The Federal Communications Commission voted to shake up the wireless market on yesterday by making whomever wins the auction of the airwaves must leave them accessible to any device.
The one-time sale would bring in at least $10 billion and begin in December 07 or January 08. This spectrum is being available when the analog TV airwaves get unused as TV broadcasters abandon that space for the HD-TV space, as per FCC rules. That will happen in January 2009.
This new rule makes it harder on Google to sesell the space. Google had publically offered to buy the space, which they could then sell off on a wholesale basis.
Right now cell carriers only sell certain models of phones and only allow those phones on their networks. This limits what consumers can do. That rule would not apply in the new spectrum space.
This sends wireless companies back to the drawing board, but I’m sure they can figure things out.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.