Comments on: Don't expect Google to take on AT&T

Google is gathering financing to bid in the upcoming FCC wireless auction, but what will it do once it gets the spectrum?

[mehtars]

license it out

license it out to device manufacture's and use those fees to
subsidize the cost of building up a network. Put google on every
page, free phone to other subscribers and build devices that way.

[disco-legend-zeke]

The ariwaves belong to the citizens. not the greedy phone companies.

The old paradigm of scarce spectrum is based on antique receivers that cannot separate signals.

Modern ones can. Auctioning off 700 Mhs is like auctioning off red.

Imagine haveing to pay AT&T a royalty or a per minute charge for every stop light.

[dondarko]

compliments of...

our politicians...

of business, for the business by the business.

[bobcode]

unlicensed spectrum

What happened to unlicensed spectrum?!

Before FCC, radio stations just homesteaded the spectrum they used.

[defishguy]

Advertising as a reason not to.

The industry battlefield is littered with the detritus of failed partnerships and there is little indication that the kids in IT play well with others. This purchase makes sense because conflicts with partners, network neutrality issues, and limited access to the private mobile playgrounds of the telcos could all severly impact the Gbottomline and limit Googles advertising reach in the mobile sphere. This purchase of spectrum is a rather clever defensive move to preserve the channel through which to serve up some mobile advertising and that is all it is. Google would profit by selling advertising and recoup the expense by licensing the spectrum.

[bobcode]

ad blocking

Does everything have to be ad sponsored? Firefox has ad blocking plug-ins. I suppose someone will develop ad blocking for the gPhone too.

[jayperk]

Umm, think again.

The cost to build a 700mhz network is now lower by a factor of 30 than the cost of building the current ATT network. Also, people want a fast DATA, not a voice, network nowadays.

You can lease tower space cheaply (not build new towers like the past), 700mhz has double the range and can cover 4 times the area of 1800mhz (common cell frequency) tower and with applications like Skype and Gtalk, the voice processing is at the local pc and all the traffic is pure IP. Add wireless backhaul to cut wireline expenses, and you have a fast and cheap network. The new Arcadia Network is a good example of this in nationwide use.

[jayperk]

Correction

Arcadian Network not Arcadia Network

[jr0ck]

Not one word in this article about Sprint's WI-MAX ??

I know many look down apon Sprint and their network / initiatives.. But from what I understand they along with Clearwire pretty much already have a nationwide WiMax network in place ready to be turned on. I find it pretty interesting that their is not one mention of this in the whole article when ATT & Verizon are. I have used pretty much all of the carriers except Tmobile and I can tell you that Sprint has the strongest cellular data offerings that I have seen, and lower prices to boot, and the only major carrier with plans to roll out a wimax data-centric network. So why are they being ignored in this regard. My 2c.