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The Federal Communications Commission is considering a new plan that would require winners of an upcoming spectrum auction to provide free wireless Internet services.

The FCC could soon vote on a plan to auction off 25 megahertz of spectrum in the 2155MHz band of spectrum. As part of its plan, the commission would require the winner of those licenses to provide some free wireless Internet service.

The FCC sees the plan as a way to provide broadband Internet service to millions of Americans who either can't afford or don't want to pay for high-speed Internet access. Few details are known about what exactly the FCC is proposing, but word has it that it's similar to a plan proposed by M2Z Networks in 2006.

Under that plan, the FCC would give the company access to spectrum for free. The company would build the network and fund the service through advertising. As part of the proposal, M2Z planned to give the FCC 5 percent of its gross revenue from the service.

But the FCC didn't like that proposal, especially the part about giving spectrum away for free. So it's come up with its own proposal. Instead of giving away free spectrum licenses, it will auction the spectrum to the highest bidder and require the winning bidder to offer service on some its spectrum for free. The FCC will also require that the free service have content filtering in place to ensure that minors are not able to access adult Web sites.

Wireless service providers have traditionally opposed any stipulations imposed on wireless spectrum auctions. And the CTIA, the trade organization representing the industry, has already filed comments with the commission urging it not to put requirements on the spectrum.

"The commission should not require licensees to meet specific conditions, such as pricing plans, minimum data rates or content filtering," the CTIA wrote in a filing.

While the FCC's plan might be well-intended, I think it's unlikely that any company would spend the millions or even billions of dollars necessary to buy the spectrum, especially considering that it will take even more money to build and operate the network.

The advertising supported model sounds good on paper. But so far, it hasn't been proven to work. In fact, the failed citywide Wi-Fi projects all over the country have already proven that free wireless services don't work. EarthLink planned to only give some of its service away for free in some cities like San Francisco. But it offered "cheap" broadband in other cities. MetroFi built its whole business model on offering free Wi-Fi supported by advertising revenue.

EarthLink has since canceled plans to build its San Francisco network and now its dismantling networks in other cities, such as Philadelphia and New Orleans. Meanwhile, MetroFi is also looking for a way out of its citywide Wi-Fi business.

These companies weren't able to make the free model or even the inexpensive broadband model work, because networks are expensive to build and maintain. And unlike the bidders in this auction, these companies didn't have to pay for the spectrum they used to build the networks. I can't imagine many companies willing to make that kind of investment if they're required to offer even some of their service for free.

For this reason, I think it would be difficult for the FCC to find a bidder willing to take on the stipulations. This is exactly what happened in the most recent 700MHz spectrum auction. The FCC required bidders on the "D Block" of licenses to set aside a portion of that spectrum for public safety use. The only company even interested in the spectrum went out of business before the auction began, because it was unable to secure the necessary funding. In the end, the minimum bid on these licenses was never met, and the FCC is still trying to figure out how to rewrite the rules to attract bidders.

That said, the FCC has had some success in setting rules for new spectrum auctions. In the same 700MHz spectrum auction, the FCC required the winner of the C-Block licenses to build a network using this spectrum that is open to all devices and applications. Verizon Communications ended up paying $4.6 billion for the spectrum.

So in all fairness, the FCC may succeed in this endeavor. But ultimately, the success of this new plan will come down to whether or not the winning bidder will be able to come up with a business model that actually allows companies bidding on this spectrum to make money.

WASHINGTON--A high-profile government auction earlier this year failed to attract enough private investment dollars for airwaves dedicated to a nationwide broadband network for emergency responders. On Wednesday, federal regulators began trying to resuscitate the idea.

At its monthly meeting, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted to begin accepting comments from the public on a wide range of questions about what to do with that chunk of the 700Mhz spectrum, which is scheduled to be vacated by analog TV broadcasters next February as part of the congressionally mandated switch to all-digital programming. The spectrum is considered valuable both for commercial operators and emergency workers because of inherent properties that allow it to propagate over long distances and penetrate walls.

Ever since the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina, politicians have lamented the lack of interoperability among various emergency communications networks as a key obstacle in responding effectively to disasters that arise.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, called Wednesday's action "the first step in a renewed effort to provide our nation's first responders with the broadband network they need and deserve."

The FCC first attempted to sell off the so-called "D" block of airwaves during a bigger auction that ultimately brought in a record $19.6 billion for the government when it concluded in March. In rules issued last summer, the regulators dictated that the license for the 10Mhz block would be set aside for creation of a nationwide public safety network, to be built through a "partnership" between the public and private sectors. Under that arrangement, public safety operators would have priority access to that spectrum in emergencies, but the winning commercial operator would also be allowed to use it on a secondary basis.

"Today all five of us are admitting we tried something and failed on it."

--FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell

But the auction didn't come anywhere close to attracting the FCC's $1.3 billion reserve price. Frontline Wireless, the only major contender in that segment of the auction, went out of business without comment before the auction even began. Some analysts say that's because of the current economic downturn, aggravated by the FCC's failure to lay out clear enough expectations for the network and its private investors.

"Today all five of us are admitting we tried something and failed on it," Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell said at Wednesday's meeting.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Martin said the agency plans to move as quickly as possible to revise its rules and begin the new auction. He said he's not sure whether they'll be able to pull that off by the end of the year, which is what he had previously hoped, but he does hope for the licenses to be assigned before the digital television conversion.

The FCC order adopted Wednesday sets the stage for the new rules, asking for ideas about how to handle a wide range of issues, from whether the public-private partnership model is still a wise idea to what technical requirements the shared network should meet. The comment period will be open for 30 days, with another 15 days for replies to the initial wave of suggestions.

Some consumer advocacy groups and members of Congress have already expressed concerns about the fate of the public safety spectrum block and asked the FCC to investigate what caused the auction to fail.

The FCC said its goal is to provide as clear guidance as possible to potential bidders in hopes of avoiding another abysmal turnout. Martin, however, said he hadn't ruled out the idea of scrapping a public-private partnership and simply auctioning off the spectrum to the highest bidder without any requirements to build an emergency network, with Congress potentially directing those proceeds to fund a public safety network.

The two Democratic Commissioners, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, said they would've preferred to see Congress dedicate federal funds to building such a network in the first place. But they said they were willing to give the public-private partnership approach another try, so long as it produces the same result.

"The longer we delay implementation of an interoperable broadband network, the more lives we put at risk," Adelstein said.

Google wants reassurance from Verizon Wireless that it will comply with open access rules that were part of the Federal Communications Commission's recent 700MHz auction.

Verizon Wireless was the winning bidder in the auction of an important sliver of spectrum licenses in the 700 MHz spectrum auction, which raised a record $19.6 billion for the U.S. Treasury. As part of the rules of the auction, the winner of the C-Block licenses is required to allow any device to connect to the network and is also required to allow any application to be downloaded on devices that use the network.

Verizon, which plans to use the new spectrum to build its 4G wireless broadband network, initially opposed the open access rules. And once the rules were adopted, it filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to find those conditions unlawful. It eventually withdrew its appeal after that court denied Verizon's request for an expedited review.

Google filed a petition with the FCC on Friday asking the agency to make sure that Verizon really plans to adhere to these rules before the FCC officially grants the company the licenses in the C-Block of the 700MHz auction.

"We want Verizon to acknowledge their responsibility to comply with the C-Block license conditions," said Richard Whitt, the Washington telecom and media counsel for Google who signed the petition. "In other words, we want them to live up to their side of the bargain. And we want their interpretation and implementation of the rule to be consistent with the spirit and intent in which the FCC adopted those rules."

Google, which also bid on the spectrum during the auction, was one of the main proponents of the open access rules and helped effectively lobby the FCC to include the rules as part of the auction.

Now that the auction is over, Google claims that it wants to make sure that Verizon will really comply with the rules so that software developers can begin working on new innovative applications. It wants Verizon to state publicly that it plans to adhere to all aspects of the open access rules, including a provision the company opposed in written and oral arguments to the FCC as well as in court papers filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals. Specifically, Google wants Verizon to say that it will allow any application to be downloaded on any device using the C-Block network.

Google contends that Verizon has argued previously that the rule should apply only to devices that consumers bring to the network and should not include devices that Verizon sells to its customers.

This reasoning appears to be similar to how Verizon has set up its Open Device Initiative, a program announced in November that will expedite the certification process for device makers to get new devices on Verizon's network. This program is separate from the 700MHz rules, but it could provide some insight into how the company interprets open access.

Whitt said that what Verizon is doing with the Open Device Initiative is commendable. He applauds the company's efforts to embrace openness as a business model, but he said that it's too early to tell if the initiative will live up to the rules that the FCC has mandated for C Block licenses in the 700MHz spectrum auction.

Verizon has not specifically said since the auction that it won't live up to its obligations under the rules of the auction. Whitt said that Google doesn't necessarily mistrust Verizon, but he said that the company is taking Ronald Reagan's advice to "trust but verify" that Verizon will do what's expected.

"We're not trying to delay the process," he said. "And we aren't trying to block Verizon from getting those licenses. What it comes down to is we want to make sure that Verizon Wireless acknowledges and accepts the conditions put on these licenses by the majority of the FCC."

According to FCC procedure, Verizon has an opportunity to file its reply to Google's petition within the next two weeks. A spokesman for the company said it would be doing that, but he didn't seemed alarmed by Google's petition.

"What a surprise," he said in an e-mail. "Google submits yet another regulatory filing to the Federal Communications Commission. Google's filing has no legal standing."

If Verizon responds to the petition and reiterates its position or decides not to address the issues, it will be up to the FCC to decide what it will do next. It is within the FCC's right to deny Verizon access to the licenses, Whitt said. But considering what is at stake, it's likely that won't happen. I'll be following this drama as it unfolds to see how Verizon responds.

Craigslist has responded to a lawsuit filed by eBay, noting that it "came to us out of the blue," according to a posting on its craigslist blog Tuesday.

The popular online classified-ad site issued its response after eBay on Tuesday filed a lawsuit, alleging that its 28.4 percent stake in Craigslist was diluted by more than 10 percent in January. eBay, which acquired its minority stake in 2004, submitted its lawsuit under seal and, as a result, few details are readily available.

Craigslist said it was surprised by the action, stating that eBay had not attempted to discuss the matter with the company prior to filing its complaint.

"Coming from a shareholder that views craigslist as a prime competitor, filing suit without so much as mentioning these assertions beforehand seems unethical, and hints at ulterior motives," Craigslist notes in its blog.

And what ulterior motives could Craigslist be referring to? The company alleges: "eBay has absolutely no reason to feel threatened here - unless of course they're contemplating a hostile takeover of craigslist, or the sale of eBay's stake in craigslist to an unfriendly party. In which case, they're out of luck."

Craigslist, however, is not a publicly traded company, so a "hostile takeover" is a less likely route. eBay selling its stake to another party may be something worth keeping an eye on, given that's how eBay came into its Craigslist stake in 2004.

This story was updated at 11:40 a.m. PDT with correct units for DSL broadband speeds currently on the market.

A Silicon Valley Democrat in the U.S. Congress is proposing a new auction of unused radio spectrum, but with some ambitious strings attached: The winner would have to offer a free, wireless broadband network that reaches 95 percent of the American population within a decade.

Voicing disappointment that familiar large wireless carriers scooped up the most significant share of airwaves in a recently concluded auction, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) on Thursday introduced the Wireless Internet Nationwide for Families Act, which would direct the Federal Communications Commission to auction off a band of wireless spectrum between 2,155 megahertz and 2,180MHz that currently lies fallow and impose detailed rules on the winning bidder. Rep. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads a House telecommunications and Internet panel, and Rep. Chris Cannon, a Utah Republican, have signed on as co-sponsors.

Under the proposed measure, aside from offering the free broadband network, the network operator would have to:
• begin offering "always-on" broadband service within two years of receiving the license
• offer a service free of subscription fees, airtime, usage or other charges to consumers and "authorized public safety users"
• ensure the service offers at least 200 kilobits per second transmission speeds in at least one direction (a far cry from the 768 kilobits per second speeds associated with most entry-level DSL lines)
• outfit the free service with "a technology protection measure or measures that protect underage users from accessing obscene or indecent material through such service"
• publish royalty-free standards so that others can develop and deploy equipment that can operate on the network

"While the auction required under this legislation is open to anyone, it is my hope that the bold conditions of requiring free, family friendly service will encourage the entry of a new kind of national broadband service provider," Eshoo said in a statement.

The requirements, however, sound strikingly similar to a plan that a Silicon Valley start-up called M2Z Networks offered to the FCC in recent years.

Specifically, M2Z sought permission to obtain a 15-year exclusive, nationwide license to essentially the same band of spectrum described in the Eshoo bill. It wanted to offer a "free," advertising-supported tier of service that would offer speeds of at least 384Kbps down and 128Kbps up, and a "premium" tier with 3Mbps speeds. And, like the Eshoo bill, M2Z pledged to reach 95 percent of the American population within 10 years and outfit the free tier with filters designed to block obscene content.

The FCC dismissed that petition, opting to undertake its usual public comment and rulemaking process before deciding who would control the spectrum. It has reportedly already begun moving ahead with that process, although it wasn't clear when it would finish.

An Eshoo aide said her boss had conversations with M2Z while drafting the bill, but her motivation was "primarily to provide alternative means of broadband access for more Americans, and this fallow spectrum seemed to be a real opportunity."

M2Z CEO John Muleta said the bill's introduction is a hopeful sign for would-be new entrants like his firm. "What we've been advocating for is, there needs to be new entry, not necessarily more regulation, to do innovative and unusual things that would get more broadband to more people," he said in a telephone interview with CNET News.com.

An array of consumer groups supported M2Z's idea, but the wireless industry opposed its original petition, calling it a "self-serving attempt to gain access to valuable spectrum outside of the auction process."

The new House proposal doesn't appear to be much better in the industry's eyes. Joe Farren, a spokesman for CTIA-The Wireless Association, said his group objects to the stringent conditions it would impose on bidders, saying flexible conditions would ultimately raise more money for the federal treasury.

"We agree with Congresswoman Eshoo that additional spectrum must be made available and we look forward to working with her on this important endeavor," he said in an e-mail on Friday. "However, mandating how providers should deploy and use such spectrum is something we can't support."

eBay said Tuesday it will shut down its Live Auctions business at the end of the year as part of restructuring efforts, according to a Reuters report.

The company's little-known service enables members to participate remotely in real-world auctions, whether in a physical place or online. Reuters cited the comments of a company executive who posted them on eBay's announcement board: "Maintaining and improving this platform falls outside our immediate focus, and will, therefore, be retired at the end of the year."

SAN FRANCISCO--Jonathan Bari didn't seem too nervous until the $725,000 glitch.

A woman, taking commands from someone at the other end of her cell phone, had bid $750,000 on the patent portfolio he was selling at the Ocean Tomo IP Auction last week in San Francisco. The patents covered an online authentication system for consumers devised by his old company Catavault.

The panic came because auctioneer Charles Ross registered the bid at $725,000.

"She said $750,000," he said to me. (We were sitting next to each other.) He became absolutely still. His anxiety then began to climb--not because he was going to be shorted $25,000, but because the bidding accelerated.

A remote buyer placing bids through a representative of the auction house (the buyer was speaking to the rep on a phone) raised it to $800,000. The cell phone woman laughed, talked to her client on the phone, and after a pause bumped it to $810,000. The remote bidder bumped it to $815,000.

VIDEO: Click image to see scenes from the auction.

(Credit: CNET TV)

It continued on. When the bidding crossed $1 million, the 200 or so people in the room simultaneously went "Oooooohhh."

Not Bari. He started breathing audibly. "Go higher, higher," he whispered, to outer space.

The remote bidder kicked it to $1.1 million. The room paused. Cell phone lady quit. Bari shook my hand and left, happy that the winner bid far more than the $500,000 minimum he had set.

The devil's lair?
While Bari got one of the highest prices of the day, his experience reflected the overall tenor of the patent auction, in which intellectual property owners sell their goods to anonymous bidders. Internet patents--particularly the kind that could apply to vast numbers of transactions on the Net--drew a lot of attention.

Discovision Associates got $6 million for a large patent portfolio for improving bit streaming, a record for an intellectual patent portfolio at auction. Yoogli, which has a semantic search patent, received a $1.1 million bid, but withdrew the patents because it was below Yoogli's reserve.

For critics of software patents, this kind of event is the ultimate nightmare. They claim that Internet patents are dangerously broad and that auctions ultimately fuel lawsuits. It's like the Amazon one-click patent and an attack by wolves all rolled into one.

So far, Ocean Tomo says that only a few lawsuits have emerged around patents bought at its auctions. Still, some attendees represented "patent enforcement firms," which buy patents and then extract royalties from other companies. Intellectual Ventures, the large patent firm founded by former Microsoft chief scientist Nathan Myhrvold, was allegedly bidding by phone through one of the auction house reps, according to some attendees.

Or heaven's gate?
The patent holders, though, see it differently. Many are independent inventors who tried to license their products to large companies but got rebuffed. Without patents, large companies would steamroll over the little guy, many assert.

Realtor Martin Eldridge, for instance, got $1 million for a location-based application that combines GPS-like data with information services. If you walk by a painting rapidly in a museum, for example, you might just get the name of the painter sent to your cell phone. If you pause, it might forward you the date it was painted and other details.

He came up with the idea while driving down Highway 1 in California.

"I wanted to know what I was driving by," he said, elated and sipping champagne. He wrote Google, Garmin, Microsoft (all of whom have extensive patent portfolios that the rigorously defend) and several other companies about licensing. None responded. The auction gave him a way to make some money off of it.

Michael Voticky sold a voice-mail management program he came up with while on a flight from Europe, for $500,000. It was his minimum. "No complaints," he told me.

The list goes on: Videa got $700,000 for a patent for displaying video files as thumbnails. Another company got $975,000 and hearty applause from the audience for an application that ranked media files according to a user's personal profile. QSIndustries got $400,000 for a digital sound-effects app. A newsfeed aggregator patent went for $400,000.

Below that, a slew of patents that related to consumers sold in the $100,000 to $250,000 range. Under the unstated rule of auctions, the crowed applauded and ooohed only if the bidding went past the $900K mark.

Compare that with what happened with the patents for industrial users. Sun Microsystems offered a number of patent portfolios. The first three were withdrawn because bidders didn't hit the minimum or bid at all. Sun finally sold one for $325,000.

Other companies didn't see bids, or high enough bids to get past their minimums, on patents for improving cell phone antennas, engine management systems, conductive coatings for planes that make them easier to de-ice, or an application for tracking trucks in delivery fleets. Edward Hyman got $130,000 for a chip that can help control satellites, a little above his minimum expectation.

In all, Ocean Tomo CEO Jim Malackowski deemed the day a success. The patents sold generated $19.6 million in revenue. That's a record for an intellectual-property auction.

Four lots sold for more than $1 million and around 62 percent of the lots were sold overall. Ocean Tomo keeps 25 percent as a commission--10 percent from buyers and 15 percent from sellers.

Not bad for a day's work.

Over the last few months, mobile operators have been falling over each other to profess their networks as "open," but a closer look at what they're really doing suggests they have a long way to go.

Traditionally, mobile phone operators have kept a tight grip on their networks. They have determined which phones could be used, what applications could be accessed, which features were enabled, and where subscribers could go on the Internet. But over the past year, Internet companies like Google and Skype have joined with consumer groups to lobby lawmakers and the Federal Communications Commission to force wireless carriers to loosen their restrictions and open their networks.

Amid threats of regulation and new legislation, operators have begun changing policies and introducing services that they claim makes their networks more open.

Earlier this week, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin applauded the industry's efforts toward openness, and said he would push to dismiss a petition filed last year by Skype that would require carriers to allow any device or application on their networks.

But for all the lip service being paid toward wireless openness, the reality is quite different.

Take Verizon Wireless' open device initiative as an example. In November, Verizon announced it was launching a program that supposedly would allow any device or application to be certified for use on its network. Device makers would be able to determine the features, applications, and services offered on the phones. They would create the user interface. Verizon would simply provide the network access.

For consumers, the benefit is the ability to choose from a more diverse set of devices and applications while still being able to use the Verizon Wireless network.

While this is a huge improvement over Verizon's traditional model, it does not constitute an entirely open network. The company still doesn't allow any device to connect to the network. Handset manufacturers still have to go through a certification process. In other words, if you wanted to use your old Sprint Nextel phone, which uses the same underlying CDMA network technology that Verizon's network uses, you couldn't.

Under this new model, Verizon still maintains control of which devices get on the network. This is completely different from how the traditional Internet operates. For example, Comcast and Verizon's DSL business do not certify laptops or any other Internet-enabled devices that connect to their broadband networks.

And it's this distinction that will likely draw criticism from open access proponents such as Google. Richard Whitt, Washington telecom and media counsel for Google, said in an interview with CNET News.com that he and his team are still evaluating Verizon's open device program, but it seems clear from his definition of "open access" that Verizon is falling short of expectations.

"Openness to us is akin to what openness is like on the Internet where any end user can attach any device or use any application, that is lawful, on the network," he said. "It allows innovation without permission."

Verizon executives argue that they must certify devices to protect their customers and their network.

"We don't want to be a barrier to entry," Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon Wireless, said at the developer conference where the specifications for the new program were revealed last month. "But as all of you can appreciate with 65 million customers and billions of dollars of investment in our network, we need to protect our customers and our assets."

The big question now is how Verizon will interpret the requirements for open access on new spectrum it recently won in the 700Mhz spectrum auction, which is required by an FCC rule to be open to all devices and applications.

Google's Whitt interprets the rule as ensuring connectivity for any device, not just Verizon-certified devices.

"Regardless of what Verizon thinks as a business proposition, they will still have to comply with what the FCC requires," he said. "And the order and the rules are clear for what the FCC had in mind. Verizon has to live up to the regulation and the terms of those regulations. And we trust that the FCC will verify that those conditions will be met."

Verizon says that it believes its take on open networks more than satisfies the FCC's requirements.

"The Open Device initiative and architecture goes much beyond anything that the commission might have been thinking about with Google," Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon Communications, said Friday during a conference call to discuss the 700Mhz spectrum auction. "I think what will happen is, the FCC's expectations will be more than met by the kinds of things that we're doing."

Controlling the mobile Web?
Verizon Wireless isn't the only mobile operator offering a service that might not be all that it seems. In March, Sprint Nextel, the third largest mobile provider in the U.S., announced it would use new technology from OpenWave that would allow it to transcode regular Web pages so they could be viewed on any browser-enabled cell phone on the Sprint network. Sprint touted the new functionality as a way to open the mobile Internet to its customers and provide complete access to everything on the Web on their mobile handsets.

But the way in which Sprint has implemented the technology has drawn criticism from Web publishers, who say Sprint is hijacking their Web pages and adding its own links to their sites. On many of the sites that have been transcoded, Sprint has added a "home" button on the bottom of the page that takes users to its home page and not the home page of the Web page publisher.

Ed Moore, project manager for OpenWave's OpenWeb product, said this button is simply a navigation tool and is not intended to draw clicks away from the mobile Web publishers.

"Clearly it would be great to say the carriers are always sensitive to consumers' needs or that they want to maximize consumer welfare. But in many cases there will always be the need for Congress and the FCC at a minimum to provide careful oversight."

--Richard Whitt, media counsel, Google

"The aim of adding those buttons isn't to influence where users go next from a mobile Web page," he said. "It's simply to provide extra navigation. People need a way to get back to where they started to look for more content. And there is really no back button that can take them there."

But some people in the mobile community are afraid that Sprint may add other content to their Web pages, such as advertising. Jason Spero, vice president of marketing for Admob, a mobile advertising network for more than 4,000 mobile Web publishers, said many of his clients have complained about how Sprint is rendering its pages.

"The whole idea of 'openness' is just a marketing term," he said. "It's not really open when you're controlling what people see on Web pages. The mobile Web has all the potential of the PC Web, but adhering to standards is critical in making that happen."

Emmy Anderson, a spokeswoman for Sprint, said the company is not trying to control what consumers see when they surf the mobile Web. And she said the company is currently not embedding its own advertising on the mobile Web sites.

"It's not an issue of us having more control," she said. "We're just trying to make the user experience better. We are trying to open up more of the Internet to people on their cell phones. But we understand that some content companies might want to talk about how the information shows up on phones."

Moore said that OpenWave is already developing technology to ensure that some of these problems are resolved. And he said that Sprint is considering using the upgraded technology.

Even if Sprint adopts the new technology and Verizon Wireless edges toward more openness on its network, Google's Whitt believes that regulators and legislators still need to keep their eye on the phone companies.

"Clearly it would be great to say the carriers are always sensitive to consumers' needs or that they want to maximize consumer welfare," he said. "But in many cases there will always be the need for Congress and the FCC at a minimum to provide careful oversight."

Who would've thought a generic domain name would still have the capacity to pull in big bucks? Chris Clark, the seller of "Pizza.com," seemed a bit in shock after he managed to rake in $2.6 million from the auction of the domain name.

"It's crazy, it's just crazy," he told the Baltimore Sun after the close of the auction on Thursday.

Clark, who owns a software company, registered the Pizza.com domain name 14 years ago for just $20. Nothing fruitful ever really came of the domain, so he sat on it for a while, and then he and a friend turned it into an advertising and pizza directory. Then, they heard about the fortuitous sale of Vodka.com and decided to try their own luck with Pizza.com, according to the Sun. By March 29, the bidding hit $2 million and even more bids were coming in.

During the go-go days of the Internet, hopeful companies and entrepreneurs snapped up easy-to-remember, generic domain names with the expectation that they would translate to boatloads of cash--or even a heady IPO. But the gold rush began to die down as it became apparent that names like Jewelry.com and Meat.com were a losing proposition. Vodka.com and the even bigger sale of Business.com for $7.5 million in 1999 can be called anomalies among the many failures.

Clark's Pizza.com auction was held by Sedo.com, which currently features such aspirants as "fattoskinny.com," "waterfrontretreat.com", and "getforeigncurrecy.com".