Word: auctions
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...Yahoo! makes a more credible challenge to Google, which helps advertisers, even though there would be two space sellers instead of three. Rob Norman, CEO of WPP's GroupM Interaction, the world's largest media buyer, is cautiously optimistic. "It's a qualified good," he says, "because in an auction atmosphere, you're competing against other advertisers more than the auctioneer itself. The deal won't give you leverage against Google, but it could give you choice, and more choice is always positive...
...might not sound like the sexiest deal, but today the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) will auction off rights to the 700 MHz band of wireless spectrum - a sale that has the potential to create a seismic shift in the telecommunications landscape. The powerful band of prime cross-country airwaves, which is currently being used for analog TV broadcasts, is due to free up by February 2009 when TV goes fully digital. So, if ever a new telecom player were to carve out a piece of the lucrative nationwide wireless pie, now would be the time. "This is the last auction...
Once TV broadcasters have vacated the 700 MHz band for more efficient digital signals, which take up less bandwidth, the FCC will repurpose the surplus analog spectrum for wireless devices. The auction consists of five blocks of licenses to be sold off in pieces - ranging from rights to various regional networks to sprawling nationwide ones - each set at a minimum bid. The process could take weeks or even months and is likely to pull in about $15 or $20 billion for the federal government. Carriers wishing to offer new wireless services are currently running into spectrum shortages - one reason...
...Wireless, a venture supported by a group of Silicon Valley investors, has gone belly up, unable to secure funding for its intended bid on the discounted public-private D block of the 700 MHz spectrum that will share airwaves with public-safety responders. "I don't expect that the auction will result in a major new market entrant," says Michael Calabrese, director of the wireless future program at the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C. think tank. "I think Verizon will end up bidding more because it is worth more to them to keep out a new entrant...
Regardless of who ultimately wins, the auction has already prompted a serious restructuring of the way wireless carriers offer services to their customers. In August, the FCC backed Google's crusade (spawned by a paper written by Tim Wu for the New America Foundation calling for open networks) and mandated that the auction's largest available spectrum, the C block, be an open network if the bid reached at least $4.6 billion. (Some analysts predict Google will bid just enough to trigger the open-network provision, and no more.) That would mean customers could use any wireless device, handset...