.6B plus maintenance, plus deployment costs, plus support costs..... etc etc) investment? Do you really think that the idea of "If I give everyone free wifi, they'll automatically use my search engine, Gmail, more?"
/. post/comment that complains "Google hasn't brought WIFI to *MY* area.... WAAAHH" I can't wait until we're all bashing Google the same way we bash ATT/Verizon/Sprint for their shoddy coverage.
I forsee one day... a
I also can't wait to see what kind of antenna I'll need on my roof to beam a signal to the nearest TV tower.
Google is using its network, including all that dark fiber it bought, and the new wireless spectrum, to make a new "phone company". That will include integrated email, video, social networks, maps and everything else Google offers. That's why it tried to force this 700MHz spectrum to be "all open", including requiring all mobile devices using it to be unlocked.
--
make install -not war
- AT & T: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=T (242B, 2.57B/61.67B)
- Sprint: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=S (53B, 2.42B/22.9B)
- T-Mobile: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=DT (80B, 4.88B/61.5B)
- Verizon: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=VZ (121B, 2.36B/32.53B)
- Google: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=GOOG (160B, 12.5B/0B)
Where parens are Market Cap, Cash/Debt.Looks like if these are the number we're looking at, Google is way ahead. But IANAFG, so I haven't the foggiest whether any of these matter or not. They're just the numbers.
You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.
The current carrier lock on licensed bands is a terrible drain on the U.S. economy and stifling innovation to an absurd degree. If it weren't for the carrier attitudes, the U.S. would have a true mobile Internet, probably hundreds of thousands of additional jobs in mobile device and app development, and a plethora of devices and apps that would make the iPhone seem archaic. Google is finally a tech company financially large enough that it is getting hurt by essentially arch anti net neutrality in the mobile space and has the ability to take on the carriers. It's well worth the price for Google to open up a whole new unfettered medium for their services. I hope they go all out, win the auction, and bring true competition to the industry. They would benefit and so would everyone else.
Google is powerful, yes.
But name the lawsuit that Google has for illegally wiretapping US citizens and giving control to the NSA.
And name the shifty business practice Google has for overpriced services, fees for EVERYTHING (including disconnecting certain services), and...oh wait, what was that again? Secret wholesale of Teir 1 backbones.
And name one horribly bad thing that Google has done in the name of user privacy. Name their practices with security, openness, and usability. Humor me by saying they charged users up the ass for it, or even had a single morally wrong revenue stream, whatsoever.
Google deserves more power. Until they fuck up like AT&T has, I give them nothing but my best wishes.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Phone Rings
Husband: Hey honey, What do want for dinner tonight?
Wife: How about some chicken?
Husband: That sounds good, how about some popeyes?
Wife: That sounds good, or we could ...
recording interrupting....
Recording: (uber-cheerfully) I hear you're looking for chicken in your area.... I'd just like to let you know that there's a KFC on The corner of Campbell and Howard. There is also a popeyes on the corner of vero beach and tracy, a KFC on the corner of
Husband: Shut up!!! I know where the chicken places are, I live here.
Recording: juno and tibedeau and there's a popeyes at 945 Main
Wife: just let it finish.
Recording: Street and there's a Publix at 177 center street.
husband: Damn Google and this cheap phone service. I can't even have a conversation anymore.
Recording: I heard google, Would you like to look something up? Perhaps how to buy 'conversations' on E-bay?
Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
And no I wont post anonymously you fucktards
Google has spent a decade and some on one side of a very big coin. Search, ads, gmail, google maps, google docs, google this, that, everything translates into one simple thing - they have the "Where Joe wants his browser to be" for a VERY big number of Joes worldwide.
Buying up the 700MHz band will make them, in the US, own the "Where Joe is coming from". A mountain of dark fiber they've been purchasing lately will supply the infrastructure to connect side A to side B.
Together, these are worth more than the sum of their parts. Coupled, rather than Google wanting to hookup to tier-1 ISP's, it will be tier-1 ISP's who will be jumping through hoops to get closer to the wirelessgoogle plate.
They seem to be using the momentum of their products to try and catch a rather big chunk of the internet backbone and haul it right up onto their own back (just the bit that involves peoples traffic going to them). Quite admirable in its own right, if they manage to pull it off.
Rather than bean-counting and looking for a direct profit, a move like that would reposition them in an entirely different league of players, give them way more power, regulation leverage and later translate into an insanely bigger profits.
I'm eager to see if they manage to pull this off, if for the sheer ability to outsmart all of the established competition for that power. And frankly, even without them being holier than the bloody pope, I'd much rather have them have it than any other player their size.
-
so what woudl happen once every torrent user moves onto their network?
will the "do no evil" moto have to change then?
Obviously wireless spectrum is going to be an end-user product. Allowing a nationwide wireless network similar to what Google paid for in the bay area recently.
.... Good question .... maybe somebody should Google it...
But the dark fibre...
Yes, no doubt, perhaps used to connect wireless broadcasting centers to each other, but also, my speculation is that it's going to be used for television. Google is an advertising company. For the forseeable future, there is no bigger advertising medium than Television. True, the major networks upfronts were lower this year than in the past, but that's only because the rise of original content on cable networks has created more premium content for advertisers to buy into.
Google is going to need massive bandwidth to build a next-gen network for TV advertising. Perhaps even one day using the Overlay technology it's deploying on YouTube. Time shifting is here to stay. Advertising is here to stay. I suspect the latter will adapt to the former, and overlays seem a pretty likely candidate.
Who has the technology, bandwidth, ad sales teams, and capital to make it all work?
I don't know where you buy coffee, but the last auction (AWS, in summer 06) raised nearly $14 billion, which ain't exactly pocket change.
Personally I'd like to see it default to amateur radio.
No really, I welcome them! Hurry it up, guys, take over!
The reason the fiber is not lit is simple economics....
A lot of this was laid in the late 90's by companies like Global Crossing and USWest/Qwest.
When you're running a single fiber line, the cost is minimal to run additional lines thru the same conduit. Especially when compared to running them later.
The cost of the networking equipment, however, is significant, and it makes no sense to light fiber that you don't need.
Of course, I'm probably just feeding a troll, but it's better to do that than let people actually believe your nonsense.
I would think all the major wireless carriers would be desperate for Google to NOT win this wireless auction. They have a nice setup now, and definitely wouldn't like to have a newcomer that's willing to change all the rules to compete with.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
I think you're mixing up Google and X-10, because they sure sound like pop-up ads to me.
The trouble is this: with all 4 open access conditions, $4.6bn might win the auction, but it wouldn't matter a lick to Google if they won or not, they would have unfettered access to the spectrum at wholesale.
With the halfway compromise of 2/4, winning the auction would be worth a lot to Google. And $$ for $$, they most certainly could win. BUT, the amount of $$$ Google could make on the OPEN spectrum is much less than what TheEvilOnes will be able to make buying that spectrum and closing it up. With the spectrum open, EVERYONE makes more $$$; with it closed, the WINNER TAKES ALL.
Implications:
1) "Win the auction" and "do no evil" and "make a profit" are mutually incompatible;
2) Bad guys win;
3) This is not a market failure, it's a regulatory failure.
- The rules of the game encourage monopolistic abuses;
- Google therefore attempts to change the rules;
- Google loses, and it just so happens we all lose.
I do not expect the interests of the consumer to continue to be aligned with The Goog, but in this instance they are, and that is what makes it such a shame that Google cannot, as a profit-motivated corporation, play to win this auction.
What Google should do is call up Yahoo (and any other web behemoths they can get), and start the 'Network Neutrality Organization', a non-profit in charge of the new huge swath of bandwidth that the group of them pool their cash to buy. It's in all their interest to have a neutral network, and it's equally in their interest to have a third party running it. Best of all, it's in the customer's interest, as well.
- The Amazina Llama