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Google a "Happy Loser" In Spectrum Auction
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Mar 20, 2008 04:48 PM
from the status-quo-pretty-much-ante dept.
from the status-quo-pretty-much-ante dept.
Large cell service providers won almost all of the licenses in the recently concluded FCC spectrum auction. Google didn't get any and won't be entering the wireless business. Verizon Wireless was the big winner, laying out $9.4 billion for enough regional licenses in the "C" block to stitch together nationwide coverage, except for Alaska. On this spectrum Verizon will have to allow subscribers to use any compatible wireless device and run any software application they want. AT&T paid $6.6 billion, Qualcomm picked up a few licenses, and Paul Allen's Vulcan Spectrum LLC won a pair of licenses in the "A" block. One analyst called Google a "happy loser" because it got the openness it had pushed for. The AP's coverage does some more of the numbers.
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Technology: Google Ends Silence On C Block Auction 162 comments
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."
[+]
Mobile: Verizon Reveals Plans For "C Block" Airwaves 54 comments
eldavojohn writes "Now that Verizon has beaten Google in the 'block C' spectrum auction, what are they going to do with it? Well, as of today they've revealed their plans for world domination: they plan to speed up wireless internet connections. It may come as no surprise that they'll also be making this available for other manufacturer's devices. AT&T plans to do the same with their auction winnings, 'AT&T was second to Verizon, winning $6 billion in spectrum licenses, which it also plans to use for high-speed Internet service. But its executives said they didn't bid for the portion subject to the open-access rules. The parts it did land cost AT&T nearly three times as much per unit of spectrum than the portion Verizon bought.'"
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Android (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Android (Score:5, Funny)
"Oh sorry, internet acccess requires our patented "poopboost" technology. and we are not ready to license it yet. it's only available on verizon licensed phones."
You bet your arse they will do everything they can to lock you into their crap-phones with everything disabled. They will find a loophole, they hate the customer that much
.
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Re:Android (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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Corporate Culture (Score:5, Insightful)
While I understand your point and agree with to a certain point, my experience has been that corporations or their divisions or other business entities develop a corporate culture that is more than the sum of its parts. Individually, the people in it can be quite nice away from the office, but when they are in the workplace, they become part of the entity. A couple I have seen (and thank all gods never worked for) were run like Nazi concentration camps. They hated everybody, and the places were run on total fear. More commonly, you do see businesses that have a culture of looking at their customers as victims to be abused. You can go to work in such a place as the nicest guy in the world, but if you stay long enough, the hive mind will take you over, and you'll start abusing grandmothers. Fortunately, most of us will quit such a place before we're too badly damaged.
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Re:Android (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Android (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, if it weren't for a company trying to "circumvent" monopoly regulations, there would never have been a "Berkley Standard Distribution." So I suppose sometimes good can come from their "evil" ways.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the actions of a particular corporation, should not be viewed in a good or evil way, but rather from the standpoint of a completely amoral and dispassionate entity who seeks to maximize his profits.
You assert this but give no reason for it. And to a lot of people (I'd venture to say _most_ people), seeking to maximize profits without considering the other repercussions of your actions can easily be evil (depending on the actions it leads you to take).
The rational (i.e. profit maximizing) behavior for a monopoly firm in any market is to price discriminate or in other words they charge each customer the maximum amount that he or she is willing to pay for a particular amount of goods or services (or as close to that amount as their metered pricing schemes and various contracts can get).
Most people believe that to be bad, hence the heavier legal regulation of firms that have monopolies.
Re:Android (Score:5, Funny)
Or in some strange parallel universe, they might just go right on doing business without any consequences to them whatsoever. Thank god we don't live there and companies are actually held accountable, eh?
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Re:Android (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Android (Score:4, Insightful)
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Phone company idiocy (Score:3, Interesting)
I got a new Nokia/T-Mobile phone recently. According to Nokia's documentation, the phone has an email client. I have been through the menus (including the ones in the manual that reference email) and there is no email client in the phone, so I assume that T-Mobile has disabled this feature.
Now, since there is no e-mail client, why would I want to have Internet access on the phone? I probably would have signed up for Internet access, but since T-Mobile doesn't want me to use email
Re: (Score:2)
The worst you'll have to do is change the product ID. Nokia even fix phones thus modified under guarantee (as they are running official Nokia firmware) as long as you didn't break it by fucking up the upgrade.
Of course you'll lose the T Mobile branding.. but you didn't want that did you?
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Re:Phone company idiocy (Score:4, Informative)
You needed to change the product code first, so the software update gets the unbranded version. You could find that you now have the most up to date firmware and you'll need to wait for the next Nokia release.
However, you may find third parties who are able to flash the phone to the generic firmware. You'll need to pay a fee though.
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Re:Phone company idiocy (Score:5, Informative)
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Does Open = Without charges? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Does Open = Without charges? (Score:5, Informative)
Recall that the original auction specs had a mandate to re-sell bandwidth in bulk (costs + reasonable fees), but Verizon lobbied hard to get it dropped for some reason. My random guess is that they wanted to have monopoly and set their own prices (translation: you are screwed).
Also, Verizon is making a killing selling those $100/month "unlimited" plans and $2 ringtones. Therefore, there is no way in hell they would undercut that by allowing something like a reasonably priced VoIP over their network.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does Open = Without charges? (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing new here, the rest of the world has been doing this for over a decade and a half.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
" FCC Open Access Requirements Paragraph 222 in FCC 07-132
No charges for using the device by the consumer. Of course, you are still charged service fees and if the contract is 10cents/kilobyte transfered there is nothing to stop Verizon from doing that so long as they cha
Who won Alaska (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who won Alaska (Score:4, Funny)
LOL
Parent
Re:Who won Alaska (Score:5, Informative)
https://auctionsignon.fcc.gov/signon/index.htm [fcc.gov]
Login to Auction 73 and click 'results'.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Looks like a newly created VC company made for the express purpose of bidding on this. That sucks for us. The last useless company that won lots of spectrum in Alaska never paid for it, never used it, and it was tied up in court for years because the FCC tried to repo it like a car that wasn't paid for, and the bankrupcy courts said they couldn't take it back. By the time it was done with, the spectrum had dropped in price (they speculated when the bidding was high a
Except Alaska... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Except Alaska... (Score:4, Funny)
There, I fixed your spelling...
Parent
Re:Except Alaska... (Score:5, Funny)
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Conspiracy Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
And, after all, you've already signed a two-year contract for "unlimited" talk at $100/month. Why would they want to upset that gravy train? It's not like any of the other carriers can use it...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe there is a requirement they have to use it for phone service though.
Re:Conspiracy Theory (Score:4, Funny)
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Does it have to be a cellular network? (Score:4, Interesting)
They could run a completely wireless 'cable' network over this spectrum and the only compatible device would be a set top box with a wireless interface that was compatible with their head end equipment. Was there something in the auction that requires the spectrum to be used for Cell phones or Internet access? I missed it if there was. Anyone know?
Re:Does it have to be a cellular network? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Google DID win (Score:5, Insightful)
AT&T's Spectrum Does Not Hanve Any Restriction (Score:4, Interesting)
AT&T kicked Verizon's butt (Score:5, Insightful)
And there are no open network requirements on AT&T's spectrum.
Sounds like AT&T came out on top of this deal.
yuck (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay I goggled "a Happy Loser" (Score:5, Funny)
Sprint + Google (Score:4, Interesting)
Google's lobbying for open access was incredibly smart. What they didn't pay for spectrum could buy a whole phone company, one competing against companies burdened by all that auction debt.
Google is lucky (Score:3, Informative)
Antenna design scales linearly with frequency. Lower frequencies invariably require larger antennas. There are some ways you can get around this, i.e. accept low efficiencies, or narrow bandwidth, etc. Either way, you DO NOT want to lower your center frequency.
Secondly, and most importantly, the next gen for wireless communications will involve MIMO. I assure you, from practical experience and graduate research, you will not see multiple antennas in the 700 MHz spectrum. Nor will you see it at the 900 MHz spectrum. You might be able to pull it off at 1800 MHz, but you'll get at most two antennas. One needs to move into the 2.5 GHz and above to make a reasonably sized handheld WITH multiple antennas. You can't just place the antennas any which way and expect MIMO to work. The antennas need to have low coupling between them, so you need significant electrical distances between them. It's EASY to design multiple antennas for different frequencies (i.e. Quadband), but VERY difficult to design multiple uncoupled antennas at the SAME frequency (i.e. MIMO).
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Re:Call me ignorant (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fair warning. This magic GSM mojo works for 3G and GRPS, but not EDGE. If your Asian phone has to touch EDGE it becomes an Asian brick. Otherwise my HTC Trinity would have been perfect.
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Re:Where's the money? (Score:5, Informative)
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