Well, on the face of it, not that much. Verizon paid about $9.63 billion for much of the “C” block, gaining enough spectrum to create a new nationwide network. AT&T, who had previously acquired a large chunk of 700-MHz spectrum, spent an additional $6.64 billion on much of the “B” block so that it can also create a new nationwide network.
The rules of the auction forbids the winners from talking about their plans until April 3rd, but the presumption is that they both wanted this spectrum in order to be able to build separate next-generation networks, utilizing Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.
While this would avoid them risking disruption of their cash cow legacy networks (no-one else wants to go through what happened with the Sprint / Nextel integration fiasco), no-one should be holding their breath on this one. LTE technologies have been shown to work under lab conditions, but that is a long way from being ready to deploy in the field, nationwide. Reports suggest that LTE won’t be ready for prime-time until 2011, so there remains a significant window of opportunity for WiMAX deployments, where the technology is here now. Intel has forecasted that by the end of this year, there will be 400 WiMAX deployments nationwide, and that by 2010 (still one year ahead of LTE being available), WiMAX services will be accessible by 650 million people, or approx. 10% of the global population.
So what happened to Google, I hear you asking. Well, it appears that they got what they wanted, open access (albeit a watered down version), without spending a dime. They proved themselves as effective lobbyists, and it is going to be very interesting to see what will happen next as they (together with Dell, HP, Microsoft and Philips) turn their attention to their proposal to the FCC for allowing the airwaves between television broadcast channels -- the so-called "white space" -- to be used for mobile broadband services.
While their proposal calls for a new wireless broadband network utilizing the white space, it's still not clear that they wish to become a network operator. In its filing, they said it would "be willing to provide, at no cost to third parties, the technical support necessary to make these plans happen." That support could include "intellectual property and reference designs for underlying technologies, open geo-databases maintained by Google, and other supporting infrastructure."
Only time will tell whether this is more of an effort on their part to ensure that any new networks will provide open access to devices to phones based on Google’s Android mobile platform. If they do, they will be able to deliver ads to those mobile customers, and generate revenue in the way that they know best.
In the meantime, I’m definitely not be accepting any invitations for a poker evening with those guys – they are way better at bluffing than I am!
The rules of the auction forbids the winners from talking about their plans until April 3rd, but the presumption is that they both wanted this spectrum in order to be able to build separate next-generation networks, utilizing Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.
While this would avoid them risking disruption of their cash cow legacy networks (no-one else wants to go through what happened with the Sprint / Nextel integration fiasco), no-one should be holding their breath on this one. LTE technologies have been shown to work under lab conditions, but that is a long way from being ready to deploy in the field, nationwide. Reports suggest that LTE won’t be ready for prime-time until 2011, so there remains a significant window of opportunity for WiMAX deployments, where the technology is here now. Intel has forecasted that by the end of this year, there will be 400 WiMAX deployments nationwide, and that by 2010 (still one year ahead of LTE being available), WiMAX services will be accessible by 650 million people, or approx. 10% of the global population.
So what happened to Google, I hear you asking. Well, it appears that they got what they wanted, open access (albeit a watered down version), without spending a dime. They proved themselves as effective lobbyists, and it is going to be very interesting to see what will happen next as they (together with Dell, HP, Microsoft and Philips) turn their attention to their proposal to the FCC for allowing the airwaves between television broadcast channels -- the so-called "white space" -- to be used for mobile broadband services.
While their proposal calls for a new wireless broadband network utilizing the white space, it's still not clear that they wish to become a network operator. In its filing, they said it would "be willing to provide, at no cost to third parties, the technical support necessary to make these plans happen." That support could include "intellectual property and reference designs for underlying technologies, open geo-databases maintained by Google, and other supporting infrastructure."
Only time will tell whether this is more of an effort on their part to ensure that any new networks will provide open access to devices to phones based on Google’s Android mobile platform. If they do, they will be able to deliver ads to those mobile customers, and generate revenue in the way that they know best.
In the meantime, I’m definitely not be accepting any invitations for a poker evening with those guys – they are way better at bluffing than I am!
