Google Confirms Intent To Bid for 700MHz Spectrum

narramissic writes "Today Google put an end to the 'will they or won't they' debate with the announcement that the company intends to join in the bidding for 700MHz wireless spectrum in late January. 'We believe it's important to put our money where our principles are,' Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. 'Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today's wireless world. No matter which bidder ultimately prevails, the real winners of this auction are American consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet.'"

Comments

Re:Why do they need wireless?

[dsginter]

What does Google plan to do with this spectrum?

Offer residential broadband-to-700mhz VoIP routers to customers who would, in turn, become cellular access points.

Just food for thought (there's a lot standing in the way of something like this). It would be nice to have privately-licensed spectrum available to the public because then we wouldn't be limited to 100 milliwatts.

Re:700MHz?

[squiggleslash]

Yes, it is. Part of the switch over to digital involves moving TV channels using the higher numbered channels to lower numbered channels, so that this spectrum can be made available.

There's oodles of TV spectrum available in part because there's never been enough interest in terrestrial broadcasting, and also because every single TV station in the US has been allocated two channels, one for their existing analog service, and one for the digital replacement. Once the analog spectrum goes away, 50% of the TV spectrum currently in use will become available.

One interesting oddity is that digital channels have "soft" numbers from an end-user point of view rather than being tied to the frequency they're allocated. For example, CBS broadcasts on channel 12 in analog here but digitally on channel 13, but both are numbered "12" on the TV. So TV channels broadcasting on the frequencies being removed may continue to appear in the same place on your "dial" even though those actual frequencies aren't even available any more, let alone in use. (This is by design, the aim being to help make the switchover as smooth as possible.)