Wireless startup may be out of auction
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A wireless startup company that planned to build a national public safety communications system has apparently bailed out of the upcoming airwaves auction, a move that creates doubt about the future prospects for the network.
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But are they a niche device for business travelers or a bombshell set to rattle the wireless industry?
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The two vendors are reportedly in talks to combine their wireless infrastructure units.
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Google said yesterday it will bid at least $4.6 billion on wireless airwaves being auctioned off by the federal government, if certain conditions are met.
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The auction for rights to a highly valuable swath of the nationâs airwaves will begin Thursday and is expected to include multibillion-dollar bids from the nationâs two biggest wireless phone companies.
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Ambitious plans for big Wi-Fi networks to provide free or low-cost wireless Internet access are being abandoned or scaled back by US cities as the economics of the deals turn out to be more challenging than expected.
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Perhaps it's not a handset but a slice of the wireless spectrum that Google is eyeing.
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The Bush administration is expected to press for speedier licensing of public airwaves for auction to private companies. But telecom regulators say wireless apps need unlicensed spectrum too. By Joanna Glasner.
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Firm withdraws appeal of FCC rules requiring a portion of coveted wireless spectrum sold in an upcoming auction to be open to any wireless devices and applications consumers desire.
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A proposal for a wireless phone directory raises concerns in Congress.
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AT&amp;T hasn&#39;t decided whether it will bid for the highly desirable 700MHz band because it doesn&#39;t know if it can build a profitable business, given the open-access rules set for the wireless spectrum by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in July.Calling the rules &quot;interesting,&quot; AT&amp;T&#39;s CEO Randall Stephenson said the company is hard at work crunching numbers and analyzing business scenarios, but hasn&#39;t reached a conclusion yet.&quot;Is there a business model there? I&#39;m not sure if there is or not,&quot; he said Friday at the&#160;Web 2.0 Summit, where he answered questions from conference chair John Battelle and from audience members.The FCC conditions, which include&#160;open-access rules on a third of the spectrum, have been a major source of controversy.The winner of 22MHz of spectrum must allow any wireless devices to connect to the network, permitting wireless telephone customers to use handset devices from other carriers. The winning bidder also can&#39;t block or slow down wireless and Web content from competitors.Some telecom carriers wanted no conditions, while some consumer advocacy groups and Google wanted the FCC to require that winning bidders also resell the spectrum at wholesale rates to competitors, something the FCC didn&#39;t adopt.The FCC is scheduled to auction 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band beginning in January. The spectrum is ideal for long-range wireless telephone and broadband services, with signals that travel up to four times farther than in higher spectrum bands.&quot;It&#39;s a huge opportunity. It&#39;s beachfront property. When it comes to buying spectrum, it&#39;s the best you&#39;re going to find for a long time,&quot; Stephenson said.Data consumption on wireless networks is growing fourfold year over year, so a company&#160;such as&#160;AT&amp;T needs to bulk up on spectrum to keep up with the demand, he said.&quot;It&#39;s very obvious we&#39;re going to have to add to our spectrum holdings,&quot; he said.That&#39;s why AT&amp;T earlier this month reached an agreement to&#160;buy 12MHz of high-speed wireless spectrum&#160;in the 700MHz band from Aloha Partners for $2.5 billion.&quot;It&#39;s the first time, I think, that we&#39;ve ever paid $2.5 billion for a company that had no revenue,&quot; Stephenson said.The Aloha spectrum covers 196 million U.S. residents, including 72 of the 100 largest markets in the United States.In other matters, Stephenson said he was very satisfied with the&#160;iPhone deal between his company and Apple.&quot;I&#39;m not sure I could have asked for much more out of it than what we got,&quot; he said.Asked to comment on the decision to use the slower EDGE network for the iPhone, Stephenson said it was a request from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.&quot;He wanted a broad ubiquitous data network. The EDGE network is the only data network that covers the entire United States,&quot; he said. The situation will improve as AT&amp;T upgrades markets to 3G, he said.Stephenson acknowledged that AT&amp;T&#39;s directory assistance business is being challenged by ad-supported options from Internet companies&#160;such as&#160;Google.&quot;We better get our advertising-supported [directory assistance] model up fast,&quot; he said, adding that AT&amp;T is building such a service internally.On a lighter note, he said he&#39;s &quot;envious&quot; of Google and the success it has had with its business model. &quot;It&#39;s a great gig if you can get it,&quot; he said.(Grant Gross in Washington, D.C. contributed with this story.)
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After Earthlink and Google scrapped plans to offer wireless in the city, many weren't so sure. But a start-up is promising to finish the job.
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A federal airwaves auction starting today is expected to bring consumers improved wireless broadband services and will likely provide the last opportunity to create a nationwide challenger to the big cellphone companies.
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An undisclosed bidder yesterday met the government's minimum asking price at an auction for one of technology's most coveted assets: airwaves that will be used to build a new wireless network.
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Company withdraws appeal of FCC rules requiring a portion of wireless spectrum sold in an upcoming auction to be open to any wireless devices or apps consumers desire.
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We won't know exactly what bidders plan to spend for a lucrative chunk of spectrum upon which to build new wireless services, but we do know who the bidders are. And at least for now, there are a few surprises.
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More than 200 companies qualified to bid in the upcoming auction of public airwaves that could raise as much as $15 billion for the U.S. Treasury. But it's not clear whether any of those companies will fulfill one of the key goals of the auction -- to attract a bidder that would build a wireless...