FCC 700 MHz auction succeeds yet fails (and tBay)

It's IT Blogwatch: in which the FCC's $20 billion 700 MHz radio spectrum auction finishes; but who won? Not to mention how Brits. procure their pick-me-ups...

Nancy Gohring chows down:

The controversial 700-MHz spectrum auction has closed, raising $19.59 billion, a record for a spectrum auction in the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday. The FCC, however, failed to sell off a swath of spectrum that was set aside for a public safety network. That block did not receive a bid that met the FCC's $1.3 billion reserve price ... the FCC has not yet revealed which companies won the rights to the bands that were sold. While Google Inc. was instrumental in pushing the so-called open-access rules for the auction, it is still unknown if the search giant bid for or won any of the licenses ... The winnings from the auction will go to the U.S. Treasury and are earmarked for support for public safety and digital television transition initiatives. more

The grey lady's Saul Hansell adds:

It ended in a $19 billion whimper ... after 260 rounds of bidding over more than seven weeks ... $19,592,420,000 [is] nearly double the amount the commission had hoped to raise from the spectrum being abandoned next year as television stations switch to new frequencies ... Analysts still guess that Verizon and AT&T most likely have bought the biggest chunks of spectrum to fill in their existing networks ... Once the names are released, the auction rules give bidders a very short amount of time to deal among themselves, possibly trying to shore up financing. Then they will have to make a payment in full for their winnings. And of course they will need to spend many more billions of dollars between them to actually build out the networks that they signed up for. more

Eric Bangeman has questions:

The [FCC's] auction of the beachfront 700MHz spectrum ... was a success by at least two metrics: the auction raised nearly $19.6 billion, and the total price for the open-access Block C spectrum surpassed the $4.638 billion reserve ... [But] Block D missed its $1.33 billion reserve by a mile, and inquiring minds want to know what the FCC is going to do about it ... The block consisted of two 5MHz slices of spectrum that cover the whole country, but they were to come with one very important condition. The winning bidder would have to participate in the FCC's Public Safety/Private Partnership ... Its failure to meet the reserve is ammo for critics of the FCC's Public/Private partnership, but there's still going to be intense pressure on the Commission to ensure that a nationwide public safety network comes to fruition. more

And James Allan Brady has answers:

They still aren’t sure what they’re going to do with the D-Block. There’s a possibility they’ll just let it go and sell it for whatever it did manage to fetch at auction, but there seems to be a strong possibility that they’ll re-list it separately and sell it on its own, possibly with a lower reserve price. more

Erick Schonfeld crunches the numbers:

The winner (or winners) of the C-block won by bidding piecemeal for individual regional blocks instead of making one big national bid. This regional bidding strategy, which I called the Mississippi Sneak Attack, became apparent about a month ago and soon after took the lead from whoever was bidding for the national license. My theory: Google bid the bare minimum for the national licenses to trigger the open rules and then either Verizon or AT&T ended up winning the auction by bidding for individual regional licenses and putting them together ... We’ll learn soon enough if that is right. more

"But will the US consumer benefit?", asks Vinnie Mirchandani:

It appears AT&T and Verizon will be the big winners, [so] what exactly will change? If the 2 of them bid $ 12.5 billion for current auction, it would work out to $ 100 for each of their current subscribers. Small price to pay for the lock-in and the opportunity to consolidate further in the other half of the market ... Will customer service improve? ... Will voice quality and data speeds catch up to Europe and leading Asian countries? ... Will consumers truly be able to leverage the growing network of Apple and Google mobile apps developers, or will telcos continue to dominate with their own apps and services? more

Nilay Patel is master of the oddball simile:

The FCC says we'll know who won what within 10 days -- it's just like waiting for Santa, only instead of a fat man giving you presents, it's a vast government bureaucracy giving major corporations thin air! ... but it's still an historic day. more

But this Anonymous Coward adds 2+2:

Under the published rules, the names will not be released until after the D block is re-auctioned, which could take more then a few weeks to occur ... [so] the FCC will waive the re-auction in favor of a different plan for the D-block. more

And finally...

• British caffeine auction? [hat tip: b3ta]
  

Buffer overflow:

• ivan krstić; Maintaining clarity [on the OLPC reorg]
• Dell's Latitude XT2 plans revealed - Engadget
• Groklaw: News Rules for Changing Your Vote on OOXML
• BadVista: Windows Vista Incapable
• Kevin Newcomb: Is Google Becoming a Portal?
• Vint Cerf and Bill Coughran: An appreciation of Arthur C. Clarke
• OuterVillage: Grid Computing and its Advantages

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Douglas Schweitzer: Continue to be wary of attachments and links
• Seth Weintraub: iPhone's biggest competition might be the ASUS EeePC
• Mitch Betts: SaaS: The early years
• Mitch Betts: Life, systems and the inevitability of complexity
• Michael R. Farnum: ACLU vs Virginia on SSN's
• Lucas Mearian: I applaud HD DVD amends by Best Buy, Ciruit City
• David DeJean: The Coffeeshop Index gives the win to Apple
• Mark Hall: Encrypt and preserve
• Douglas Schweitzer: East Coast grocery chain security breach
  
• Shark Tank: Security first!
• Shark Bait: How to burst a bubble

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• Vista SP1 is people-ready-ish (and squirrel-scale)
• More Microsoft antitrust angst: now Novell (and improv++)
• WiMAX and satellite: unhappy together? (and Danny Bork)