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Filed under: Wireless

Hear that? Yeah, that’s the fat lady — the 700MHz auction is over today, and the FCC netted $19.6B for the 1,099 licenses it put on the block. It’s still not known who placed the winning $4.75B bid for the lucrative open-access 50-state C-block (probably Verizon) but hopefully we’ll find out soon. There was a ton of regional action as well: a package of licenses for spectrum in Chicago went for $892.4M, another set for Newark and NYC went for $884.7M, and LA’s two sets of 700MHz airwaves cost some lucky punter giant corporation $580.3M and $484M — and if you’d scraped together $17K, you would be the king of the airwaves in American Samoa. Sadly, no one met the reserve for the public-safety D-block, so it looks like Uncle Sam’s going to have to toss it in the back of the van and schlep it the old fashioned way. We doubt we’ll know for sure who’s got what until the gray suits manage to verify everything and make sure all the rules were followed, but it’s still an historic day — and remember, we’ve got all the info on what this could mean in the future right here.

Update: The FCC says we’ll know who won what within 10 days — it’s just like waiting for Santa, only instead of a fat man giving you presents, it’s a vast government bureaucracy giving major corporations thin air!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Source: Nilay Patel

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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Video

No, it’s not that 700MHz spectrum, but the $2.5 billion sale of the airwaves to AT&T from private firm Aloha Partners could have implications as large as Auction 73’s massive, open-access Block C itself. Given that Aloha’s Hiwire trials for DVB-H-based mobile TV have been playing in the 700MHz arena, we suspect this could spell doom for the whole project — and on the heels of Modeo’s collapse, very likely spells doom for DVB-H on the whole in the US. Though that’s great news for Qualcomm and DVB-H competitor MediaFLO, it’s awful news for the prospect of a global mobile TV standard, closely (if not eerily) following what happened years back with the European Union’s selection of GSM and the rise of CDMA in North America. For its part, AT&T says it’s going to use its newfound airwaves — which cover 72 of the top 100 US markets — for “broadcast video or for two-way communications such as voice, data or multicast content.” Admittedly, the “broadcast video” part of that leads us to believe that Hiwire could somehow survive the change in ownership, but with AT&T’s selection of MediaFLO last year as its standard of choice, it sure ain’t likely.

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Source: Chris Ziegler

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Filed under: Wireless

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/700MHz_C_block_hits_reserve_price_open_access_is_here_2′;There was a brief, tense pause in the bidding this morning, but some anonymous giant telecom company (Google, perhaps?) has just pushed the price of the 700MHz C-block over the FCC’s reserve price of $4.6B — and the rest of us straight into the promised land of open access. Yep, January 31, 2008, Round 17 will be the day to remember — to think it was all a dream, we used to read Free Spectrum magazine.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Source: Nilay Patel

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Filed under: Wireless

Here’s some up to date 700MHz bidding news for you. Currently, bids on the hotly contested “C” block have risen to almost $4.3 billion, or just a few dollars away from the FCC’s reserve price of $4.6 billion. That number puts us perilously close to triggering the “open-access rule” which pretty much everyone (Google especially) has been clamoring for (or fighting). The total bids on the spectrum are also hovering near the $10 billion mark, which has been the FCC’s goal all along, ostensibly demonstrating that everything is going according to plan. There is one small snag, with the “D” block — the public safety / first responder band — not seeing the kind of action the agency had hoped for, nabbing only $472 million in bids, a far cry from the minimum requirement of $1.6 billion. Of course, bidding has six weeks to go, so no one seems to be sweating just yet, though “lawmakers” are swearing they’ll take “quick action” if the numbers don’t rise.

[Thanks, Aaron]

Read — 700Mhz Auction Approaches $10 Billion
Read — House Panel Bird-Dogging 700MHz Auction

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Features, Wireless

We’ll admit, wireless spectrum auctions aren’t the most exciting thing in the world — but as wireless spectrum auctions go, the FCC’s 700MHz auction kicking off today is a doozy. What’s it all about and what does it mean to you? Head on over to Engadget Mobile to find out everything you need to know (and a few things you don’t) about the FCC’s multi-billion dollar spectacular!

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Source: Chris Ziegler

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Filed under: Wireless

Not that it comes as much of a surprise, but the FCC today rejected upstart M2Z’s request for a 20MHz slice of the 2155MHz to 2175MHz spectrum, which it had hoped to use for a free, nearly nationwide WiFi service. To that end, M2Z was trying to convince the FCC to bypass its usual proceedings and hand over the spectrum to it for free. In exchange, as Ars Technica reports, M2Z promised to pay five percent of its gross revenues to the US Treasury each year and, as an added touch, it also promised to filter any “objectionable content” crossing those free airwaves. Apparently keen on that idea, a number of other companies tried to get in on the action as well, but were likewise turned down by the FCC. For its part, the FCC now seems intent on proceeding as usual with the spectrum, with Chairman Kevin Martin saying he’ll consider both licensed and unlicensed uses for the band, adding that he promises to “adopt flexible rules that will encourage the innovative use of this unique piece of spectrum.”

[Via AHN]

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Source: Donald Melanson

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

We know, the 700MHz soap opera is wearing a bit on us too, but just in case you were worried that the latest FCC shakeups would deter Google from coughing up $4.6+ billion when the time was right, fret not. Reportedly, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt “told a conference of regulatory and industry leaders in Aspen that his company would ‘probably’ move ahead with plans to bid for wireless spectrum freed up once broadcast television networks switch to digital from analog in 2009.” When asked by T-Mobile USA’s government relations chief Thomas Sugrue “whether Google planned to take part in the auctions for wireless broadband networks,” the exec simply stated that placing a bid or two would likely be “the way to answer that.” So, there you have it — until next episode…

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Just in case you had any suspicion that Google may retract its interest in bidding for the 700MHz spectrum after the rules neglected to afford the winner wholesaling rights, Chris Sacca has intervened to clear things up. According to the search giant’s head of special initiatives, the firm is “still very interested in the auction” despite not getting all of the rules for the spectrum sale set in its favor. Of course, the FCC did choose to approve the whole “open access” bit, and while Mr. Sacca declined to elaborate in order to keep details of Google’s strategy on the DL, it seems safe to say that it will indeed be busting out the checkbook come auction time.

[Image courtesy of OpenBusiness]

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Source: Darren Murph

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