Friday, April 11, 2008

700 MHz - the gold mine of the FCC - and Google doesn’t get any.

Google has a nice blog article ( http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/cone-of-silence-finally-lifts-on.html is the URL ) on the spectrum auction that went on in jan/feb of this year.  This was for the 700MHz auction that Google promised to bid at least $4.6 billion for if the FCC would put 4 “open platforms” as part of the auction.  The FCC agreed to 2 of them.  (That information can be found here:  http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/07/our-commitment-to-open-broadband.html ) Even though FCC only agreed to 2, Google still bid more than the $4.6 billion minimum they said they would.

Here are a few highlights that I think are interesting…

“Google’s top priority heading into the auction was to make sure that bidding on the so-called “C Block” reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important “open applications” and “open handsets” license conditions. “

“But it was clear, then and now, that Verizon Wireless ultimately was motivated to bid higher (and had far more financial incentive ( http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/07/restoring-competitive-balance-to.html ) to gain the licenses).”

I believe that Verizon and others ended up paying $19,120,378,000 for 1090 licenses.  They were the ones back in July/Aug/Sept appealed the FCC’s open device and open platform order that the FCC agreed to with Google for the minimum bid.

For those of you that are not aware, the 700 MHz spectrum is the one that U.S. television stations are required to abandon by February 2009.  The 700 MHz spectrum is (according to this washington post article:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/20/AR2008032000048.html) is ideal for wireless broadband services.  “They travel 3-4 times further and penetrate obstacles such as buildings more easily than wireless signals in higher spectrum bands.”

FCC information on the auction can be found at their web site (Auction 73) at this location:  http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=73.  It covers TV channels 52-69 (see http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/data/bandplans/700MHzBandPlan.pdf ) for the Band plan. 

https://auctionbidding.fcc.gov/auction/index.htm?CFID=3628486&CFTOKEN=99789402&jsessionid=wTGjH1jc9NTpGJ5HLyMv0MZWn3m90l15hjtDLJVT9TJbNNrk286L!-1946843305!-1095684957!1207935996278 <-- go here for the full results.

Oh, and FYI, Lexington went to Cavalier Wireless and Frontier Wireless.  And, if you sort by amounts, Lexington went for a higher amount than Louisville did.