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.

Conspiracy Theory

[ink]

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...

Re:Call me ignorant

[Dun Malg]

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:Conspiracy Theory

[Fatal67]

I don't think this is the case. There were roll out requirements in this auction, I believe.

I don't believe there is a requirement they have to use it for phone service though.

Google DID win

[MozeeToby]

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.

Re:Android

[gustaffo]

Fortunately there is always the option to vote with your wallet and not use verizon service. There are two national GSM carriers and tons of regionals. You almost always have the option of picking a carrier who uses a truly open network (GSM). For information on GSM carriers see GSM World [gsmworld.com]. I have long been using unbranded/locked devices on ATT's network and the experience is far and above that you could get with any of the crappy proprietary devices. And when I travel abroad, I can easily grab a prepaid sim from the country I'm in, pop it into the phone I already have and be good to go.

I think it's pretty slimy that verizon does things like disable USB on devices in order to force users to transfer their pictures over their pay-per-transfer type service. Don't let them get you with lockin. Bring your own device (byod) and pick the national or regional carrier that suites your usage pattern best.

AT&T kicked Verizon's butt

[andrews]

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.

Re:Android

[CodeBuster]

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.

yuck

[nguy]

Yet another incompatible frequency band. Why can't the US get together with the Europeans on frequency allocations so that the same devices work everywhere?

Re:Android

[hunterx11]

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]

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.

Re:Android

[Mr2001]

You almost always have the option of picking a carrier who uses a truly open network (GSM).

It might be truly open, but it sucks for data. I'll take EVDO over EDGE any day.

I think it's pretty slimy that verizon does things like disable USB on devices in order to force users to transfer their pictures over their pay-per-transfer type service.

I don't think they've done that for quite some time now. They do disable some Bluetooth features, but with a USB data cable (available from Verizon or eBay), you can use free software like BitPim to transfer pictures, ringtones, and contact lists. Or, since most of the new phones have microSD slots, you can just save your pictures directly onto a memory card.

Corporate Culture

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

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:yuck

[kid_oliva]

Because transparency is bad in a world market if you are trying to maximize your profit. The more convoluted the system is, the harder it is to for price comparison to find what the real value is. This was a problem at first when the Euro was made the dominant currency in Europe. People in one country found out quite easily they had been overpaying for the same item offered in another country by the same manufacturer. Similarly, if you make people buy different units just to use something that should be transparent, they get used to it and then they come to expect to pay more because that is how you have trained the consumer. That is why you need people like Nader around. He is good for consumer rights, but not good as a presidential candidate.

Re:Android

[santiagodraco]

Oh, they'll be held accountable. You can bet that if they start playing games with this spectrum and open access that Google will be the first to jump on the lawsuit bandwagon... and Google DOES have the pockets to see a lawsuit through.

Re:Corporate Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Go on pretending that your personality is as immutable as you want. It's easy to be Mr. NiceGuy in the company of other NiceGuys, but enter into a field of competitors in a cutthroat battle to the death (or unemployment) and we'll see if you change your tune.

Re:Android

[santiagodraco]

It's pretty clear that Verizon, as evidenced by past action, is as close to an "evil" corporation as you can get in their segment. I'm sorry but I think your view of their actions (past actions) as simply efforts to maximizing profits as simply "amoral" is naive. Let's look at a classic example. Text messaging. How much bandwidth do you think it takes to send a 256 character text message? Yeah, not much. Know any teens? High school students with cell phones? What is their favorite past time? Yeah, texting. Now, know any parents of teens that have nightmare stories of the results of buying their teens a cell phone and the hundreds of dollars of cell phone charges related to texting? Yeah, probably every parent you know who has a teen with one. Do you think that wasn't planned by Verizon? You bet it was. The outrageous texting fees went on for years before finally Verizon realized that their ability to abuse children's need to "belong" (evidenced by constantly texting their friends) and turn that into dollars was coming to an end. So they turn it into a new "we're great guys" PR plan and announce new programs for free unlimited texting. After stalling as long as they could before it either got regulated or they got sued (which probably happened anyway, I don't know). The point is they knew what they were doing. They do it all the time in any way they can. It's like "rebates" which are simply a way to take an apparent savings and reduce the actual money lost overall since a large percentage of people will forget to send in the rebate form. But the texting example is the classic and it shows just how "immoral" (not amoral) the executives are at Verizon. I just hope Google weilds a big hammer if they get out of line with the openness rules in these new wirless segments.

Businesses that hate their customers

[Per Abrahamsen]

The point is that customers should be patrons of businesses, not enemies.

Hear! Hear! It is all about the mindset of the business. Here is what "good" and "evil" business ask themselves:

Good: How can we provide our customers with the best possible service, and at the same time make a buck?

Evil: How can we change our service to make customers pay us more money?

Of course, business is about making money, the difference is just that the "good" business believe that the long term key to making money is customer satisfaction, while the "evil" business is more concerned about short term optimization.

A personal example: My current ISP has a convenient on-line facility to switch to a more expensive / higher bandwidth subscription, but you can't use it to switch to cheaper / lower bandwidth subscription. The main competitor allows you to switch both ways. One of the two "hates" their customers. I chose the competitor when I had to connect some family members to the net. I'm sure I would be more inclined to upgrade my own connection, if I know it was easy to downgrade again. Now, I'm more likely to switch provider.

Treating your customers with respect is good for your customer, and it is good for you in the long term. It creates trust and loyalty.

BTW: When Google say "do no Evil" I'm sure it is in this sense, not in the sense of supporting Tibet monks against an oppressive regime. Allowing pop3 access to gmail is a good example of this, it circumvent their source of income, but makes more people inclined to try them out, and they rely on their own interface being good enough to win you over. [ And of course, access to confidential information your mail will help them in their evil plans of world domination, but that is another story. ]

Re:Does Open = Without charges?

[afidel]

If they can't find a way to make a profit at $100 per subscriber their entire executive board needs to be fired and replaced by competent people. They should have significantly lower cost per subscriber than wireline service providers due to reduced infrastructure costs and the wireline providers exist on much lower revenue numbers.