Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
...put an end to the 'will they or won't they' debate...
I never saw any sound evidence put forth that they wouldn't bid on this spectrum. As far as I was concerned this was a sure thing. Here's to hoping they win the auction!
I got a catholic block.
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.
Strike while the iron is hot.
Google is on fire now, and as far as the market is concerned, can do no wrong. There will not be any future time where Google will be able to put together the sort of money needed to make these types of investments.
But that doesn't mean they will succeed in their wireless plans. As cool as they are, the wireless spectrum is a well established area with not only wireless carriers already bumping against each other for more elbow room but also broadcast radio and television conglomerates. Google can't play David successfully forever. They may have done a great job on the web where they led the technology, but here they will be following and a look at their online office suite, it is clear that they are poor followers.
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?
Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
Having had only a tiny glimpse into the world of government contracting, I find it impossible to believe it will all come down to the price Google pays.
/.'ers with contracting experience will probably back me up when I claim the price offered (or paid in this case) has nothing to do with winning a contract.
Some other
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
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.
Except unlike most advertising companies, Google provides us with a service that is extremely useful. Sure, advertising is how they make their money, but that's how they keep the service they provide for us free. It's like broadcast television. They provide us with entertainment with the catch that there will be a few commercials here and there. Except with Google we don't have 30 second annoyances which take up the whole screen and don't allow us to view anything else. Google has pleasant little text ads on the side. That's why everyone loves them.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
The key here is that they have got the wireless companies where they want them even if they don't win the auction. If the other companies knew that Google was not going to bid on it then they would just wait for it expired and be put up without the requirements. Now Google assures themselves an open network even if they don't win because the other companies have to follow the requirements.
"If you like Battlestar Galactica, you're probably a huge nerd." -Stephen Colbert
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.
More
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.
Oh, for the days when sig's didn't have to be cute...hey, wait a sec.
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.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"We believe it's important to put our money where our principles are," Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
"We believe it's important to develop new sources of revenue wherever we can to keep the stockholders happy," 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.'"
"The stockholders require more diversity and multiple revenue streams to support our close-to-$700 stock price, otherwise they might start to get nervous and sell. We will be the real winners of this auction, but we'll frame it as a populist victory because the media's here and they want a sound byte."
I'm not opposed to companies making money by any means, but let's at least be honest with ourselves that Google isn't doing this out of a sense of altruism.
... 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...
Bark less. Wag more.
My principle is this: if you come in my house, please don't piss all over my toilet seat. I take a great deal of pride in my toilet seats; I have several crafted from pure ivory, extracted from an elephant I shot myself. Covered in exquisite carvings, the detail is impressive, and many male guests appear to become distracted, and piss all over the seat. It really makes me angry!
I also have to mention that I have used the power of Linux and Open Source Software to solve this problem, but to no avail. I have written lengthy Bash scripts, tweaked my configuration files and even recompiled my kernel but this seems to be one area where the power of Linux and Open Source Software cannot help.
I would try Windows, but it does not have the power of Linux and Open Source Software, instead it is for the sheep who piss all over my toilet walls.
I mentioned Linux, can someone mod me up, please?
Seriously, you're going to try to reduce Google to this level?
First and foremost, they provide you with the best search results, and have done so for years, for free.
They provide an outstanding email system, with now 5GB of free space and growing, for free.
They provide one of the most amazing mapping systems ever, continually adding new, cutting edge features, for free, both on the web, on your phone and in Google Earth.
They provide office collaboration online apps in Google Docs (which I use almost every day with friends spread out across the globe), for free.
They provide a really great photo organizing software (Picasa) and even some space on their site to upload pictures to, for free.
They provide a place to share gigabytes of video with everyone on earth in Google Video and YouTube, for free.
And we're merely scratching the surface.
And you're going to try and reduce them to the level of "Madison Avenue hucksters"?
Oh, that's right, they developed a cutting edge advertising system that provides context-sensitive, extremely-low-key advertisements in an un-annoying way, and a backend system that allows any size company to competitively bid for ad placement in this system at a reasonable rate.
You're right, Google sucks, man! Fight the power!
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
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.
god damn son, that is some hard core own.
Excuse me while I go check my gmail and upload last weekend's pictures to Picasa...
I've got a 3.5 MHz Spectrum in the attic if they want that.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
The good news is that Google will make all cellphones better if they get into the race. The reason? Openness. From the beginning of time it seems the US carriers have locked down there phones so you can't do things like load MP3 songs and java applets to them without buying them online. They have the java networking locked down so you cannot connect to everything or use regular sockets (IE not web).
Right now companies like Verizon are panicking and racing to open there networks (IE http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=2552), if google gets spectrum it will be good for all because google will have lots of cool applications and programs on there phones, and the other carriers to even compete will have to open up there phones for development to everyone.
Also the 700mhz spectrum is a great place to be for a new network as you can get better coverage and need less cell density when your starting out.
-M
Google chose to announce this on a Friday to piss off Robert Cringely, who now has to wait an entire week to write wild speculations about Google's plans.
Right, like Google is going to pay 4.7 billion just to be nice and give free access to all. I don't think so. There must be some business model behind their decision. This is Google, they may not be evil, but they are still a business, and need to make money.
Judging buy their current model (Transparency for end users, but get lots of income from companies that advertise through them) I would pose the option that what they are making is ad based. Otherwise, they would have to charge the consumers, which would be a radical change to their normal business model.
As for the power limitation, I doubt that will be raised. Several reasons include:
1) Crazy / Paranoid people who make the law think that powerful wireless signals can and will melt your brain, and must be reduced.
2) Security: If someone finds an exploit and acts as a host / connection node, if they choose to exploit it for illegitimate reasons (eg: stealing passwords, credit cards, etc.), then the less area they can cover with their signal, the better. This of course can have problems if there is a mesh model in place, which would route other connections nodes to his client. Also, you don't want your data to be transmitted further than needed.(eg: If your using WEP, you don't want your signal covering 3 blocks, because it would be an invitation for people to join your network.)
3) Battery life: Whether Google plans to release a phone network (OHA) or a computer network, both laptops and cell phones run on batteries.
4) While High-Powered solutions are great if you are an isolated client, lots of interference and wireless noise is created when you have many high-powered clients in too close an area.
Let me sum up the business plan of Google, cause it's a variation of one that has been used for hundreds (maybe thousands) of years:
1. Buy large tract of undeveloped land in an area that is incredibly congested.
2. Invite people to propose ideas for the use of said land.
3. Charge the people with the best ideas for the priviledge of using the land.
4. Let idea people build on the land, charge for it.
5. Charge people who use the new infrastructure on the land.
6. When the idea gets old, evict the old idea people, and start over at Step 2.
Now, replace "land" with "Spectrum". Welcome to Money City, now owned by Google.
~Sticky
/Don't have a business plan? COME ON!!
//Seriously, DUH!
Yeah but... I'm not a huge fan of Google either, amazing technologies or not. First of all, their technologies aren't as effective in today's internet world as they were when they first started -- I'm spending more and more time weeding through meaningless results for things and my queries have only gotten more specific so I'd expect pretty accurate matches -- so I would say they should focus on quality and not quantity. In other words, make your search better. I'd love to take their advice and share their ideas about several ways they could do this, but they're cutesy little "help us improve" link they have takes me to a list of jobs that I'm not qualified for because I don't have a CS degree, relegating me to gripe about their problems in some Slashdot forum instead. Secondly, Google wants us to buy into the fact that even though they have the ability to abuse our information, that they won't because they adhere to some kind of moral principal. If that was really the case it seems they wouldn't store your search history indefinitely. They don't really need more than some simple information to effectively target ads to you, in other words they could purge your searches and retain only what they need to to target ads. But they don't. Even Microsoft and Yahoo purge their search histories more frequently. From what I understand, Google reserves the right to use this information to "profile" its users in the future. To paraphrase something I heard once from someone who works at EFF.org, your Google history is the closest thing in the digital world to what's in your brain. Google makes money off selling targeted ads. They are very good at it, look at their stock. This is how they can also try to pull off a bid on a part of a wireless spectrum valued as highly as $10 Billion. But each one of those dollars was made by showing you, albeit only slightly annoying, ads in response to your search queries. The difference between Google and bulk spammers is that Google actually provides a useful service. But as the quality of their search results deteriorates, hopefully the world will realize that they've spread themselves too thin and either force them to improve, or move onto someone else. Long live creative destruction. Google, I'll keep using your service if it's good. But if it starts to suck, I'll move on.
I'd start more here.
There are six 22MHz blocks in the 700MHz band up for auction. Each bidder bids on one or more 22MHz blocks. Note that the blocks are assigned for different purposes and larger and smaller geographic areas. Block C, for example is for regional uses, and therefore there will be several license winners for that particular 22MHz block, each winner coming away with a region. Block D is a nationwide license, so one winner gets use of that 22MHz block throughout the United States. Overall, there's 1099 available licenses with varying uses, modes, and geographic areas up for auction. The fact sheet gives a little more of a breakdown.
Here are the regions.
My guess is that Google will be going after block D, which is one licensee, with nationwide geographic coverage.
personally I think they should name it googleherz.
There are six blocks, two 12MHz, one 22MHz, one 6 MHz and one 10MHz.
corporations are bad! money is bad! spectrum is bad! it's nice to know there are so many self-employed philanthropists on /. would you guys get together in utopia and bid on this for the benefit of all mankind? please?
dunno, i'm willing to give google a chance on this one. there's NO WAY they can be as inept, immoral, incompetent and possibly inbred as the rest of the mobile carriers in the U.S.
I would like to thank you for making your toilet seat IP Open Source, so in the spirit of Open Source, I would like to submit a bug fix. In the next release of your toilet seat, put the exquisite cravings on the bottom of the seat. This will encourage your Windows using guests to 'lift' the seat, thus reducing the the amount of piss landing on the seat. This will also allow the top of the seat to be a smooth surface, making the user interface more comfortable for users when sitting, which is when the exquisite carvings would be obstructed from view anyways.
I eagerly await the official release of version 0.42 of Exquisite Toilet Seat.
Those services offered something like 2MB until Google provided real competition.