Google et al. Want 700 MHz Auction Opened Up

The 700 MHz spectrum could give birth to the much-anticipated third pipe, but phone and cable lobbyists are currently pressuring the FCC to sell companies like AT&T and Verizon our airwaves — in a flawed auction process — so they can hoard this valuable spectrum and stifle competitive alternatives to their networks. Google and other would-be providers are not taking it lying down. They want the FCC to mandate that whoever wins the auction be required to sell access to those airwaves, at wholesale prices, to anyone wanting to provide broadband Internet service. They also want anonymous auctions to prevent the giant incumbents from manipulating the results against small players (as they have done in the past).

Welcome to the best Government

[Travoltus]

that money can buy.

No matter who wins this fight, we all lose.

Re:Surely.....

[Anonymous Coward]

The cable/telephone companies will outspend google just to keep them out. Google can only hope to get 'into' the business, while the other two can simply raise prices to cover the cost of keeping google out.

This has yet to happen.

[twitter]

Why wouldn't [Google] simply outbid the competitors and sell the space themselves?

The "competitors" can collude and form a much larger bidder than anyone else. They drive the price up where real competition advances but leave prices low for themselves elsewhere. If bidding is anonymous, it will be harder for people to collude and everyone will have to pay what they think the airwaves are worth.

There are still problems with the proposals. The first is that the incumbents won't treat their competitors fairly, even if forced by law to share. They will screw them over and pay whatever fees the government levies but then pass the costs back to you and me. The second problem is that the incumbents can overbid because they know there will be no real competition and they can charge whatever they like in the long run. These are not shortcomings of a free market, they are failures in regulations for a scarce resource which some say is not scarce afterall [slashdot.org]. It's ultimately a failure to share equitably.

How much do you really want to pay for your airwaves? I want mine free. The FCC should change it's mission to the above mentioned report and enforcing peaceful co-existence. The only problems with spectrum would be accidental disruption, which can be fixed, and willful disruption, which should be punished.

Re:Surely.....

[pla]

Google has enough money to compete in these auctions. Why wouldn't they simply outbid the competitors and sell the space themselves?

Actually, they do have enough money - Google has a market cap roughly equal to Verizon and Time Warner combined

The problem here doesn't (only) involve money, though - Basically, it sounds like these auctions have most of the "fairness" of EBay, where unscrupulous sellers (sadly, our own government in this case) and bidders can drive a price up far beyond its fair value. In this case, the existing broadband companies (the first two pipes referenced in the FP) would presumeably like to keep their regional duopolies and would either use the 700MHz range for their exclusive use, or if they can, buy it cheap just to prevent anyone else from using it.

Thus the requested condition that the winner MUST license it to competitors - That prevents Verizon (for example) from using various tricks to get the spectrum cheap and then do nothing with it.

Not so sure I understand the reason for some of the other mentioned terms of the auction (anonymous? I know our government has some corruption, but so bad that a non-anonymous auction would give the existing players an unfair edge?)

Re:Straight face.

[jim_deane]

People have given up on DSL?

It's been way more reliable for me than my neighbors' cable internet. Sure, their highest burst download speeds are better than my paltry 3 meg connection, but I have that 3 meg connection with very little variation day and night. Their cable connection slows down noticeably after school and in the evenings--when most of us are using the net. Our DSL does not slow in any detectable way.

Cable still has a stronghold here (semi-rural Kansas) due to the number of people out of reach of the DSL service area, but still within cable service.

I just don't see DSL as dead, or even threatened. Not around here, anyway.

Spectrum Anarchy - kill the FCC

[argoff]

The whole premise behind the FCC was that if spectrum was unregulated you would have a tragedy of the commons were everybody would pollute it so much that it would become unusable. However in practice that has turned out to be a complete and absolute lie. In the unregulated spectrum's, the more the spectrum got "polluted", the more people created technologies that could intelligently allocate, detect, shift, and route around. So now all spectrum regulation does is lock in obsolete technologies and wasteful inefficient use of the frequencies in place.

Re:Surely.....

[rtb61]

When it comes to the bidding process, should the government finally not recognised that it is selling access to the part of the spectrum of behalf of the population. Surely the bidding process should not only be based on how much they are willing to pay for it but on how much they are going to charge for access to it.

The governments lie of just focusing on selling it to the highest bidder, who just it turn feels they will be able to charge us the most for access , means they are no in any way shape or form representing the interests of the people but only establishing yet another part of the public wealth as a closed off private area for profit by corporations at the expense of the general public.

So will this auction be held and this release of spectrum be in the public interest or will it be yet another demonstration of the corruption and inherent ignorance of a typical corporation controlled government administration.

wireless

[macbookproaudio]

There's also a huge problem that the entertainment industry is having with all of this auctioning of RF. Wireless mics operate on these bands. It's already hard enough to organize hundreds of wireless mics on the spectrum by not running into existing tv channels, other mics, creating intermod and etc... And now with even LESS spectrum don't expect the superbowl, grammys, presidential rallies, fundraisers, churches, plays, concerts and other functions to have wireless mics. We need a spot for comsumer devices, a spot for common commercial use and a spot for industrial use but keep the reigns open besides that.

Re:This has yet to happen.

[OnlineAlias]

10's of millions? Heh...last I heard this auction is worth over $15 billion. Not even Google can blow that kind of dough unnoticed...

The myth of the 'public airwaves'

[Raisey-raison]

Firstly this just demonstrates that the public airwaves are not 'public' at all. They merely belong to the corporations who are the biggest campaign contributors. I love how people who use airwaves without FCC approval are pirates and criminals - but if give to the right politicians and fix the auction then you are legit. Its amazing that if you bilk the customer because either you can get away with ignoring anti trust laws because your Verizon or AT&T then it's ok. Steal a CD and you go to jail.

Secondly this story is another example of the lack of competition in cell phone service and wireless data service. There is enough spectrum for at least 8 national companies. Yet there really are only 3 or 4 depending on how you count them. This I bet is why service is still absurdly expensive. Thirdly, I dream of the re-division of the airwaves. Its a quite a mess. Of course the changeover period may be difficult - but it would be doable. Finally I don't see why CBS, FOX, ABC and NBC should get them for free when so much of what they do is hardly serving the public. They get to refuse ads they don't like. They dont have to justify what they put on the air much. Why not give them for free for 20 years to others and see if they do better?

Re:Monopoly Rents.

[evilviper]

Others have argued there is no scarcity of the resource you are talking about, so no regulation is required.

They have argued it, but it's clear they have no actual knowledge of wireless communications. Read just a few of the comments under that story to see a few reasons they're completely mistaken.

As technology improves, you can do more with less, but no amount of technology is going to make a limited resource like spectrum, infinite.

Re:Straight face.

[Professor_UNIX]

The thing that I find a lot different between the AT&T DSL I currently use and the Cox Cable Internet I tried for a grand total of 5 days before I ditched it: latency and jitter. The unwashed masses look and see they can get 12 Mbps from Cox's "Premium" Internet service, but then when I got it the average latency to major sites was 60-150 ms with jitter of 30-70ms on top of that. Add in random 10% packet loss periods during heavy usage periods in my neighborhood and I was getting clobbered. My Vonage service would drop out completely or I'd miss parts of the conversation. With my DSL the average latency is 35-55ms with less than 5ms jitter and my Vonage service is rock solid. So, mark me down as another one who doesn't buy into Cable's high bandwidth crapfest, I'll stick with my 6 Mbps/768Kbps ADSL over the 12 Mbps/1 Mbps Cox Cable offering.