Participants in the recent [tag]FCC[/tag] [tag]spectrum auctions[/tag] are now allowed to talk about what happened, and so some details are beginning to emerge.
Predictably, [tag]Verizon[/tag] released a rather dull statement saying that the new bandwidth it won
is a critical piece of its overall [tag]broadband[/tag] strategy to take advantage of the enormous opportunity for growth in data services in the future.
[tag]Google[/tag] has also been talking, basically admitting that they were acting rather like a shill (but in a good way)
to make sure that bidding on the so-called “C Block” reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important “open applications” and “open handsets” license conditions … in ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid — even though no one was bidding against us — to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block. In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the U.S. Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would be applied to the ultimate licensee.
Though the common reaction to this is “Yay Google, fighting for openness!”, I can’t help feeling that they have pretty concrete plans to benefit from the open applications side of things — I doubt they were taking a $4.6 billion bet (on someone raising them so they weren’t left winning) just so the great American consumer can use their favorite handset with Verizon.
The New York Times and the LA Times both have pieces on the these and other statements.