Slashdot Mirror
The $10 Billion Poker Game Begins
Hugh Pickens writes "Monday was the deadline for potential bidders to file with the Federal Communications Commission over the auction of the 700-megahertz band, a useful swath of the electromagnetic spectrum that is being freed up by the move to digital television. Once bidders file they become subject to strict 'anticollusion' rules that in effect prohibit participants from discussing any aspect of their bidding until the auction is over. The next official word will be late December or mid-January, when the FCC announces who has been approved to bid. The auction will start on January 24. Participants will use an Internet system to enter bids on any of 1,099 separate licenses that are being offered (pdf). Most coveted seems to be the C block, 12 regional licenses that can be combined to create a national wireless network. This is the spectrum Google is presumed to be most interested in. The bidding will be conducted in a series of rounds (pdf)."
Once bidders file they become subject to strict 'anticollusion' rules that in effect prohibit participants from discussing any aspect of their bidding until the auction is over.
It's very hard to prove that you did not collude with someone. If AT&T wins, and a year later it turns out they had a secret deal with Verizon, what happens? Will the license be revoked? Or will AT&T successfully argue about the need to "put the past behind us"?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Sniping, anyone?
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Did we ever pass an ammendment that granted the federal government the right to regulate the electromagnetic spectrum? I don't speak legalese but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't put in there when the Constitution was written.
Hardly threatening, since you can't even match the Ante, let alone the small blind.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It is considered a natural resource ... just like land. Other countries do the same thing.
There are portions of the spectrum that are free to use for certain non-commercial uses. Amateur radio bands, family radio bands, bands that are open to experimenters, Citizen Band radio, etc. Each comes with certain restrictions as to use and power output. Most have commercial restrictions.
So if there were no fee to use the spectrum, how would you choose the winner?
You cannot just let everyone use it -- there would be a lot of interference.
Bids are exclusively via the internet, and Google probably has enough smart people and resources to intercept a few packets from other bidders....
Why don't they allocate the space to a certain communication technology with established rules for non-interference and then open it up any company to compete? (think wifi) Why should one company have a monopoly on a wavelength? (think broadcast TV/radio) With sophisticated and (relatively) inexpensive packetization and multiplexing available, is there any real need for single-operator wavelength allocation any more? This seems so... early 20th century.
There's more than one round. $4.6 billion is merely the minimum you have to be able to front in order to be allowed to bid in the first place.
How many times does this need to be asked?
The government owns the airwaves.
Whether or not you like it, it's true.
You SHOULD like it, though, because it ensures things WORK.
It keeps people from stepping on each other's toes, and it keeps our communications working.
But hey - lets open up the spectrum. Information wants to be free. It's working great for the internet.
Can you imagine what would happen if airwaves were open?
People would set up towers in their yards and rent the bandwidth to advertisers.
You'll be getting spam on every tv channel, radio station, and phone call.
Your existing devices will cease to function.
Air traffic control will be screwed.
Fire and Police departments will essentially be DOSd.
The military will have HUGE problems.
Legally, it tends to fall under interstate commerce.
Practically, it tends to fall under really freaking important.
People who say we should open it up and just use multiplexing / packeting / encryption really don't understand what they're talking about. If you allow people to openly use these frequencies, they will openly compete by cranking up the power. No amount of tricky signal manipulation will save you from some jerk with a bigger tower than you. If you want to send something from A to B, and someone builds a tower right in the middle, you're screwed.
And worse than that is the fact that, when they're money involved, people will crack encryption and circumvent other controls. Just imagine being able to hijack a TV broadcast during the commercials. You can replace the ads broadcast by the tv station with ads you broadcast, supplied by the same sleazy scum sending spam.
A truly free-market stance would open up the spectrum to all, and let the strongest signals win.
O gee... that's a brilliant idea! We'll have cell towers broadcasting over each other. Ever been in a midway point between two radio stations broadcasting on the same frequency? Sure, the phase locked loop will lock on one or the other, but what happens when you pass off from one cell to another and there is no way to guarantee that you will get picked up on the next cell. There is also no guarantee that in the middle of the conversation somebody else won't power up stronger and your call will get dropped.
Add to that the fact that the spectrum license presumably would include limits as to transmission power for safety and other reasons. Let's just shoot very very high power microwaves every where and see what happens.
Strongest signal wins doesn't work in the cell phone/wireless industry. Otherwise, the company with the most money could just put up signal generators cranking out radio waves to prevent anybody else from using a channel until they were ready to roll out infrastructure.