Google Wants to Spend $4.6B on Spectrum
Pledge Hinges on FCC Adoption of Four Open-Network Conditions
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 7/20/2007 9:44:00 AM
Google Friday pledged to spend at least $4.6 billion in the pending federal auction for powerful frequencies in the 700-megahertz band of spectrum -- if the Federal Communications Commission agrees to impose a set of open-network conditions.
The Silicon Valley-based search-engine giant committed to be a bidder for the first time in a letter from CEO Eric Schmidt to FCC chairman Kevin Martin. Schmidt, however, included the same four auction conditions Google has repeatedly demanded from the agency.
“We hereby inform you that, should the commission expressly adopt the four license conditions … Google intends to commit a minimum of $4.6 billion to bidding in the upcoming auction,” Schmidt said.
The auction of 60 MHz from the band is expected to raise $10 billion and put the United States on the path toward a national wireless network robust enough to support full-motion video and the transfer of large files at rapid speeds.
Google wants the FCC to ensure that consumers can attach their own non-harmful devices to the broadband network and download any application. Martin supports these two conditions with regard to a 22-MHz block, while Google has insisted on all 60 MHz.
Martin has not embraced Google’s remaining conditions -- that auction winners must be prepared to wholesale their spectrum to other organizations and interconnect with competing Internet-access providers.
In his letter, Schmidt made it clear that Martin’s current proposals were insufficient.
“While these all are positive steps, unfortunately, the current draft order falls short of including the four tailored and enforceable conditions,” Schmidt said.
But Martin’s stance found favor with the nation’s largest telephone company, AT&T.
“We believe chairman Martin has struck an interesting and creative balance between the competing interests debating the Google plan,” said Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs.
That was a change from two weeks ago, when AT&T wrote the FCC, saying that adoption of any Google-backed rules would invite “a serious legal challenge” to the auction.
“That seems a remarkable turnaround,” said Art Brodsky, communications director of Public Knowledge, a group backing Google.
“In effect, chairman Martin’s plan faces Google and others with a ‘put-up-or-shut-up’ opportunity,” Cicconi said.
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