OVUM on: US Spectrum Auction Concludes

By: Jan Dawson, VP, US Enterprise Practice, Ovum
(Business News & Technology News, 27 Mar 2008)

The US spectrum auction in the 700MHz band concluded late last week, with Verizon and AT&T announced as the big winners.

The winners were not a big surprise—Sprint already has plenty of spectrum for its 4G rollout, while T-Mobile is barely completing its 3G rollout at this point, and Verizon and AT&T are the most likely to need the spectrum both to beef up their 3G networks and prepare for the LTE-based services which will be launched in the coming years. They spent around $16 billion between them (Verizon more than AT&T) and it will be several years until they see any return on that investment. But they now both have sufficient spectrum to last them well into the next decade and the wins cement their positions as the top two carriers in the US as Sprint continues to suffer.

Google, meanwhile, apparently pulled out pretty quickly once the reserve price for the main block of spectrum was met, happy that it had triggered the open access provisions and willing to leave the spectrum itself to others. However, it subsequently announced that it has been working on technology which would use the unlicensed white spaces also in the spectrum being vacated by the analogue TV switch-off in 2009. It claims that it can achieve speeds massively higher than those available with current Wi-Fi technology. But the problem is that other technologies such as wireless microphones also use the same spectrum, and might be adversely affected by interference.

Through bad luck, the prototype devices put forward by Google and others for testing by the FCC have malfunctioned in such a way that opponents of the plan have been able to suggest there will be interference problems and that the devices are not ready for commercial deployment. The National Association of Broadcasters and others have so far opposed plans to use the white space spectrum in this way, but the FCC has yet to rule.

If Google's technology is really as good as it suggests, it's surprising that it didn't secure some of that 700MHz spectrum through the auction, which would have obviated the need for petitioning the FCC. On the other hand, if its petition is successful, it will have saved several billion dollars. One thing is certain: if anyone can shake up the wireless market it's Google, which will be a player in the device market whether its wireless technology makes it or not through the Android initiative.

It will also be worth watching the relationships between Google and the various companies that are working with it on the white spaces effort in the Wireless Innovation Alliance. Although they have been able to find sufficient common ground so far to work together, Google's partnership with Microsoft in particular, but also others such as Dell, will be stretched if the petition is approved because their differences in strategy and competitive pressures will pull them apart. But even then, Google seems likely to come out on top since its technology appears to have put it in the driving seat.

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