Slashdot Mirror
Spectrum Auction Could Be A Game of Chicken
Ardvark writes "Google promised some time ago to bid at least the reserve price for the C block of 700Mhz spectrum if the FCC accepted its demand for an open access rule for devices using the band, which the FCC did over Verizon's objections. If the reserve price is not met the rule will be dropped and the block re-auctioned. It appears now that bidding has stalled just short of the reserve price. It's assumed that Google has no interest in becoming a cell phone company and with a recession looming the 700MHz spectrum now seems worth a whole lot less. If Google's strategy was to force the bidding above the reserve but still lose the auction, Verizon could be calling their bluff, threatening them to live up to their word and buy what to Google could be the equivalent of a $4.6 billion 'doohickey.'" Update: 01/31 16:01 GMT by Z : And just like that, the plot thickens: the C block has hit the reserve price during bidding.
I'm not surprised that US companies aren't falling over themselves to bid.
Take a look at what happened in the UK when the 3G air was up for sale - they threw money at it and ended up with next to no customers.
With the way things are economically at the moment, people are not looking to up their monthly spend on their mobile phone bill. Companies will have a hard time recouping a huge outlay.
simon
The telecoms can take the heat for being heartless monopolies, for providing terrible service at a high price, and for leveraging their monopolies to avoid upgrading their taxpayer-financed infrastructure.
They can't, however, be accused of not doing what will profit them the most in the short term.
In this case, they've collectively called Google's bluff. I don't see Google having $4.6B in spare cash, to purchase the spectrum they have no idea how to make money on. This is a tough spot for Google, because not only do they stand to lose their coveted "shared spectrum" rule, but they also stand to lose much of their perceived invulnerability on the market.
I bet they're just waiting. 30 seconds before it ends all their auction sniper programs will bid it up another 30%.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Too bad there are no jobs, and the houses are way too expensive.
Virtually all middle-class job fields are either stalled, or firing... and as far as the real estate market goes, here's a story.
In 1995, about 50% of Nassau county (Long Island, NYC metro area) residents could afford to purchase the homes they were living in, given market price. In 2005, that number was down to about 5%. Yes, we have had spectacular success in destroying the middle class. At least they're scared of being poor, so they keep on working.
As George Carlin noted (albeit a hyperbole): "The middle class pays all the taxes, and does all the work. And the poor are just there to scare the shit out of the middle class".
First, go here https://auctionsignon.fcc.gov/signon/index.htm Then put in Auction number 73 under public access... then click go. According to this, they are at a total of $11.5 billion now for the total... next round starts in ten minutes.
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
I trust Google will not let us down. They are just waiting to see if they can get it for 4.6 instead of 4.7 Billion.
And then when they get it they will build out a solar powered wireless network that will offer broadband everywhere. Not only that it will be free and be faster than FIOS. It will be IPv6 so every user can have their own block of static IPs and it will smell like home made cookies and be as warm as a puppy.
Yea that is it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Whatever Google is maneuvering to do, they're probably more likely to employ the kind of people who know how to play the game than Verizon is. Whatever Google is trying to achieve, my money's on them. (Well, not really; I don't have any GOOG shares.)
FIOS isn't "good" because it's a good service. FIOS is only "good" because this is Verizon's final "fuck you" to the taxpayers that helped fund its infrastructure, and an open attempt to become a totally unregulated monopoly. You see, they HAD TO lease the copper lines, because FCC mandated it. They don't have to share the fiber optics. As a result, they've been busy building the fiber network that would cement them as a monopoly, while completely ignoring troubles with their copper... leveraging the reduction in the quality of service over the copper lines, to attract people to the fiber.
The article summary is garbage, or should I say simply wrong?
Google set 4 conditions it wanted to see. The FCC agreed with 2 of them, so Google is faced with half a glass. (Yes I know the Engineer's view of half a glass.) I don't recall them saying they'd bid reserve to ensure only half of their wishes.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
they called it "seward's folly"
it was a joke. why did we spend $7 million on some permafrost again?
same with anyone who doubts the value of this auction
i can't see why a monopoly on a prime band of communication spectrum can't be anything but pure gold. there's only so much spectrum, but more and more people and more need for communication tech every day
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And no new bids. Watch it in REAL TIME: https://auctionbidding.fcc.gov/auction/results/results.htm
SmartBox
The reason they had to lease the copper, was the original copper infrastructure was gov subsidized. The fiber costs are being eaten completely by Verizon, and while I am sure there are some tax breaks involved, there is no subsidy from the gov, state or local. Surprisingly though, the service itself is great, I have had very few problems, (yes there are some that had horrible installs and could never get some things working), the only issue I have is with the billing department which I have to call every month to get the appropriate triple play discount credited to my account since their system keeps losing it, and their CS.. it is abysmal and thats me being nice to them. The install actually was pleasant, and its not subcontracted like comcasts installers, they get paid hourly, not by the number of jobs they get done, so whether they do 5 installs in a day, or spend all day at your house rewiring your internal cable infrastructure, they get paid the same.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
That the bidding often stalls in the middle of the auction, and picks up like crazy near the end. This isn't ebay of course, but it's certainly an example of auction behavior to pay attention to.
This auction will go on for months, and we're at the one week mark now?
Anyone who says Google is "bluffing", or the price won't go up is full of it. Google may not bid as much as they say, they may, someone else might bid more, or who knows? It's just way to early to be saying much of anything about the auction, what the different strategies are, and who will win.
AccountKiller
If Google wins, and they don't know what else to do with it, I think they should release their block of the 700 MHz bandwidth under the GPL.
It would be worth it just to see approximately a million dorks have their heads explode as they endlessly debate what it means to copyright bandwidth.
Here's the link for status
http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=73
Under Results click: View Auction Results (buttheads are using javascript for linking so no direct linking possible).
Please note it wants you to run some java. I clicked no and everything runs fine.
Victory shall be mine!
Lemme see. Reserve is 4.6B, bid is 4.3B. 6.5% difference, 300M. If I were buying a rusty old Duster for $600, this would be a difference of $40.
Obviously this is just gamesmanship.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The NY Times blog was just useless speculation from yesterday:
https://auctionbidding.fcc.gov/auction/home/announcementDetail.htm?ann_id=402
Announcement
1/31/2008 11:00:41 AM
C Block Reserve Price Met in Round 17
At the conclusion of Round 17, the provisionally
winning bids for the C Block licenses exceeded the
aggregate reserve price of $4,637,854,000 for the
block.
Basically, it's a tool to stimulate bidding. In a typical auction, the seller is obligated (by contract or at least good faith) to sell the item to the highest bidder. A reserve allows the seller to hedge her/his bets by defining a window between the minimum bid and the reserve in which a they're not required to sell, but do have the option. Often the reserve is not disclosed since bidders might be turned away by sticker shock.
More importantly, the Spectrum is a limited resource. Even if you can't capitalize on it, you can be sure that someone in the future will want to use it, especially these bands with favorable RF propagation.
The problem with 3G isn't the band it is in, it's the fact that the hardware is still expensive and power hungry, which makes it less than ideal for the intended purpose of being used in smartphones. Give it a few years and you'll likely see considerable growth on that chunk of the spectrum as the chipsets improve and people grow more data hungry (and they always grow more data hungry).
I read the internet for the articles.
Since hitting the reserve price brings more clarity, wouldn't it be more accurate to say "the plot thins"?
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
All the other telcom companies companies come under a massive DOS attack from the middle east / central asia and google wins at reserve price. :)
they can rent it out if they win it. as in beer. they could throw it open to all carriers using an open GSM platform using whatever flavor of G3 data they like so it's fully world-compatible.
there's an idea that should have "it's MY network, and all these guys behind me will beat you if you disagree" shivering.
yes, bring your BT, NTT, Korean phone over here with you. it will work. every time you hit send, two cents to Google for use of the C block airwaves. one cent if the home phoneco had built the network in that regional area.
profit per click. no investment in the backbone. that's something they know about.
it can work.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
...and people grow more data hungry (and they always grow more data hungry) Nah, people are fine as long as you remember these simple rules:- Keep them away from bright light
- Don't get any water on them
- Never, never ever feed them data after midnight
Google can't talk about the auction until it's all over so anybody without insider information only knows that Google might or might not get the spectrum which we've known for months. Really, the only new information available is how much the spectrum cost and that the open access rules are a certainty--but this was widely expected any way. So I don't see any reason why Google's stock should move right now because of the auction.
It's due to the difference between gigadollars and gibidollars. Blame the hard disk manufacturers.
"The top 1%" is precisely the ambiguity I seek to refute. This term is often misused to refer to those with the highest net worth, whereas Limbaugh's results are based on income.
I personally distinguish wages from salary, i.e., I define wages as trading hours for money. Salaried employees, like the executives you mention, are most certainly not paid by the hour. Many of those are paid a relatively low base salary, with quarterly bonuses based on easily attainable goals. Look more closely, and recall that the media has little interest in explaining everything: it requires more of an attention span, and makes it harder to cut up the programming to fit in between the advertisements. Plus it's far more attention-getting to shout simple phrases.
No, those with multimillion dollar compensation packages are not middle class... or are they? Is class defined by income, or by lifestyle, or simply by subjective perception? To which class does the retired janitor who has saved more than a million dollars belong? How about the trust fund kid who lives in a crack house?
There are many who earn six figures who would probably be judged to be "middle class" because of their lifestyles and their investment strategies. I judge it as distraction to focus on who is paying more taxes. What I'm interested in is what is being done with the taxes.
"Press to test."
(click)
"Release to detonate."