In this made for Tech TV reality series, the 700Mhz auction is going on as we speak. I’m pulling for Google. What people don’t realize is that if the 700Mhz auction goes Googles way we might see a national network very fast. This will allow Google to add the ‘middle mile’ to their metro edge wifi networks (by passing the incumbent telcos) plus have a edge solution in 700Mhz. Go Google Go!
I spent three years working in the wifi broadband and wimax area. Currently deploying wimax and wifi metronetworks is expensive and not reliable. A 700Mhz rollout is very viable and relatively inexpensive with the increased distances and small low cost antennas.
I pinged a friend Chris Anderson, Founder of LRC MultiComm, an expert in rolling out big wireless broadband networks. He summed up the 700Mhz auction best. Chris says “I think it’s great especially for mobile data, television DTV applications… It’ll rev-up your iPhone. Finally a frequency that’ll burn through walls!
What I find most interesting in this saga is the game theory that must be going on right now. All those negotiation strategist must be having a blast. This is the tech policy verison of the NFL draft. Where is the live stream and commentary?
The best bloggers covering this 700Mhz War Zone Tech Reality Series are:
Digital Daily from All Things D – John Paczkowski and ArsTechnica’s Eric Bangeman and RCR Wireless News and Cynthia Brumfield of ip democracy (must read for broadband policy news and thought leadership).
My favorite blog for years, which has been one of the early blogs in wireless, is Dailywireless.org – very deep technical insight.
However the best post so far goes Bryan Gardiner of Wired.com has a very strong blog post that intersects the business implications while digging in into the tech issues and benefits. Nice post Bryan.
There will be three more rounds of bidding today, and the auction will continue until companies stop bidding, which could take weeks or even months. If you want to keep tabs on the bidding yourself, the FCC posts results 10 minutes after each round ends on the results page.
Update: Round three has ended, and the total has now climbed to $3.203 billion. Block D is still stuck at $472 billion, while bidding on Block C has risen to $1.493 billion.
Silicon Valley Technology Blog - John Furrier 