Official: Google's quest for 700MHz is so on
Hear that America? That's the sound of the hammer dropping on our beloved cartel of carriers. Google's bid for the 700MHz "C Block" is on, and they're doing it without any bidding partners. Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman and CEO, says the following:"We believe it's important to put our money where our principles are. Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today's wireless world. No matter which bidder ultimately prevails, the real winners of this auction are American consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet."
The bidding begins on January 24th with a minimum of $4.6 billion required for the open-access C Block. Wake the kids, phone the neighbors, it's going to get ugly fast.
Filed under: Misc
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kirk @ Dec 1st 2007 1:56AM
Wow - they're actually bidding!! I really hope they're bidding to win, rather than just firing a shot across the bow of the carriers.
It's a bit frightening to think how LARGE Google has grown, and quickly they've done it, in their very short corporate lifetime, and this (spectrum) would give them an enormous club with which to pound some competitive spirit (read: open-network/unlocked-devices) into the likes of Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, et al. Judging from recent comments from the major carriers, they're already moving that way, so this should (i hope) be a nice kick in the pants, even if Google doesn't win the auction.
One question is, what will Google do with this spectrum if they get it? I really *really* doubt they want to build their own infrastructure out, given that low-margin cutthroat business, so maybe they'd partner with some hungry wireless telecom to do the grunt-work (build towers, etc), while Google provides the Great Googley Network/Software experience?