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Google Ends Silence On C Block Auction
Phurge found a post on the Google Policy Blog in which they lift the cone of silence that had been imposed by regulation over the recently concluded FCC spectrum auction. As some had speculated, Google was in it mainly to force some openness into the wireless industry. "Based on the way that the bidding played out, our participation in the auction helped ensure that the C Block met the reserve price. In fact, in ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid — even though no one was bidding against us — to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block. In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the US Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would be applied to the ultimate licensee."
So they artificially bumped up the price to make AT&T and Verizon have to pay more?
Very nice!
Interesting move on googles part, seems like a lot of work for nothing however. Maybe they are trying to pave the way for their new google phone, piggy-backing on somebody elses network?
The real take away from this press release is that Google is expecting that the first phones based on Android will be released later this year. That is good news for those who are interested in open platforms and enjoy hacking. link
I wonder how happy Verizon's stockholders are going to be when they find out that Google was bidding up the price for essentially no reason at all and Verizon jumped in on top of that. not too bad, it seems
From TFA:
"As you probably know by now, Google didn't pick up any spectrum licenses in the auction. Nonetheless, partly as a result of our bidding, consumers soon should have new freedom to get the most out of their mobile phones and other wireless devices."
also,
"But it was clear, then and now, that Verizon Wireless ultimately was motivated to bid higher (and had far more financial incentive to gain the licenses)."
Now, if they pushed Verizon to bid higher to win the contract won't they just charge the end users more?
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
Slashdot believes whatever google says; all other corporations lying scum.
Film at 11.
Helping pay off the National Debt. What will they take credit for next?
It seems logical the telcos will try to hamper the unwanted participants on their network, just like they did with the DSL resellers. Nothing like being the operator.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Yeah, I believe the company wants to, and does good things. But let's face it, they're in it to make their shareholders money, not save the world.
If they can save the world in the process, then good, but they're in it for the buck... and IMO that's the way it should be. I don't want a nanny for a company, I want them to make me shit to play with.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Don't you get banned from eBay for doing that?
...wouldn't such a move be considered unethical?
I think google is overstepping its boundaries in protecting "our" interests.
In fact, in ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid -- even though no one was bidding against us -- to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block. In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the US Treasury ...
But ultimately the winners are going to have to make their money back by sticking it to the consumer. The bidding system is basically a government tax on something that's free, the airways. So the revenues Google so kindly helped raise for the Feds are ultimately gonna be paid for by the end user.
... the winning company actually *implements* the "intended" level of openness and has it in their terms-of-use section in their contracts.
A popular thing for telecoms to do these days seems to be re-interpreting words in contracts. "Unlimited access" is re-interpreted to mean "Unlimited connection time", even though there are at most 744 hours per month. "Unlimited internet service" is re-interpreted to mean "unlimited, as long as you don't transfer more than XXGB a month". I don't even want to get into what Comcast redefined to get their computer-impersonating policies to fly. Companies are redefining words like it's going out of fashion.
Google may be cheering and patting each other on back for a job well done, but to be honest, I don't think they've achieved anything they've set out to do. All they've done is get the FCC to say "Oh yeah, and the network must be open to other devices", while everyone nods "M-hm, oh yes of course" while looking at their toes.
Going so far as telling everyone how clever they were the first opportunity allowed seems a bit premature. The network's not up, the company's services aren't for sale, the consumer-end terms-of-use contracts aren't drafted, so what exactly are they cheering about when they got a telecom company to say "Okay, we'll 'allow' 'open' 'devices' and 'open' 'applications'"?
It's always good to see someone admit when they're being deceitful.
In the US, it's okay to lie, as long as you admit it later.
Uhhhhhhh yeah right.
"Really, we just bid billions of dollars for something we didn't really want out of the goodness of our hearts. Honestly, we didn't even want it, that's the real reason why we didn't win. Really. Come on. I mean it."
I think Google generally has a lot of good intent, but this claim smells like BS to me.
Kinda, but they were bidding primarily to make it so that the block was "open and free". It just so happens the thing the wanted to have didn't cost them any money in the end.
Just curious how the Google=Evil crowd feels about this move on google's part? Haven't seen it mentioned so far.
And now we see exactly how the US telecom market is designed to push operating costs above a high threshold that only giant corps can afford, to keep anyone but the limited number of incumbent competitors out of the market. Even a rich newcomer like Google finds its only option is to wiggle within the rules to try to force some of those "usual suspects" into throwing some openness crumbs back a the market.
--
make install -not war
Someone's been reading The Art of War :)
I've gotta ask, what the hell is this? just spam or what.
> But ultimately the winners are going to have to make their money back by sticking it to the consumer. The bidding system is basically a government tax on something that's free, the airways. So the revenues Google so kindly helped raise for the Feds are ultimately gonna be paid for by the end user.
Then just making money is evil because money has to come from somewhere.
Anyhow, the openness they bought with this is more than worthwhile to me. They're breaking down one of the main monopoly barriers that causes the US to get services and prices that are completely inferior to the rest of the civilized world.
Because if they won the nationwide C block, they could enact "open applications" and "open handsets" rules themselves. The government wasn't going to stop them from using their shiny new nationwide C block if their lower bid was the final bid.
Yes, they bid the spectrum up to the threshold, but it went far beyond that. Further, they stood to have to make good on their bids. And, of course, they were not the owner of the airwaves, so the bidding can only be though of as foolishness. One should wonder more why the government "allowed" such self-raising bids in their auction - it's never done in a traditional auction format.
As for yuour concern, it's true that the winners will need to charge more to make back the money, but in reality it's a small fraction of their operating costs. I suspect they pay out a higher percentage to their retailers (who do excactly nothing for that money after the customer walks out the door) than they do for this spectrum.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
They gave the government extra money. Now, somebody can do a Google SketchUp Pro of an enlarged treasury vault.... with all the nifty little details...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
No, shill bidders are in the employ of the seller. Since Google WOULD actually have to buy the licenses if they had won at that price, they were simply risking more and more money in order to drive the price up. Not even ebay would oppose that.
As anyone who has ever seen Get Smart will tell you, the Cone of Silence never works.
According to your link, Google would've had to be working with the FCC for it to be shilling.
They are always breaking my game.
This is in response to several posts here concerning whether the auction costs are going to affect the consumer costs.
The biggest question is how much competition they will have. This newly reallocated spectrum will primarily be used for some sort of wireless broadband. The bandwidth available will make existing 2G, 3G wireless technologies look like a joke, so these are not serious competitors. It will overlap with the hardline broadband market somewhat, so there will be some competition there. But the largest competition will come from other wireless broadband providers. IE the various companies that picked up chunks of spectrum in this last auction are by and large the only ones that will be major players in this new market.
Now if there was no competition whatsoever, then Verizon would charge whatever the market would bear, and would continue doing so long after they had recouped whatever sunk costs they had. However, there is going to be some competition, so they won't be able to get away with this completely.
If there was fierce competition, they might continue lower their prices to meet the competitors with no regard to the short-term affect on recouping their investment, just to get marketshare in the hope it will generate more revenue in the future. But this is unlikely to happen either, given the limited number of players.
Their competitors will have their own sunk costs, and shareholders that are eager to see a return on this investment. How low they are willing to go in a price war will absolutely take this into consideration. So raising the price of one bidder would not effect the final price to the consumer that much, and a company that insanely overbid would suffer in the stock market eventually. But raising the floor price for all the bidders would have an effect on the price to the consumer.
Without knowing more details about how Google placed it's bids in the C-Block once the reserve was met, then it is hard to know how many companies were affected by it.
Is that treasury vault where the government keeps the paperwork from their debts to China?
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I have often wondered when dealing with eBay auctions: What's the point of a reserve price? Why not just start the bidding at the reserve price, particularly when it's public knowledge?
Also (almost off topic but on topic as the result of replying to parent's comment), why are the "Reply to This" links drawn like buttons? I usually middle click on that link so I can compose my comment in a new tab while referring back to the full discussion. I wasn't sure that was going to work since middle clicking a button is not a standard action. Fortunately, the button is not really a button.
Which reminds me of a practical joke I played on my brother years ago. I opened some windows on his computer, took a screenshot, closed the windows, and set the screenshot as the background. It took a reboot before he realized why none of his programs were responding.
...would have been NO auction, and the FCC just opening it up "for the people" to start building out a universal wireless mesh network. All these auctions are just going to make already rich and powerful corporations richer, and keeping the people tied to their "services". They already got to own all the other spectrum, and all the publicly subsidized copper they strung up over the last century and change, let them do something constructive with that.
Especially since the wireless market has actual, fierce competition
Competition is actually extremely weak- everyone offers pretty much the same "minutes" and $ for said "minutes". Carriers then make their money on hidden fees and varying out-of-plan airtime charges and such. Among other things, if you go over your minutes, it costs you FORTY FIVE CENTS A MINUTE with AT&T, and that's JUST for AIRTIME!
Please help metamoderate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't consider that a good thing. It won't cause the US government to take less of anybody's money, and it will make it easier for the US government to take actions which I consider wrong.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
This is exactly how I sound when I lose an eBay auction that I really wanted to win. "Ha! I really didn't want that rare comic after all. I was just sticking it to those other suckers that beat me." *whimper*
I once heard it comes originally from a Yiddish term for a person who makes furniture with an axe. B-)
...)
My own preferred definition of (computer {software}) hacker has been "A person who is able to achieve exceptional (programming) results using skill, tenacity, and intelligence, if necessary substituting those personal characteristics for lack of (software development) tools."
Similarly for computer hardware hacker. Also for some other skill sets (typically engineering-related) that don't already have some other definition for "hack(er)". (I.e. not writing, golf,
Just as being a (sea) pirate implied being a sailor and being a cattle rustler implied being a cowboy (but not the other way around), being a (computer) cracker once implied being a (computer) hacker (but not the other way around). That changed with the distribution of cracking tools which allowed the unskilled to play. So now a small subset of crackers are also hackers (just as the crackers among hackers has always been a subset).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You are wrong.