Google a "Happy Loser" In Spectrum Auction

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.

Android

[bluefoxlucid (723572)]

Now verizon can't make you use a shitty phone. Now Verizon can't lock you into their ringtones only. Now Verizon can't stop you from using generic Android-sporting phones.

Re:Android

[by Anonymous Coward]

yes they can.

"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
.

Re:Android

[CodeBuster (516420)]

They will find a loophole, they hate the customer that much

It is interesting to see how people take the actions of particular corporations personally as if they were "out to get the little guy" for no other reason than simple spite. The spectrum auctions provide a limited monopoly for their winning bidders. 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). Now, this time there are conditions attached to the winning bid that will supposedly prevent some of the previous worst practices from being repeated, but corporations are famous for circumventing, capturing, and generally corrupting attempts by the government to regulate them so I don't have much confidence in these "strings" attached by the government. 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.

Re:Android

[hunterx11 (778171)]

The point is that customers should be patrons of businesses, not enemies. We are not merely talking about companies charging higher prices for more services: we are talking about companies going out of their way to expend a positive amount of effort to make their service worse for customers so that they can charge a higher price for doing less to make their service purposely bad. This sort of market-driven antagonism is "amoral" on the part of firms in the sense that a sociopathic killer is amoral compared to a killer who commits a crime of passion.

Re:Android

[Locklin (1074657)]

I don't know about you, but I would define "completely amoral and dispassionate entity who seeks to maximize his profits" as evil -or a sociopath.

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.

Corporate Culture

[Kozar_The_Malignant (738483)]

feel however you want, but hate implies an active dislike which cannot be the case with corporations (they are just legal entities). The people in charge of them might not like you, but they are other people, not "the corporation".

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.

Re:Android

[by Anonymous Coward]

> If they were dumb enough to do that, then they would be forced to license the patent, or loose the spectrum.

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?

Re:Android

[houstonbofh (602064)]

Sure... I will bet you money Verizon will find a way to make the requirement to "allow subscribers to use any compatible wireless device and run any software application they want" not a feasible option. Something like "With our stuff you get data discounted to 2 cents a byte. With yours it is the full price 2000 cents a byte..." Betcha money...

Does Open = Without charges?

[el_benito (586634)]

I'll pass on using mod points because I don't see anyone else asking this yet: Is there anything in the requirements that says that Verizon cannot charge for people to use any compatible device? Can we run our applications without them charging us money? Do they have the right to 'shape' bandwidth once somebody figures out how to torrent stuff over this network? Can I IM without them exacting an exorbitant fee per message? In short: Are we gonna get screwed through a loophole? /rhetorical

Re:Does Open = Without charges?

[megaditto (982598)]

Short answer is YES, you are gonna get screwed.

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.

Re:Does Open = Without charges?

[darthflo (1095225)]

Of course not. I haven't read the full thing, but as far as I know, it's going to be run GSM style. If you want to use the network, you'll have to get it's equivalent of GSM's SIM card (and the contract that comes with it), usable in any device that supports this network.
Nothing new here, the rest of the world has been doing this for over a decade and a half.

Re:Phone company idiocy

[speculatrix (678524)]

just google for "nemesis service suite" - it's a windows app that will change all sorts of things about your phone including the product ID, which then means the Nokia Software Updater will allow you to install generic s/w which is usually the latest version. I have de-branded quite a few N95s and my own E65, and they're so much better for it. Note that this can also brick your phone, so be sure to check the product code BEFORE is compatible with the intended code AFTER.

Except Alaska...

[ActionDesignStudios (877390)]

Except Alaska. Except Alaska. Everything is except Alaska! I say we secede and form our own country of Alaskanistan!

Re:Except Alaska...

[QuantumRiff (120817)]

You do know what happens when you threaten the stability of oil deliveries to mainland US, don't you? You will be expected to greet us as liberators..

Re:Except Alaska...

[emag (4640)]

Crazy kayaks.

There, I fixed your spelling...

Conspiracy Theory

[ink (4325)]

Of course, Verizon could very well just sit on this spectrum and do nothing with it. Why would they want the competition? They'd have to do all that engineering to come up with a protocol that's bound to be tangled with lawsuits relating to the new regulations.

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...

Does it have to be a cellular network?

[Fatal67 (244371)]

Why does everyone assume verizon will use the spectrum for wireless when they have just as much need to deliver Video as they do wireless?

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?

[ecliptik (160746)]

I recently had a phone interview with Qualcomm for a position in their MediaFlow division. Apparently they are planning to use recently freed UHF frequencies to digitally broadcast "cable" TV directly to cell phones . I wouldn't be surprised if they continued to expand this type of service with the additional licenses they picked up in the auction.

Google DID win

[MozeeToby (1163751)]

Google got exactly what they wanted here, a nationwide network that is forced to be available for thier android platform. They never really wanted the spectrum, if necissary they might have done it anyway but this would have been the prefered result.

AT&T kicked Verizon's butt

[andrews (12425)]

I don't know why everyone is saying Verizon is the big winner. AT&T won the vast majority of the B block which, paired with the 12MHz they bought from Aloha, gives them 24 MHz for less than Verizon paid for 20 MHz.

And there are no open network requirements on AT&T's spectrum.

Sounds like AT&T came out on top of this deal.

Okay I goggled "a Happy Loser"

[anss123 (985305)]

What now?

Re:Call me ignorant

[Dun Malg (230075)]

How is this "open access" thing going to work? What's open about it anyway?

It'll be open in approximately the same sense that AT&T and TMobile's GSM networks are open. I have an HTC TYTN II that works with my AT&T SIM card, despite the fact that the Taiwanese firmware in my TYTN II is not crippled like the AT&T firmware in the TILT. Contrast that with Verizon's network, where you cannot use a phone without their royal seal of approval, a 1 hour wait at a Verizon store to have it registered in their system, and when that's all said and done, you have a horribly crippled phone that requires you to use their for-a-fee wireless data transfer to load on a ringtone or pull off a photo. My phone, I just plug in a USB cable and transfer files through the windows file explorer.

Re:Who won Alaska

[_PimpDaddy7_ (415866)]

The Russians

LOL

Re:Who won Alaska

[Nibbler999 (1101055)]

"Triad 700, LLC" - whoever they are. The full results are on the FCC auction site.

https://auctionsignon.fcc.gov/signon/index.htm [fcc.gov]

Login to Auction 73 and click 'results'.

Re:Where's the money?

[C0rinthian (770164)]

440Hz is A.