Wireless Auction Ends With Mixed Feelings

Macworld is reporting that the conclusion of the wireless auction has ended with many participants having mixed feelings. While bigger companies hailed it as a success, including Google who didn't actually bid to win but was able to get open access rules introduced, many smaller companies were left feeling that they were doomed from the start. "A former mail carrier, McBride has been trying his luck at FCC auctions since 1996. He said new rules for the auction favored large companies with deep pockets. For example, the FCC shortened the amount of time that the winners would have to build their networks. "All that did was prevent small businesses from coming in. They were scared of the build-out requirements," he said."

Reminds me...

I remember the US Army contract index had this little requirement for some filing cabinets to have "three letter names in the (can't recall) font" which of course limited the contracts to just IBM... until Commodore renamed itself Commodore Business Machines (CBM) and Digital became DEC.

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I remember the US Army contract index had this little requirement for some filing cabinets to have "three letter names in the (can't recall) font" which of course limited the contracts to just IBM... until Commodore renamed itself Commodore Business Machines (CBM) and Digital became DEC.

That's pretty much how earmarks and appropriations work.

Instead of naming a specific contractor/company, the law is written to include requirements that exclude everyone but your intended recipient. It's one of the maneuvers that makes sorting through spe

I didn't win either

I didn't win but I wanted open access. Why isn't everyone who didn't win but wanted open access a hero?

Re:I didn't win either

I didn't win either (Score:2)
by heroine (1220) Alter Relationship on Friday March 21, @10:37AM (#22821638) Homepage
I didn't win but I wanted open access. Why isn't everyone who didn't win but wanted open access a hero?

They have a different word for female heros.

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Perhaps because you and those like you weren't the main driver for getting that open access. Google petitioned to get the requirement put into the FCC rules, then bid large amounts of money to see it happen. It was a very smart move for Google and they had

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Could be worse. At least you are not an hero.

Breaking News!

Auctions favour those with more money at hand!

News at 11.

Who?

>A former mail carrier, McBride has been trying his luck at FCC auctions since 1996.

Darl, is that you?

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They're complaining that the auction favored the highest bidder. Yeah, that sounds like Darl's intellectual level.

so?

Who would want a small company to win a part of the spectrum? By definition, they wouldn't be able to use it universally for all Americans. If some New York only company bought it and never spread across the country or took 10 years to expand that large, the entire rest of the country wouldn't be able to use it immediately. But nationwide cellphone companies can implement it immediately to increase quality and number of available connections to a single tower for just about everyone everywhere. That's even important for when cell towers fail from too much traffic when everyone gets on their cell after an emergency like a natural disaster. That's way better than some company nobody's heard of making 10,000 wireless routers and tunrning great profits but effectively only being able to offer their product to 0.001% of America because of their limited size. That's like being a small patent troll company and sitting on some wonderful technology and not letting anyone else use it. Too bad cell companies are evil, greedy bastards.

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I agree totally. A small company in this situation is going to end up doing one of three things:

a) Roll out to a truly miniscule coverage area, probably bankrupting themselves when they're overlooked in favour of one that isn't a hare-brained startup sche

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i'm not sure, but i believe you license it by region, so your first reason is flawed (assuming i'm right, though). and nationwide cellphone companies will can *not* implement it *immediately*. they can implement it fairly quickly. definitely much more qu

Do you think they will simply not use it?

See, "they" (Big Communications) were rather afraid of what Google might do with it. It would mean a LOT of changes to them, not to mention unpredictable competition.

But now that these spectrum have been sold to them, might they then be inclined to simply

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i'm pretty sure they're required to use it within a certain timeframe.

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Since when do big companies do what they are 'required' to do if they believe it's in their best interests not to? Stalling tactics would likely come into play there... 'new technology testing and development' could take about as long as you can imagine..

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I think explaining to Wall Street why you just plunked down $19 billion for something you're not using would be a pretty tough sell.

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Wall Street doesn't have much in the way of a short term memory, let alone a long term memory. (If they did, it would be evidenced by their learning from their mistakes which they never seem to do.)

Mixed feelings?

Wireless Auction Ends With Mixed Feelings

Let's see now. I kinda like Google better since they got those open-access rules in ... and I still hate the Telcos.

Yep, mixed it is.

Really?

Like anything in the US, it's fixed to serve the rich, what else is new?

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Like anything in the US, it's fixed to serve the rich, what else is new?

Why pick on us? Like everything else in the world it's fixed to serve the rich, and will always be fixed to serve the rich. At least the Founders made more of an attempt to serve th

Speculation

For example, the FCC shortened the amount of time that the winners would have to build their networks. "All that did was prevent small businesses from coming in. They were scared of the build-out requirements," he said."

It probably also prevents speculators with no intention of building a network from camping on bandwidth in hopes of flipping it for a profit.

Trying to avoid the Nextwave fiasco.

In 95-96, the FCC bid out a bunch of frequencies, and there were special Congressional mandates to allow "small businesses" to compete - mainly, very little deposit. Nextwave bought up a whole lot of licenses, and other companies did as well. Then the market took a downturn, and the value of the licenses dropped, and a lot of the participants declared bankruptcy. In Nextwave's case, the FCC "repossessed" the licenses for non-payment, but it was reversed by the court, and Nextwave was given relief. Then the business cycle turned again, and the licenses were worth 3x as much as Nextwave paid for them. The speculation was that they were going to sell them off for an insane profit. The word around the communications industry was they were really just a shell company and never intended to build, just to sell them off later. It looks like they kept the frequencies and are rolling out WiMax on it - *10 YEARS* after the frequencies were auctioned.

The construction provisions are there to make sure that the spectrum actually gets used and not held as an investment. In addition, most S/W/DBE's that get involved in government doings are a fraud: 50.5% of the company is "owned" by a woman, who just happens to be the wife of the CEO and owner of the other 49.5%. Or construction "general contractors" who hire's a "prime subcontractors" - i.e the real general contractor - to do 100% of the scope. Their price to the government? The price that the GC bid plus 1%. So on a $10,000,000 Baltimore City school job, some guy sitting in an office made $100,000, never set foot on site, and never dealt with the city or the other subcontractors.

There is a Nextwave in existence now, but if the WiMax service they are

How long do the licenses last?

First, let me point out that it appears you accidentally submitted before you had finished the full text of your post. It just kind of ends mid-sentence.

Anyhow, I've wondered, are spectrum auctions time-limited, or for posterity? If I were the government,

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The FCC isn't stupid, they know who is going to do productive things with the airwaves

Which is kind of a silly remark. The hares in the U.S. (i.e. the big cellular outfits) have done far less with the spectrum they have than their counterparts in other

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I don't think that fits in this case. The smaller companies are more nimble and can adapt faster. So, they are the hare. The large companies are still slow to change and can't get anything done quickly, so they are the tortoise. The only difference now