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

Must have missed that debate?

[explosivejared]

...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!

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.

Re:Still Undecided

[physicsboy500]

It honestly depends on your definition of good and evil. They are a corporation founded upon bringing information to you be it ads or otherwise. They make their money off of insane amounts of ad revenue so in that sense they're "bad," but at the same time, they do make very sure to only bring things to you that you may be interested in and this careful filtering is "good."

It really just comes down to viewpoint. If you like finding things for yourself and don't want anyone telling you anything about where and how to spend your money then google is "evil." If you like having them point out deals and lead you to companies that are selling what you want (similar to an errand boy doing some of your shopping and looking around for you) then they're "good."

The only potentially frightening thing about google is the power they have if some of their information gets into the wrong hands (i.e. Government Subpoena).

Bob Marley said it best

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

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....

Gotcha

[neuromancer2701]

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.

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:Principles?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Oh If Only

[squiggleslash]

This isn't really about winning contracts, this is an auction, just as it was for PCS and AWS. PCS was an unmitigated disaster precisely because the entire thing was "highest bidder wins". Swathes of spectrum were unused as they were owned by speculators, and no operators were ever able, in practice, to purchase spectrum in every market. The notion that the intent was to create usable mobile phone networks was simply not considered by the FCC, who were only interested in raising a huge amount of money, and used "free market" justifications for the ensuing chaos.

Re:PRINCIPLES?

[That's Unpossible!]

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!

This is good news + google is smart

[mycal]

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

Announcement Timing

[CopaceticOpus]

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.