Google Confirms Intent To Bid for 700MHz Spectrum

narramissic writes "Today Google put an end to the 'will they or won't they' debate with the announcement that the company intends to join in the bidding for 700MHz wireless spectrum in late January. 'We believe it's important to put our money where our principles are,' Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. 'Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today's wireless world. No matter which bidder ultimately prevails, the real winners of this auction are American consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet.'"

Must have missed that debate?

[explosivejared (1186049)]

...put an end to the 'will they or won't they' debate...

I never saw any sound evidence put forth that they wouldn't bid on this spectrum. As far as I was concerned this was a sure thing. Here's to hoping they win the auction!

Re:Must have missed that debate?

[CaptainPatent (1087643)]

It's not that they're against innovation as much as crap like this. [slashdot.org]

Still Undecided

[immcintosh (1089551)]

I'm still undecided whether Google as a whole genuinely are agents of good in the corporate world or if it's just the spin they're clever at putting on things, but if the latter is the case... then damn they're good.

Re:Still Undecided

[physicsboy500 (645835)]

It honestly depends on your definition of good and evil. They are a corporation founded upon bringing information to you be it ads or otherwise. They make their money off of insane amounts of ad revenue so in that sense they're "bad," but at the same time, they do make very sure to only bring things to you that you may be interested in and this careful filtering is "good."

It really just comes down to viewpoint. If you like finding things for yourself and don't want anyone telling you anything about where and how to spend your money then google is "evil." If you like having them point out deals and lead you to companies that are selling what you want (similar to an errand boy doing some of your shopping and looking around for you) then they're "good."

The only potentially frightening thing about google is the power they have if some of their information gets into the wrong hands (i.e. Government Subpoena).

Re:

[Stewie241 (1035724)]

Except that Google has decided to be bound not just to the laws of the countries they operate in, but have also claimed and I believe attempted to operate to a higher standard. At least in some matters they ask themselves not only is something legal, but is it right.

They still make me nervous, but I believe they do a better job of being ethical than some of the other guys.

Bob Marley said it best

[BadAnalogyGuy (945258)]

Strike while the iron is hot.

Google is on fire now, and as far as the market is concerned, can do no wrong. There will not be any future time where Google will be able to put together the sort of money needed to make these types of investments.

But that doesn't mean they will succeed in their wireless plans. As cool as they are, the wireless spectrum is a well established area with not only wireless carriers already bumping against each other for more elbow room but also broadcast radio and television conglomerates. Google can't play David successfully forever. They may have done a great job on the web where they led the technology, but here they will be following and a look at their online office suite, it is clear that they are poor followers.

Re:Bob Marley said it best

[StickyWidget (741415)]

What wireless plans? Seriously, this is the modern equivalent of a land grab, buy up the largest tract of contiguous land you can, and sit on it until people come along and ask to use it for something. Google is buying the spectrum to let people come and make money using it. Sound familiar? Kinda like building a search engine and a fantastic intelligent ad system so that marketers can come and make money using it? And because they own it, they can charge a small fee('rent') to those who want to use the spectrum. Large amount of users, equals large amount of fees, which equals smaller fees for users and large profits for Google.

They have no wireless plans, it's all about the oldest fact of life in the book: Whoever controls the most territory wins. Google may develop a product or two, but the idea is that they will rent the 'land', and let people build on it. And in this kind of game, the guys with the best implementation, the best business plan, the best technological expertise, the best of breed software, and the best ideas will be able to use this spectrum to it's fullest extent. This is why I'm hoping Google gets the spectrum.

It's better than what the others will do. They will get the spectrum, they will define the protocols, they will build the chips and the antennas to interact with it, the software that can be deployed on it, the people they will allow to access it, all at 500% markup and no guarantee that everything is best of breed and a product of a free-market. Look at the history of Sprint, Qualcomm, Motorola, and the others, and you'll see what I mean.

~Sticky
/Looking to lease a piece of the spectrum to build dream house....

Help with the Wikipedia Article?

[AchiIIe (974900)]

Some time ago I started an article on wikipedia regarding the auction. It has not progressed much.

Could someone help please?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/700_Mhz_wireless_spectrum_auction [wikipedia.org]

Unfortunately there are many parts of it that I still don't understand.
* It seems that it comes with several 22Mhz blocks. '
* Are they saying the actual 22mhz band or are they saying the first 22mhz of the 700 mhz band
* Rules specify that it's split in four major areas, southeast, northeast, etc, what does this mean?
* What four original restrictions did google want on auction? Which two were granted?

Re:

[AchiIIe (974900)]

Thanks!
A few more questions:
* The FCC set a 4.6 Bln limit on the auction, if it did not reach the limit the restrictions would go away. Is this for each of the regional areas or is it 4.6 for all of them.
* Google is exptected to bid 4.6 B on the auction, Did they indicate if they would lean on certain areas more than the others?
* Thus it's still possible for google to bid more on certain regions, less on other regions. This could mean that someone else who bids more on the southeast would get the spectrum i

Re:

[darthflo (1095225)]

* The FCC set a 4.6 Bln limit on the auction, if it did not reach the limit the restrictions would go away. Is this for each of the regional areas or is it 4.6 for all of them.

From what I've heard, the FCC would not have auctioned the spectrum off if the $4.6bn minimum wouldn't have been reached. Google's two rules seem to have been established as an exchange for bidding $4.6bn.

* Google is exptected to bid 4.6 B on the auction, Did they indicate if they would lean on certain areas more than the others?

* Th

Oh If Only

[mpapet (761907)]

Having had only a tiny glimpse into the world of government contracting, I find it impossible to believe it will all come down to the price Google pays.

Some other /.'ers with contracting experience will probably back me up when I claim the price offered (or paid in this case) has nothing to do with winning a contract.

Re:Oh If Only

[squiggleslash (241428)]

This isn't really about winning contracts, this is an auction, just as it was for PCS and AWS. PCS was an unmitigated disaster precisely because the entire thing was "highest bidder wins". Swathes of spectrum were unused as they were owned by speculators, and no operators were ever able, in practice, to purchase spectrum in every market. The notion that the intent was to create usable mobile phone networks was simply not considered by the FCC, who were only interested in raising a huge amount of money, and used "free market" justifications for the ensuing chaos.

Gotcha

[neuromancer2701 (875843)]

The key here is that they have got the wireless companies where they want them even if they don't win the auction. If the other companies knew that Google was not going to bid on it then they would just wait for it expired and be put up without the requirements. Now Google assures themselves an open network even if they don't win because the other companies have to follow the requirements.

I'm more and more convinced ...

[ubrgeek (679399)]

... That google's purchase in the near future will be for a substantial plot of land (I'm talking miles by miles.) Their actions kind of remind me of Walt Disney's original plan for EPCOT - He wanted it to be the perfect '50s neighborhood (the Leave-it-to-Beaver kind, not necessarily realty.) They're looking at wireless, data centers, power/electrical considerations, gathering information on public transportation (google.com/transit). I don't know. Such a diverse set of items - some without direct revenue generation potential in the near future - is just strange. An attempt at a Utopia project (dear Lord, if it happens, don't "Gutopia") might not be realistic, but it's the only thing my (very) limited imagination can come up with...

That's what I call overclocking!

[giafly (926567)]

I've got a 3.5 MHz Spectrum [wikipedia.org] in the attic if they want that.

This is good news + google is smart

[mycal (135781)]

The good news is that Google will make all cellphones better if they get into the race. The reason? Openness. From the beginning of time it seems the US carriers have locked down there phones so you can't do things like load MP3 songs and java applets to them without buying them online. They have the java networking locked down so you cannot connect to everything or use regular sockets (IE not web).

Right now companies like Verizon are panicking and racing to open there networks (IE http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=2552 [phonescoop.com]), if google gets spectrum it will be good for all because google will have lots of cool applications and programs on there phones, and the other carriers to even compete will have to open up there phones for development to everyone.

Also the 700mhz spectrum is a great place to be for a new network as you can get better coverage and need less cell density when your starting out.

-M

Announcement Timing

[CopaceticOpus (965603)]

Google chose to announce this on a Friday to piss off Robert Cringely, who now has to wait an entire week to write wild speculations about Google's plans.

Re:

[Ash-Fox (726320)]

Google is not a hardware company.

They have been building Enterprise Google search appliances from as long as I can remember.

They should stick to what they are good at, which is being an ad distributer.

I think they're actually good at large scale projects, from search technologies to e-mail.

I believe this is a big mistake they are making.

I don't know enough of their 'plan' to call it a mistake or such and I don't think you can safely say that right now either.

Re:Why do they need wireless?

[dsginter (104154)]

What does Google plan to do with this spectrum?

Offer residential broadband-to-700mhz VoIP routers to customers who would, in turn, become cellular access points.

Just food for thought (there's a lot standing in the way of something like this). It would be nice to have privately-licensed spectrum available to the public because then we wouldn't be limited to 100 milliwatts.

Re:

[um_atrain (810963)]

Right, like Google is going to pay 4.7 billion just to be nice and give free access to all. I don't think so. There must be some business model behind their decision. This is Google, they may not be evil, but they are still a business, and need to make money.

Judging buy their current model (Transparency for end users, but get lots of income from companies that advertise through them) I would pose the option that what they are making is ad based. Otherwise, they would have to charge the consumers, which woul

Re:700MHz?

[squiggleslash (241428)]

Yes, it is. Part of the switch over to digital involves moving TV channels using the higher numbered channels to lower numbered channels, so that this spectrum can be made available.

There's oodles of TV spectrum available in part because there's never been enough interest in terrestrial broadcasting, and also because every single TV station in the US has been allocated two channels, one for their existing analog service, and one for the digital replacement. Once the analog spectrum goes away, 50% of the TV spectrum currently in use will become available.

One interesting oddity is that digital channels have "soft" numbers from an end-user point of view rather than being tied to the frequency they're allocated. For example, CBS broadcasts on channel 12 in analog here but digitally on channel 13, but both are numbered "12" on the TV. So TV channels broadcasting on the frequencies being removed may continue to appear in the same place on your "dial" even though those actual frequencies aren't even available any more, let alone in use. (This is by design, the aim being to help make the switchover as smooth as possible.)

Re:Principles?

[by Anonymous Coward]

My principle is this: if you come in my house, please don't piss all over my toilet seat. I take a great deal of pride in my toilet seats; I have several crafted from pure ivory, extracted from an elephant I shot myself. Covered in exquisite carvings, the detail is impressive, and many male guests appear to become distracted, and piss all over the seat. It really makes me angry!

I also have to mention that I have used the power of Linux and Open Source Software to solve this problem, but to no avail. I have written lengthy Bash scripts, tweaked my configuration files and even recompiled my kernel but this seems to be one area where the power of Linux and Open Source Software cannot help.

I would try Windows, but it does not have the power of Linux and Open Source Software, instead it is for the sheep who piss all over my toilet walls.

I mentioned Linux, can someone mod me up, please?

Re:PRINCIPLES?

[That's Unpossible! (722232)]

Seriously, you're going to try to reduce Google to this level?

First and foremost, they provide you with the best search results, and have done so for years, for free.

They provide an outstanding email system, with now 5GB of free space and growing, for free.

They provide one of the most amazing mapping systems ever, continually adding new, cutting edge features, for free, both on the web, on your phone and in Google Earth.

They provide office collaboration online apps in Google Docs (which I use almost every day with friends spread out across the globe), for free.

They provide a really great photo organizing software (Picasa) and even some space on their site to upload pictures to, for free.

They provide a place to share gigabytes of video with everyone on earth in Google Video and YouTube, for free.

And we're merely scratching the surface.

And you're going to try and reduce them to the level of "Madison Avenue hucksters"?

Oh, that's right, they developed a cutting edge advertising system that provides context-sensitive, extremely-low-key advertisements in an un-annoying way, and a backend system that allows any size company to competitively bid for ad placement in this system at a reasonable rate.

You're right, Google sucks, man! Fight the power!

Re:

[kcornia (152859)]

god damn son, that is some hard core own.

Excuse me while I go check my gmail and upload last weekend's pictures to Picasa...

Re:

[binaryspiral (784263)]

I'm not opposed to companies making money by any means, but let's at least be honest with ourselves that Google isn't doing this out of a sense of altruism.

If by making a sick amount of profit they can build and deploy a wireless service that is better, cheaper, and faster than any available from current suppliers - more power to them.