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

Still Undecided

[immcintosh]

I'm still undecided whether Google as a whole genuinely are agents of good in the corporate world or if it's just the spin they're clever at putting on things, but if the latter is the case... then damn they're good.

Help with the Wikipedia Article?

[AchiIIe]

Some time ago I started an article on wikipedia regarding the auction. It has not progressed much.

Could someone help please?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/700_Mhz_wireless_spectrum_auction

Unfortunately there are many parts of it that I still don't understand.
* It seems that it comes with several 22Mhz blocks. '
* Are they saying the actual 22mhz band or are they saying the first 22mhz of the 700 mhz band
* Rules specify that it's split in four major areas, southeast, northeast, etc, what does this mean?
* What four original restrictions did google want on auction? Which two were granted?

Re:Help with the Wikipedia Article?

[AchiIIe]

Thanks!
A few more questions:
* The FCC set a 4.6 Bln limit on the auction, if it did not reach the limit the restrictions would go away. Is this for each of the regional areas or is it 4.6 for all of them.
* Google is exptected to bid 4.6 B on the auction, Did they indicate if they would lean on certain areas more than the others?
* Thus it's still possible for google to bid more on certain regions, less on other regions. This could mean that someone else who bids more on the southeast would get the spectrum instead.
* This has been referred to as "beachfront property" in terms of spectrum, why is that?
* I've sporadically heard talk about emergency services (police etc) making use of this spectrum, is it bundled in this auction or is it outside?

On the other hand...

[Cryophallion]

Think of it like an auction. The more people competing, the higher the price goes. You add in all the reports that estimate where a company will bid, then another company tops that, then another tops that....

In the end, 5 bidders bidding will probably jack the price up to higher than 2 bidders.

And who in the end pays that price in some form or another? Yup, us.

So while I am all for increased competition, and so far google hasn't passed on too many costs to us (I assume it gets passed on the the advertisers), it still makes me nervous. What if they don't win? Where do the prices go?

I think they need to split up the spectrum into parts, and then only allow a certain number of parts to be owned by one entity. That allows for competition, and therefore cost cutting. Just an idea.

Re:PRINCIPLES?

[mooreti1]

No, they are a search company who has worked out a successful way to tie their core business to a viable method of generating a profit...oh, wait, that's what they're supposed to do! Geez-us, that they make money out of providing a necessary service is neither evil nor under-handed. What, exactly, would you have Google do? Because without cash you get no search, no blogs, no YouTube. A company has obligations to meet, especially to it's employee's and it's stockholders. You want it to be free and open with no type of editing or censoring? Start your own search company and run it solely out of pocket. Let me know how far you get.

I'm more and more convinced ...

[ubrgeek]

... That google's purchase in the near future will be for a substantial plot of land (I'm talking miles by miles.) Their actions kind of remind me of Walt Disney's original plan for EPCOT - He wanted it to be the perfect '50s neighborhood (the Leave-it-to-Beaver kind, not necessarily realty.) They're looking at wireless, data centers, power/electrical considerations, gathering information on public transportation (google.com/transit). I don't know. Such a diverse set of items - some without direct revenue generation potential in the near future - is just strange. An attempt at a Utopia project (dear Lord, if it happens, don't "Gutopia") might not be realistic, but it's the only thing my (very) limited imagination can come up with...

great strategy

[recharged95]

Sure, I can bid too if I had the deposit amount. And if I don't win, I don't waste any money aside from upfront fees. This is a great strategy to keep the telcos in check.

Google has nothing to lose and everything to gain--it's an auction for crying out loud. If they lose the auction, they win by pushing the telcos inline with the gphone alliance. If they win, well, they have bandwidth for an internal company network and a R&D network (think beta apps FTW!). Problem is they can not provide free [production level] service to consumers cause they are not geared up for customer service at that scale, unless your willing to accept telco QoS. I suspect they are planning to lose the action, but it's an easy chess move and adds to the bling status of Google.

Re:Bob Marley said it best

[StickyWidget]

What wireless plans? Seriously, this is the modern equivalent of a land grab, buy up the largest tract of contiguous land you can, and sit on it until people come along and ask to use it for something. Google is buying the spectrum to let people come and make money using it. Sound familiar? Kinda like building a search engine and a fantastic intelligent ad system so that marketers can come and make money using it? And because they own it, they can charge a small fee('rent') to those who want to use the spectrum. Large amount of users, equals large amount of fees, which equals smaller fees for users and large profits for Google.

They have no wireless plans, it's all about the oldest fact of life in the book: Whoever controls the most territory wins. Google may develop a product or two, but the idea is that they will rent the 'land', and let people build on it. And in this kind of game, the guys with the best implementation, the best business plan, the best technological expertise, the best of breed software, and the best ideas will be able to use this spectrum to it's fullest extent. This is why I'm hoping Google gets the spectrum.

It's better than what the others will do. They will get the spectrum, they will define the protocols, they will build the chips and the antennas to interact with it, the software that can be deployed on it, the people they will allow to access it, all at 500% markup and no guarantee that everything is best of breed and a product of a free-market. Look at the history of Sprint, Qualcomm, Motorola, and the others, and you'll see what I mean.

~Sticky
/Looking to lease a piece of the spectrum to build dream house....

what will they call the spectrum?

[evwah]

personally I think they should name it googleherz.