Slashdot Mirror
T-Mobile Spends $8 Billion as Big Winner of FCC Auction (cnet.com)
T-Mobile, Dish Network and cable giant Comcast emerged as the big winners in the government's wireless spectrum auction. From a report: The Federal Communications Commission announced the winners of its $19.8 billion spectrum auction Thursday. T-Mobile spent $8 billion in the auction and won the biggest number of licenses, according to the FCC. Dish Network was in second, committing $6.2 billion, and Comcast spent a total of $1.7 billion. Verizon, which had committed ahead of time to participating in the auction, did not bid, the FCC said. The broadcast incentive spectrum auction has been one of the agency's most complex and ambitious auctions to date. The auction, which began last year, was conducted over two major stages. A so-called backwards auction took place last year in which TV broadcasters agreed to give up wireless spectrum that the government later sold in a so-called forward auction to wireless providers.
Maybe this is good, T-Mobile might have better coverage and be better able to compete with Verizon for people that need that. Verizon not getting any new spectrum has to be good for competition.
Verizon is swimming in spectrum that they aren't even using, why would they go and buy even more?
I read the internet for the articles.
Because they're not a "they," they're part of "us" and it is something that we own so stop trying to covet it as if it was just yours personally. You're not King, and neither is anybody else. Get over it.
Doubt it when the stock triples in 2 years
Instead of buying up the spectrum, this should be done as licenses that can be renewed, provided conditions are met. If you're buying up a limited resources, and there's only so much wireless spectrum available, the government (read: the people) should get to heavily restrict how those resources are used. That means enforcing net neutrality and prohibiting data caps. In the case of wired connections, there is usually room for a lot more infrastructure, and the transmission medium is privately owned rather than a public resource. In either case, net neutrality should be enforced, because it also raises issues about competition. But in the case of the wireless spectrum, the public should get to ban data caps and because the businesses are using a limited resource that really belongs to the public.
I'm on T-Mobile. As long as this doesn't' result in my rates getting jacked it means their service might finally be AT&T/Verizon level. Heck, even if you're not on T-Mobile it's good news. Spotty coverage is what keeps a lot of folks off T-Mobile and reduces their ability to compete. Now if we can just stop these mega mergers we'll have some real competition.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It's basically extortion.
Just like most of what they do.
Are you really that thick, or are you just pretending?
Divide it equally among all taxpayers (people who actually pay in, not just those who file and get handouts).
They did not SELL it. It belongs to the USA and is licensed to these carriers. If they abuse or misuse or don't use it, it can in theory, be taken away from them.
Sig for hire.
http://www.nationaldebtclocks....
The government uses the free market to resolve access to a rivalrous good like radio spectrum, yet some libertarian crank still complains.
Rivalrous & Excludable: Private goods (food, clothing, cars, parking spaces)
Rivalrout & Non-excludable: Common-pool resources (fish stocks, timber, coal)
Non-rivalrous & Excludable: Club goods (cinemas, private parks, satellite television reception)
Non-rivalrous & Non-excludable: Public goods (free-to-air television reception, air, national defense)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That depends on your interpretation of Citizens United v. FEC
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
We could operate a lottery system. Everyone applies and we draw names out of a hat. A big business like Sprint/Verizon/AT&T/T-mobile would end up with different pieces of the spectrum every year (or however frequently you operate the lottery). But it would be at no cost.
Such a system would probably destroy big carriers and favor independent carriers, but small carriers likely would have difficulty raising capital for expansion or improvements and they would need an industry organization to standardize inter-operation.
I just want to point out there are multiple ways to handle this problem, and all carry advantages and disadvantages. It is inaccurate to assume the current process is the only way to do this.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire