FCC Goes Halfway On Opening 700 MHz Spectrum 192
The FCC has set rules for the upcoming auction of 700-MHz spectrum and they went halfway on the four open access principles that Google and others had called for. The agency said yes to "open devices" and "open applications," thus requiring the auction winner to permit consumers to use any device or application on the network. But the FCC turned down "open services" and "open networks," so the winners will not be obligated to let others buy access at wholesale prices in order to offer network services. This vote would seem to mean that Google won't bid in the spectrum auction. Ars has a more in-depth look at the outcome.
Wouldn't that be more reason to win? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't that be more reason to win? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because not including these two levels of 'open-ness' means a higher potential value to whoever is the winner... because there's a greater degree of possible profit... you get to pick your competitors and set your prices
It simply wouldnt be in the interests of the huge telecoms giants to bid too high if they then had to turn around and sell access for next to nothing to anyone (including google) who wanted to use it... but if they're getting total control over who provides service and at what cost... then its worth a lot more money.
If they can charge what they want for access, suddenly you can justify bidding a lot higher
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Abolish the FCC! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Abolish the FCC! (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's a circular definition. The FCC defines what is proper for a broadcaster; then requires that stations be proper. Technically speaking, what keeps a broadcast station on the proper frequency and at the proper fidelity is hardware, and fully functional hardware that can do this is extremely inexpensive these days.
Without the FCC, broadcast stations still have motivation to stay in one place, primarily so that they are easily l
Re:Abolish the FCC! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I have no problem with this at all. There are no broadcasts of any nature that are worth listening to at present; an entire dial full of stations that changed with location would at least have a chance of coming up with something. Your absolutely ridiculous Scientology example notwithstanding.
I see nothing ridiculous about his example at all. I'm sure that such things would be quite routine if there was nobody to enforce rules against it. Perhaps not scientologists, but there are many fringe groups out there that would love to have a cheap way to broadcast their message at people, whether those people want to hear it or not. Just because you don't like what's on the air right now doesn't mean we should abandon the whole thing.
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this is all silly anyway, radio is on a countdown to digital tak
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No. You're entirely missing the point. The issue is that no citizen can set up a station to broadcast to their fellow citizens. The whole country is screwed. By law. More to the point, by the FCC. I don't care if you listen to RAP or country or bluegrass or Coast to Coast. These are corporations broadcasting to you, feeding you what they see fit to feed you. This is manifestly different from Joe down the stre
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http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_06/47cf r97_06.html [gpo.gov]
The rules and regulations in this part are designed to provide an
amateur radio service having a fundamental purpose as expressed in the
following principles:
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service
to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service,
particularly with res
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No. Broadcasting is forbidden in the ham bands.
Ham, amateur radio (Score:2)
I believe this is the only FCC radio service under which you are allowed, even encouraged, to build your own.
It used to be to get your amateur license you had to be able to build your own radio, but the FCC got rid of that requirement. You also had to know morse code but that was another requirement they got rid of. The morse code requirement is what kept me from getting my license a long tyme ago. Now that it's been gotten rid of I've been thinking about getting my license now, though I still want t
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Don't forget about NPO's like Focus on the Family
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I wouldn't abolish the FCC, but I would considerably reduce their scope
I would abolish the FCC. The FCC was created in an atmosphere of scarcity of airwaves, now with today's technology there is no scarcity of airwaves. If needed, only after being proven having no regulatory agency causes too many problems, would I approve of an airwaves agency.
FalconRe: (Score:3, Interesting)
Half way? (Score:2)
No (Score:4, Funny)
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No Way. (Score:2)
An auction that's only half rigged is still rigged. I can't believe the FCC was so in love with the incumbents they would down 4.6 billion dollars in bids.
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But don't worry, twitter, you spin it to make it sound like the FCC turned down $4.6B just to be in bed with the telcos.
It doesn't have any basis in reality, but it's hardly like that has stopped you before, has it?
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Google May Bid Yet (Score:5, Informative)
Only if you aren't paying attention--
Read the top of this page [com.com] in this interview: [com.com]
Re:Google May Bid Yet (Score:4, Insightful)
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Also, Google does not have the monopoly status to write checks they don't have money for. Google's founders are wise-beyond-their-years financially, and are running the company in a
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VOIP is in their hands far more than Googles with a minimum investment...
If the next microsoft OS came out with a built in phone app and a $5 a month charge (for connecting to POTS services) I'd certainly be tempted, it would be a real value add and something that Microsoft is in a much better position to offer than OSX or Linux.
We're 5 years beyond the point where such service was a possibility, I wonder how long it will be until the deals Microsoft inked
Re:Google May Bid Yet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Google May Bid Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't have the political connections or the ENORMOUS resources that AT&T/Cingular has. Never mind that AT&T/Cingular REALLY REALLY wants this spectrum. I mean, it's their wet dream to own that spectrum. It's the future of the company. They essentially will pay whatever they have to for it. But it would be amusing to see Google keep upping the bid on them.
Re:Google May Bid Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not so naive as to think that Google is doing this for purely philanthropic reasons... however it's really nice to see a powerful company putting pressure on entrenched monopolies, with an end result that the people get high-quality, more fair access to a public resource.
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Google is upping the bid, because they know that they will be out-bid by the entrenched telcos that can't afford to lose that spectrum. ... But, since the entrenched telcos will certainly continue out-bidding until they win
As I recall, at the end of the 2006 fiscal year, Google had $11.2 Billion dollars cash on hand.
Further, they can easily push out a stock offering or issue bonds to raise more cash.
If Google wants spectrum, they'll be able to afford it.
It might even make long term business sense to buy a chunk, use some of it for their own purposes and lease the rest to one of the Telcos.
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I could be wrong, but I think Google might actually be able to outbid AT&T and the other telcos. I'm not certain, but I think the relevant financial statistic for an auction is "Cash and Short Term Investments," which is what they could make readily available to use for bidding. Here's the "Cash and Short Term Investments" figures for Google, AT&T, and Verizon:
Google: $11,935,920
AT&T: $2,364,000
Verizon
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Google: $11,935,920
AT&T: $2,364,000
Verizon: $3,450,000
Re:Google May Bid Yet (Score:4, Interesting)
It's never just about having money to buy stuff. You also need to make extra investments and assets to buy this kind of infrastructure. And they cost a lot of money.
Spending half of Google's money on airwaves would also mean opening thousands of new jobs, creating new departments and searching for customers. And the investors are not happy with the current situation of Google. "I will not innovate if I can just use the investor's money to buy commoditized stuff and partially-inovating trendy companies like YouTube" will really hurt Google in the long run. Yeah, ok, the new market of internet advertising might grow to dozens of billions of dollars a year. That's why Google is worth so much, because of a new market. Investing on telecom commodities is not why they have so much money, to create this kind of old-business infrastructure.
What's next, Google buying oil refineries just because "they can"? I'd be pretty pissed off if the company holding my money (shares) started abusing it.
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Good point. Even though Google might technically be able to win the bid, they don't have the same sort of traditional telecom assets as the other companies.
One off-the-cuff idea though: What if they're planning on doing something very non-traditional? For example, I could envision them trying to do something similar to FON [wikipedia.org], selling 700mhz W
Google and investors (Score:2)
And the investors are not happy with the current situation of Google. "I will not innovate if I can just use the investor's money to buy commoditized stuff and partially-inovating trendy companies like YouTube"
I am an investor and I applaud Google in it's initiatives. If I had the money myself, er if I had as much money as Bill Gates or that Mexican, I'd tell the FCC I'd bid $10 billion if the FCC were to require winners to provide access to others at wholesale prices. Maybe even $50B, of course it'd d
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Re:Google May Bid Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and as a cell phone customer it will be extra amusing paying for this bidding war via raised rates.
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Yes, and as a cell phone customer it will be extra amusing paying for this bidding war via raised rates.
Yea right. NOT! Cellular service is dropping in price not going up. For many using only a cellphone is cheaper than a landline phone. I'm one of them. I pay about $10 a month less for my phone service than I paid for my landline service when I had it. Thanks to competition for this, competition lowers prices.
FalconRe: (Score:2)
Yeah, right. If prices are dropping, I'm the Easter Bunny. The AT&T plan I gave up to switch to my iPhone would cost $60 for the most nearly equivalent plan, and I was paying $40 for it from "the old AT&T". On Verizon, the base price of cell service has crept up to $30 per month in the U.S., or, IIRC, $10 more than the base price eight years ago when I first got a cell phone. For that extra $10, you get about the same number of daytime minutes, but nights start up to three hours later in some pa
lower prices with competition (Score:2)
Yeah, right. If prices are dropping, I'm the Easter Bunny. The AT&T plan I gave up to switch to my iPhone would cost $60 for the most nearly equivalent plan, and I was paying $40 for it from "the old AT&T". On Verizon, the base price of cell service has crept up to $30 per month in the U.S., or, IIRC, $10 more than the base price eight years ago when I first got a cell phone. For that extra $10, you get about the same number of daytime minutes, but nights start up to three hours later in some parts
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I'm not complaining about the price of service. I'm just correcting the statement that Cingular is getting cheaper. Don't even try to steer this into an anti-iPhone rant.
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"I really think democracy..."
"But our taxes will go UP!"
Weird democracy guy: "Sigh"
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This is going to be on hell of a bidding war, I'll tell you that!
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Maybe this will help:
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=google [google.com]
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AT [google.com]
The part you want is 'Mkt Cap' where you'll find google is at $158 Billion and AT&T is at $241 Billion, and AT&Ts net income is over twice Google's.
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It is broken up, as I understand, both by portions of the spectrum and geographic regions. Assuming there aren't limits on how much of the spectrum in any one region any one interest can buy (I don't know that much about the particular auction), the arguably, if the FCC isn't going to impose freedom and Google really values it, its best move may be to find one region that lots of other carriers would like access
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Translated marketing babble. We have no committed to any course of action or lack of course of action and never will.
'So it's not out of the question that Google would participate in the auction, even if the FCC doesn't adopt all fou
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http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/07/sig ns-of-real-progress-at-fcc.html [blogspot.com]
Just two months ago, the notion that the FCC would take such a big step forward to give consumers meaningful choice through this auction seemed unlikely at best. Today -- thanks in no small part to broad public support for greater competition -- the FCC has embraced important principles of openness, and endorsed the unfettered workings of the free market for software applications and communications devices. Moreover, over the last few weeks several leading wireless carriers have reversed course and for the first time acknowledged our call for more open platforms in wireless networks. By any measure, that's real progress.
By the same token, it would have a more complete victory for consumers had the FCC adopted all four of the license conditions that we advocated, in order to pave the way for the real "third pipe" broadband competition that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has been touting. For our part, we will need time to carefully study the actual text of the FCC's rules, due out in a few weeks, before we can make any definitive decisions about our possible participation in the auction.
Google (Score:3, Interesting)
Google sure has been trying to throw their weight around a lot lately.
Re:Google (Score:5, Insightful)
its about damn time someone at least pretended to stick up for the little guy.
Re:Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Google sure has been trying to throw their weight around a lot lately.
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As others have pointed out, there is nothing wrong with Google doing this if it will benefit the consumer (which is what they claim they are trying to do).
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http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/07/re
Halfway is no good (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, while I like what Google is trying to do, I think they should stay in the bidding anyway. I'd much rather have Google own the spectrum than literally ANY other telco corporation. Google isn't nearly as evil as those guys are.
Re:Halfway is no good (Score:4, Funny)
Make it a habit to start your day with a google search for some Wireless [google.com], Cell [google.com], or AT&T [google.com] related topic and then visit one or more AT&T spomnsored links on the top of the page :)
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I think you are being foolishly optimistic.
"Open devices" MAY mean that any device designed for the spectrum in question must work, but it doesn't mean it has to work WELL. I fully expect that, at the very least, "unapproved" devices and software will be crippled like crazy.
The whole problem is the wor
Working well (Score:2)
No, they might not work well at first. The first hardline phones not made by AT&T didn't work well in comparison to the phones AT&T was making at the time. Hey, many of the current ones don't. Sound quality was worse, durability was worse, ergonomics was
ATT phones (Score:2)
The first hardline phones not made by AT&T didn't work well in comparison to the phones AT&T was making at the time.
Hell those ATT phones were nearly indistructable. That plastic could of been used to shield or armor tanks.
FalconRe:Halfway is no good (Score:4, Interesting)
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Is there a purpose for the FCC anymore? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is there a purpose for the FCC anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Does this even make sense? (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you have one without the other? If the winner is required to allow free use of the spectrum for devices and applications doesn't that include devices used to provide services? I mean sure, they wouldn't have to let you use their infrastructure or buy access at wholesale prices, but they couldn't stop you from building your own infrastructure.
They mean open client devices, of course (Score:2)
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To summarize, if you were really looking forward to getting cheap all-you-can-eat wireless broadband you should have bought your own Senator instead of relying on ATT's.
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If you aren't connecting to their network, and you don't need their permission to make a device that uses the frequency then how can mandate anything? The ruling says they don't have to let you connect to their network but that you can make devices that operate in this spectrum. Devices would include towers, servers, and routers. You could build your own wireless infrastructure on the frequency or a company like Google
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You might get away with it in your garage in the middle of nowhere, but you would certainly not be able to run anything large-scale or commercial, without ATT's permit. Since the network will be closed, they do not have to sell it to you unless they feel like it, and at whatever condition
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Thats not how it normally works. There normally isn't an FCC ruling that opens the spectrum for certain uses. ATT or any other purchaser is REQUIRED to allow these uses, it isn't optional.
"open devices/applications" accomplishes nothing (Score:2)
Re:"open devices/applications" accomplishes nothin (Score:2)
Re:"open devices/applications" accomplishes nothin (Score:2)
CableCard will succeed only when cable companies stop scrambling premium channels. As long as there are concrete benefits to using the cable company's boxes (premium channels and subsidized DVRs come to mind), people will use its boxes. And people making third-party boxes need to advertise!
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Uh, the whole point of CableCard is to descramble premium channels. If the cable companies used clear QAM for everything, then you wouldn't need CableCard.
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And my local cable provider had (last time I checked, a few months ago) clear QAM on everything but adult channels.
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People getting HBO on cable can get something called "HBO on Demand"... HBO on flexible scheduling.
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That's a very long-winded way of saying "never".
Google 700mhz Fund? (Score:2)
Like them, I'd be willing to put my money where my mouth is.
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Or will it go into expanding the ad service, infiltrating it further into our lives. I don't know, but that seems a logical end-result of "Hey, ad revenue is up ten per cent this quarter!", not "Hey, that extra $500M we made on ads, let's blow it on that FCC auction".
Forgive me, but I have little to no interest in funneling money to a for-profit corporation that, all mottos, blinders and fanboys aside, has profit and
Comparable to the Retail Electric Industry (Score:5, Interesting)
The US essentially has two types systems for moving electricity around: the Transmission System and the Distribution System. Transmission System lines are typically high voltage and used for wholesale sales of electricity. They are predominately federally regulated. Distribution System lines are typically lower voltage and used for distribution of power to retail end-use customers.
However the open access requirements are quite different. Transmission Systems are open to any user (with lots of strings, but in theory anyway). So someone who wants to sell power at wholesale essentially has the same right of access to the transmission lines as the utility that owns the lines does. In other words, the utility's transmission functions are no longer vertically integrated (at least in theory) with their power generation functions. This concept is known as "comparability." Sadly, the FCC rejected this type of open access.
For distribution systems, the utilities are still far more vertically integrated and largely control who has access to their power lines. While they still have to provide some level of access to competing users, there's no comparability concept and no sense that the utility is in the business of "renting" its system to all users and that its affiliated branches are just another user. Instead, we are going to continue to see integrated networks where the owner of the spectrum is able to stiffle innovation. Requiring that the purchaser of the spectrum re-sell it to competing companies would have guaranteed far more interesting uses of this spectrum.
Of course, allowing for phone transferability and the other items are good; but is a public safety system really the biggest concession that the FCC could extract? Yes, it is important. But nobody was going to object to giving fire fighters the communications equipment they needed.
Sad.
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First, they are keeping electricity prices high by keeping competing sources of generation from interconnecting with the grid and supplying energy to the competitive energy markets. Interconnection of a generating facility can be prohibitively expensive when a utility exercises its monopoly power to discriminate against a generator. If you're truly interested in this issue, you can start with Order No. 2003, issued in 2003 by the Federal
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FCC, F U! (Score:2)
Anthem:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/12/fcc_fu_the_
Official site:
http://fccfu.com/ [fccfu.com]
Jumping to conclusions? (Score:2)
Why would it seem to mean that? They announced that if their principles were adopted, they would bid up to a specific amount on a specific share of that spectrum. They did not say, that I recall, that if there demands were not (or incompletely) addressed, they would definitely bid nothing.
Dumber than a Sack of Rocks (Score:2)
Either they are a bunch of morons, or they think we (and congress) are by publishing a decision like this.
Be happy (Score:2)
The 'slow' nations will lose, the weaker will win and rebuild the weaker ones in their image. All for the best, really. (Though it'll be a bitch to learn to speak Chinese)
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Ah, right. Too congested. Well, that's what happens when you, you know, take away the licenses for monopolistic use!
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How are spectra are sold? Does the US government sell "ownership" of bands of a spectrum, or just lease the rights to them?
The FCC sales exclusive licenses to use different frequencies in different areas. Those licenses come up for renewal occassionally, though I don't recall how long they last for.
FalconRe: (Score:2)
associated stocks, ensuring a fabulous return no matter what!