July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will decide today whether companies bidding for wireless airwaves must make them available to any mobile phone or wireless device.
The FCC's decision will set rules for an auction that may fetch as much as $15 billion. The sale could draw bids from big phone carriers including AT&T Inc. and Web companies including Google Inc. that are looking for new markets.
The rules may help create a wireless alternative to services sold by the entrenched phone and cable companies, Google says. That would build new competition for AT&T and Verizon Wireless, whose networks now work only with technologies they approve. The outcome may shape the legacy of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who is pushing for the so-called open-access policy.
``Ten years from now, this is what we'll remember the Martin commission for, this auction,'' said Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Blair Levin in Washington, who helped write rules for airwaves auctions in the mid-1990s as chief of staff to former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. ``It can be a tremendous stimulant to the economy; it can also be a bust.''
The airwaves in question, which the FCC must auction off by the end of January, will be freed up when television broadcasters convert to digital signals in February 2009. It's the first such auction since last year and will be the last of its kind for decades because no other airwaves of that quality are expected to be vacated in the foreseeable future, the carriers say.
AT&T, the biggest U.S. wireless carrier, and No. 2 Verizon Wireless want the airwaves so they can offer more of their own mobile Web content at faster speeds. The carriers consider these airwaves ideal for high-speed mobile Internet service because they can carry signals over long distances and penetrate walls.
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The FCC's decision will set rules for an auction that may fetch as much as $15 billion. The sale could draw bids from big phone carriers including AT&T Inc. and Web companies including Google Inc. that are looking for new markets.
The rules may help create a wireless alternative to services sold by the entrenched phone and cable companies, Google says. That would build new competition for AT&T and Verizon Wireless, whose networks now work only with technologies they approve. The outcome may shape the legacy of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who is pushing for the so-called open-access policy.
``Ten years from now, this is what we'll remember the Martin commission for, this auction,'' said Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Blair Levin in Washington, who helped write rules for airwaves auctions in the mid-1990s as chief of staff to former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. ``It can be a tremendous stimulant to the economy; it can also be a bust.''
The airwaves in question, which the FCC must auction off by the end of January, will be freed up when television broadcasters convert to digital signals in February 2009. It's the first such auction since last year and will be the last of its kind for decades because no other airwaves of that quality are expected to be vacated in the foreseeable future, the carriers say.
AT&T, the biggest U.S. wireless carrier, and No. 2 Verizon Wireless want the airwaves so they can offer more of their own mobile Web content at faster speeds. The carriers consider these airwaves ideal for high-speed mobile Internet service because they can carry signals over long distances and penetrate walls.
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
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