Google Adsense College

Posted by by Chris Sacca, Head of
Special Initiatives

Here at Google, we see the upcoming 700 megahertz spectrum auction
at the Federal Communications Commission as one of the best
opportunities consumers will have to enjoy more choices in the
world of wireless devices. That's why href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/fccspectrum_20071130.html" >
we announced today that we are applying to participate in the
auction.

We already know that regardless of which bidders ultimately win the
auction, consumers will be the real winners either way. This is
because the eventual winner of a key portion of this spectrum will
be required to give its customers the right to download any
application they want on their mobile device, and the right to use
any device they want on the network (assuming the C Block reserve
price of $4.6 billion is met in the auction). That's meaningful
progress in our ongoing efforts to help transform the relatively
closed wireless world to be more like the open realm of the
Internet.

Regardless of how the auction unfolds, we think it's important
to put our money where our principles are. Consumers deserve more
choices and more competition than they have in the wireless world
today. And at a time when so many Americans don't have access
to the Internet, this auction provides an unprecedented opportunity
to bring the riches of the Net to more people.

While we've written a lot href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/Telecom"
id="mznc" >on our blogs and spoken publicly about our plans for
the auction, unfortunately you're not going to hear from us
about this topic for awhile, and we want to explain why.

Monday, December 3, is the deadline for prospective bidders to
apply with the FCC to participate in the auction. Though the
auction itself won't start until January 24, 2008, Monday also
marks the starting point for the FCC's

href="http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=anti_collusion"
id="wvps" >anti-collusion rules, which prevent participants in
the auction from discussing their bidding strategy with each
other.

These rules are designed to keep the auction process fair, by
keeping bidders from cooperating in anticompetitive ways so as to
drive the auction prices in artificial directions. While these
rules primarily affect private communications among prospective
bidders, the FCC historically has included all forms of public
communications in its interpretation of these rules.

All of this means that, as much as we would like to offer a
step-by-step account of what's happening in the auction, the
FCC's rules prevent us from doing so until the auction ends
early next year. So here's a quick primer on how things will
unfold:

December 3: By Monday, would-be applicants must file
their applications to participate in the auction (FCC Form 175),
which remain confidential until the FCC makes them available.

Mid-December: Once all the applications have been fully
reviewed, the FCC will release a public list of eligible bidders in
the auction. Each bidder must then make a monetary deposit no later
than December 28, depending on which licenses they plan to bid on.
The more spectrum blocks an applicant is deemed eligible to bid on,
the greater the amount they must deposit.

January 24, 2008: The auction begins, with each bidder
using an electronic bidding process. Since this auction is
anonymous (a rule that we think makes the auction more competitive
and therefore better for consumers), the FCC will not publicly
identify which parties have made which bid until after the auction
is over.

Bidding rounds: The auction bidding occurs in stages
established by the FCC, with the likely number of rounds per day
increasing as bidding activity decreases. The FCC announces results
at the end of each round, including the highest bid at that point,
the minimum acceptable bid for the following round, and the amounts
of all bids placed during the round. The FCC does not disclose
bidders' names, and bidders are not allowed to disclose
publicly whether they are still in the running or not.

Auction end: The auction will end when there are no new
bids and all the spectrum blocks have been sold (many experts
believe this auction could last until March 2008). If the reserve
price of any spectrum block is not met, the FCC will conduct a
re-auction of that block. Following the end of the auction, the FCC
announces which bidders have secured licenses to which pieces of
spectrum and requires winning bidders to submit the balance of the
payments for the licenses.

If you're interested in keeping track of the publicly available
details of the auction, check out

href="http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=73"
id="cf.." >this page on the FCC's website or

href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=FCC spectrum auction&ie=UTF-8"
id="s3gh" >Google News. In the meantime, my lips will be sealed
(something, frankly, that I'm not used to). height="1" width="1" />

Tags: , Chris, google, Head, InitiativesHere, Posted, Sacca, Special