Word: wirelessed
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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...
...Belt, senior director of technology at the Consumer Electronics Association. Data goes farther and faster without needing as many cell towers. "The fewer transmitter towers you have to build, the cheaper the network is and the cheaper your rates will be," says Craig Settles of Successful.com, which tracks the wireless industry. The result: Customers should see more complex services for streaming video on the go (think YouTube while you walk) and location-based applications, which could point you to the nearest Starbucks wherever you happen...
...speed of innovation depends on whether a newcomer like Google or Qualcomm, both of which are registered bidders, has the money and the will to acquire enough licenses to break into the wireless game and force the telecom companies to break old habits. Sure Google has the cash, but do they really want to get in the labor-intensive business of broadband networks? Already, startup Frontline 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...
...this race. They don't have the advantages of the Bell culture, but they aren't trapped by it either." Google could benefit by controlling their own wires, which could potentially mean huge profits down the road and direct access to their customers - a safety net against any wireless carrier whims...
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...