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Could satellite TV provider Dish Network be planning to build a mobile TV service with its newly won 700Mhz spectrum?

That's the question that many analysts were asking after it was disclosed this week that the company, also known as EchoStar Communications, spent $711 million for a block of licenses in the auction that is ideal for offering mobile broadcast TV, according to a Reuters story.

The much-talked about auction ended Tuesday raising about $19.6 billion for the government. Wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon Wireless won the bulk of the spectrum.

The licenses that Dish bought were in the 6MHz sliver of spectrum called the E-Block. Because these licenses cover such a narrow band of spectrum, it would be hard for Dish to build a broadband wireless service to transmit two-way communication. This means that building a cellular phone or wireless broadband service using this spectrum is nearly impossible. But the spectrum could be used to send communications one-way, making it ideal for services such as broadcast TV.

Qualcomm already owns spectrum that is adjacent to the spectrum that Dish bought. Qualcomm uses its spectrum to deliver its MediaFlo TV mobile broadcast TV service. Qualcomm had also been bidding in the auction and was attempting to get the E-Block licenses. The fact that it wasn't able to get those licenses is a negative for the mobile technology company.

"It makes more sense for one provider to operate both pieces of spectrum," Steve Clement, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities told Reuters.

Dish hasn't said yet what it plans to do with the spectrum. Some analysts in the Reuters story speculate that it could cost the company between $3 billion and $5 billion to build a mobile TV network. The company said in a financial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in February that it might "make investments in or partner with others to expand our business into mobile and portable video, data and voice services."

There's also a possibility the company could work with Qualcomm.

Dish bid on the spectrum through its partner Frontier Wireless.

Consumer watchdog groups and some lawmakers want to know why the block of spectrum reserved for public safety in the Federal Communications Commission's 700 MHz auction didn't hit its reserve price.

On Wednesday, a coalition of nine consumer advocacy groups, including the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and the Media Access Project, sent a letter to the chairman of the FCC asking the agency to investigate whether the public safety requirements for "d" block license were too stringent. The groups also want the FCC to study whether plans for the shared public-private network are even still viable.

But consumer groups aren't the only ones concerned that the d block didn't sell. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and telecommunications subcommittee chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) are already planning a hearing for early next month to consider whether the public-private partnership model for building the wireless network for emergency responders should be changed or if the reserve price should be lowered.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has asked the agency's inspector general to look into complaints about the d-block auction, a Reuters story said.

The 700 MHz spectrum auction racked up a record $19.59 billion, but no one in the auction was willing to pony up the government's minimum price of $1.3 billion for the d block spectrum. The lone bid recorded for the d block was $472 million.

Under the rules set by the FCC before the auction started in January, the winner of the d-block licenses would be required to partner with local police, fire departments, and other public safety groups to provide a nationwide interoperable public safety network. This type of network is sorely missing in the U.S. And such a network was recommended to be built by the 9/11 Commission that investigated the events surrounding the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. in 2001.

A company called Cyren Call had been selected to act as the intermediary between public safety agencies and whichever private sector company won the spectrum licenses.

But even before the spectrum auction began, the only major contender in the auction, a company called Frontline Wireless, went out of business. The company had apparently been unable to secure funding.

Now, consumer groups and lawmakers are asking whether the reserve price was too high or if the strict public safety requirements were too difficult for a company in the private sector to meet.

In the meantime, the FCC has officially "de-linked" the d-block spectrum from the other blocks offered in the auction, so that it can be auctioned off later. The FCC said in a press release on Wednesday that it will not re-offer the d block spectrum immediately in the subsequent Auction 76. Instead, it will consider its options for how to license this spectrum in the future.

That said FCC Chairman Martin and the other commissioners said they were committed to making spectrum available for a nationwide interoperable public safety network before the February 2009 Digital TV transition.

"It is a travesty that our nation has failed, so far, to meet this urgent public safety challenge," Commissioner Michael Copps, said in a statement. "Now we have another chance to build the network that public safety and the American public need. I remain committed to working with my colleagues to succeed in this most important task."

It's official: Verizon Wireless has won licenses for nationwide coverage in the C-Block in the 700MHz spectrum auction conducted by the Federal Communications Commission.

This means that Verizon, not Google, will control the spectrum that is required by the FCC to adhere to special open-access rules.

Google had lobbied the FCC last summer to include several rules in the 700MHz spectrum auction that mandated open access. The FCC adopted only one of Google's proposed rules, which requires the winner to allow any device or application to connect to a network that uses this spectrum.

Google made good on its promise to bid in this sliver of spectrum in the auction. But as I predicted months ago, the company wasn't really serious about winning the auction. Instead, it looks like it just wanted to push the price of the auction above the $4.6 billion threshold to ensure that the open-access rule would go into effect.

Google apparently did not win any licenses in the auction, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

It's not surprising that Verizon won the C-Block licensees. Analysts had been predicting that for weeks.

Now it looks like the company will include this spectrum in its new open-device initiative. In November, the company announced that it would allow subscribers to bring their own phone or other wireless device to its network.

On Tuesday, Verizon released specifications and certification testing information for devices that it will allow on this open network.

Of course, the very fact that the company still requires device makers to certify their products for use on its network means that it isn't completely "open." But the new certification process is streamlined and will allow device makers to get through certification in weeks rather than in months.

Verizon also won other 700MHz spectrum licenses. It was the largest winner of licenses in the A-Block, which are midsize licenses. And it won 77 licenses in the B-Block, the smallest regional licenses that were being auctioned.

Satellite TV provider EchoStar Communications also won enough spectrum licenses to give the company nearly nationwide wireless coverage. EchoStar and DirecTV Group had dropped out of the Advanced Wireless Service auction in 2006. AT&T also won a large number of the smallest licenses that were auctioned.

The auction, which sold spectrum being freed from the transition to digital TV in 2009, closed on Tuesday, raising a record $19.6 billion.

As bidding on the 700MHz spectrum auction starts to wind down, a group of business school students predicts it will be long time before consumers see any of the promised new services resulting from the auction.

The 700MHz auction, which is reissuing spectrum originally allocated for analog TV, has been touted as one of the most important spectrum auctions the Federal Communications Commission has ever conducted. Not only was it expected to raise a great deal of money for the government, but as the last bit of prime wireless spectrum that will be made available for a long time, many people believed it would pave the way to a brave new world of wireless broadband.

The hope going into the auction was that it would open up the airwaves to at least one new nontraditional player, such as Google, which would help transform the wireless market and introduce more open services.

Now, the auction, which has already raised a whopping $19.59 billion since it began in January, will likely end in the next few days, according to the Reuters news service. Under the FCC's rules, the auction will continue until the bidding stops.

So what's likely to change for consumers after the auction concludes? According to a competitive intelligence war game initiated by market research firm Fuld & Company, not much, at least for the next few years. Carriers aren't expected to even have the new infrastructure built within the next two to three years.

Students from four top business schools--University of Chicago, Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, Harvard Business School, and MIT's Sloan School of Management--took on identities of four companies with a stake in the auction outcome--Google, Intel, AT&T Mobility and Vulcan Capital. The students then predicted the strategies of the companies post auction. Results of the game were published on Thursday.

Here's a look at some of the other predictions. The Google team, made up of students from University of Chicago, predicted that the search engine giant will partner with a leading wireless service provider, possibly AT&T. And the group believes that it will share 20 percent of its advertising revenue with whoever owns the licenses. Separate from the auction, the group also predicts that Google's new Android handset software will run into resistance among chipmakers and handset manufacturers, who have different business interests than Google.

The Northwestern group, which took on the identity of Intel, believes the chipmaker will attack the wireless broadband market through its WiMax initiative. The company will likely work with PC makers to embed WiMax chips and help them shrink their devices to compete directly with smartphones, the students said.

The teams also said that adult content was likely to be the killer application that will drive wireless broadband adoption.

For the most part, the predictions were not earth-shattering. I've been saying for a long time that Google would be better served if it worked with a carrier rather than build its own network. Intel has also been pretty open about its strategy for putting WiMax chips into PCs. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that porn sells. In fact, the adult content industry has been at the forefront of most new developments in technology, from the VCR to the explosion in Internet use. So it's hardly surprising that faster wireless broadband would spur people to get their kicks on the mobile Web. In fact, lots of people all over the world are already doing that even on slower-speed wireless networks.

It's still somewhat unclear how much longer the auction will last. Bidding has slowed over the past several days. But some experts have said that it could be over as early as next week. Neither the FCC nor any of the companies bidding in the auction have commented on when it will end. The identity of bidders has been a secret throughout the auction. But the FCC is expected to reveal the names of spectrum license winners within days of the auction's conclusion.

Google is lining up financing to bid on wireless spectrum in the Federal Communication Commission's upcoming 700MHz auction, and it's already built a small high-speed wireless network at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to test out what it could do with the spectrum, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The Journal cited sources saying the company is planning on bidding in the auction, set to take place early next year. Google has obtained a test license from the FCC that it's using to test technology on a small wireless network on its campus, the article said. And it's supposedly using prototypes of handsets that use the company's newly announced Android software.

The Journal's revelation that Google will bid on the spectrum shouldn't come as a huge shock. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has said before the company would likely bid in the upcoming auction.

After all the fuss and hoopla surrounding Google and the auction, it would seem ridiculous if the company didn't bid. Google lobbied the FCC hard for rules to be passed as part of the auction that would require license winners to allow open devices on that part of their network.

So what happens if Google actually wins some of this spectrum? That's the big question everyone is asking. It could build its own wireless network to compete against other operators like AT&T and Verizon Communications.

But building and operating a network is hard work and very expensive. I've said from the very first time Google was mentioned as a possible bidder in this auction that I don't think it will acquire spectrum to offer consumer wireless service. It just doesn't fit into the company's business model.

Google develops and delivers applications. It makes money via advertising. And all of this can be done without taking on the expense of becoming a wireless operator.

That said, it makes a lot of sense for Google to lease spectrum to other service providers that can put up the cash to build and operate the wireless service. In this scenario, Google maintains control of the asset without having to deal with the maintenance, management and customer service issues of running the network.

If you think about it, this approach makes a lot of sense given how Google has already positioned itself in the wireless market. The Android software was not designed for any single phone developed by a particular handset maker. It also wasn't designed to operate exclusively on a single carrier's network. Instead it is an open software platform that the company hopes will be on hundreds of different cell phone models running on dozens of carrier networks.

So while I know it sounds a lot sexier to think of Google as an alternative to AT&T and Verizon Wireless, I think it's not very likely. Of course, I could be completely wrong. But I was right about the Gphone not really being a phone, and instead being a software platform.

Verizon Wireless says it will go along with proposed Federal Communications Commission rules for the upcoming 700Mhz spectrum auction that would require the company to permit subscribers to bring any device to its network.

The company's CEO Lowell McAdam told The Wall Street Journal (registration required) in an article published Thursday that the company is now prepared to accept a set of rules proposed by FCC chairman Kevin Martin that would require winners of certain licenses in the 700MHz auction to allow any legal device to connect to networks using this spectrum.

On the surface, this looks like a pretty big deal. Verizon Wireless has the toughest policy of any major U.S. mobile operator when it comes to certifying new phones or allowing third-party applications on its phones. Many developers and even some consumers have complained that Verizon's "walled garden" is too restrictive and hurts innovation.

So for Verizon to say that it will go along with rules that would force it to allow any device on its network is a pretty big deal. The change in position also looks to be a compromise with Google, which last week said it would bid $4.6 billion in the auction if the FCC adopted several open-access rules.

AT&T made a similar policy reversal last week after Google announced its intention to bid on the spectrum.

But are AT&T and Verizon really compromising anything?

Combined, they have more influence in Washington, D.C., than any other set of technology or communications companies in the entire country. They don't need to be making conciliatory gestures that could hurt their businesses.

So why are they doing it? My guess is because the proposal that Martin has touted won't have much impact on the market anyway.

Martin's proposal, which few people have actually seen yet, only would require the "any device rule" to apply to a small sliver of the 700MHz spectrum. So if Verizon won these licenses, the requirement would be only for areas where those licenses are used.

The rest of the Verizon Wireless network would be just as closed off as it always has been. What would this mean for consumers? Well, if you're a Verizon customer, you could theoretically bring your own phone to the network, but it would only work in regions where Verizon has won and built out its network using the 700MHz licenses.

If you want to use the rest of Verizon's nationwide network, you'd still have to use a Verizon phone, because the company is not required to adhere to this rule for any other spectrum licenses that have been used to build its nationwide network. So at the end of the day, this rule by itself is completely meaningless for the average consumer, and it does nothing to promote true open access for devices.

What Google and others, like Frontline Wireless, really want to see is for the FCC to also adopt rules that would guarantee open access to wholesalers. This way, a new entrant like Frontline could buy 700MHz spectrum licenses, build a network and then lease capacity to someone like Google, which would then offer a nationwide service that would compete against Verizon and AT&T. Google would allow any device to be used through its service, which would then put pressure on Verizon and AT&T to also open up their networks.

This would be the phone companies' worst nightmare. As a result, it should come as little surprise that this requirement is not included in Martin's proposal. As anyone who follows the FCC closely could attest, Martin has never been described as an enemy of the phone companies. In fact, some might say he's their best friend, pushing through mega-mergers and supporting policy changes that favor their business interests.

In reality, the phone companies will get to protect their turf. They'll likely be the big winners in the spectrum auction slated for early next year. And average consumers will still be getting their cell phone and broadband services from the same companies that offer it to them today.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please let me know what you think in the discussion attached to this blog.