Verizon Decides Not to Fight 700 MHz 'Open Access' Requirement
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After having mounted what appeared to have been a serious legal challenge to the US Federal Communications Commission's right to impose rules for bidders in the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction without legislative authority, Verizon yesterday formally withdrew its FCC complaint from the D.C. District Court of Appeals.
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Ofcom promises to think about it The GSM Association, trade body of the mobile phone industry, is calling for regulators around the world to allow the use of 3G technology in the 900MHz band.â¦
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Blog: Search giant announces it's participating in the Federal Communications Commission's upcoming wireless spectrum 700MHz band auction--but there's a catch.
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AT&T will participate in the FCC's wireless auction, but hasn't decided whether to bid for the open-access 700 MHz band.
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Verizon Wireless has agreed to drop its opposition to the FCC&#39;s decision to realign the 800 MHz spectrum band, including Nextel&#39;s receipt of 1.9 GHz spectrum, and Nextel has agreed to relinquish
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The upcoming 700MHz spectrum auctions by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)&#160;have drawn bid applications from giant companies including Google and AT&amp;T. But a number of small companies and individuals have submitted bid applications as well.
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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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900MHz of static Google has refused to comment on "speculation" in today's papers that it will bid to provide mobile broadband in Ofcom's mooted auction of radio spectrum in 2009.â¦
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Is it time to look for a high-speed data plan? Good luck trying to get information to make a rational decision -- the carriers have made information about these services hard to come by.
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Blog: AT&#38;T's deal to sell the iPhone drew criticism from Democrats, and a defense from Republicans. The arrangement might lead to an open access requirement for a 700 MHz spectrum auction next year.
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AT&T Inc. has backed away fromÂ earlier complaints about proposed open-access rules on parts of theÂ 700MHz spectrum to be auctioned by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission by early next year.
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(InfoWorld) - One provider's planned in-flight Wi-Fi and voice services may arrive a bit later than expected, but U.S. business users should keep their eyes open for possible good news, too: competition. AC BidCo LLC won a U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction earlier this year for 3MHz of radio spectrum to be used for in-flight communications services. The company's affiliate, AirCell Inc., said Wednesday its offer of Wi-Fi hotspots and other services on airliners should get off the ground commercially in early 2008. That's later than the forecast it gave in June, when it said commercial service would go live in 2007. AirCell is working to complete the FCC licensing process and expects to get its license, for which it bid US$31.3 million, in the next 30 days, according to a company statement. The company changed its forecast just to give it more breathing room and may still go live in late 2007, said Tom Myers, director of marketing. Despite a brave effort by The Boeing Co.'s Connexion by Boeing unit, which said last month it would shut down after failing to attract enough users, personal in-flight communication has had a bumpy ride. For more than 20 years, Verizon Communications Inc. offered its Airfone service, which uses wired phones in seatbacks, but that expensive service wasn't widely used and last month was discontinued on airlines. In 2004, the FCC gave Verizon a non-renewable five-year license and moved to auction off the 4MHz radio spectrum that had been used for Airfone's air-to-ground links. AC BidCo got 3MHz of the spectrum, while JetBlue Airways Corp. subsidiary LiveTV LLC got 1MHz. The companies expect other North American countries to make similar spectrum changes in the next few years that will allow them to expand across the continent. AirCell plans to set up 802.11b/g access points in planes for Internet access that will look to passengers like DSL (digital subscriber line) broadband, Myers said. They could even make VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls if an airline allowed it, though AirCell can shut down that capability at an airline's request. The company will use EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) third-generation cellular technology to link the plane to base stations on the ground. Lower equipment costs and lower weight will allow for a service priced significantly below Connexion, Myers said. AirCell would like to offer cellular data services as well, but those await more regulatory changes, he said. LiveTV currently offers TV, satellite radio and other services on a variety of airlines. It is focused on using its spectrum for low-cost or free services featuring entertainment, on regional airlines, according to Scott Easterling, director of sales and marketing at LiveTV. The company has paid for its license and expects to go live in the fourth quarter of 2007. The narrowness of LiveTV's 1MHz licensed band -- which cost it about $7 million -- wouldn't allow many passengers to simultaneously use a regular Wi-Fi broadband service, so that would probably carry a premium price if offered, Easterling said. But there may be ways for travelers to keep on top of business for free, such as through e-mail, he said. "We can give away a connectivity experience that would be very acceptable to people," Easterling said.
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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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Blog: AT&T's deal to sell the iPhone drew criticism from Democrats, and a defense from Republicans. The arrangement might led to an open access requirement for a 700 MHz spectrum auction next year.
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Study warns that investment in network capacity may not keep up with increasing demands for bandwidth.
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While computer makers have for the past year been rolling out laptops with built-in 3G broadband services, customers were forced to make a choice between HSDPA, used by AT&T and soon T-Mobile, or EV-DO, used by Verizon, Sprint and Alltel. Qualcomm aims to change this with its new "Gobi" chipset.
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Standards can't keep up with market Analysis It is increasingly obvious that standards processes are falling hopelessly behind the real time to market needs of vendors. In WiMAX and, particularly, Wi-Fi, markets suppliers are pre-empting ratified standards by ever longer margins. Initially, as with the 54Mbps 802.11g Wi-Fi system and with 802.16d, 'pre-standard' products were built to the finalized IEEE specification, but had not yet achieved any independent certification of this.â¦