Worst of the Week: The 700 MHz club and other terrible jokes

Hello!
And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWirelessNews.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
So the 700 MHz auction is off and running; 214 applicants are now qualified to bid on the 1,099 licenses up for grabs. AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless are in, while Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA are out. And just in case you were interested: I’m out too. I checked under the couch and on the floor of my car, but there wasn’t enough there to make the $77 million upfront payment for the E Block. Bummer.
Others that are officially in include Qualcomm, Google, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and a handful of cable and satellite TV operators. And, as RCR Wireless News first reported, Frontline is among those that are out.
Click here for complete 700 MHz auction coverage.
Like most wireless news junkies, I’m terrifically excited about the auction. It’s like eBay, but instead of buying used cellphone batteries and headphones for a few dollars, it’s invisible airwaves worth billions that can be used to transmit TV, radio, e-mails and, oh yeah, telephone conversations. Fantastic.
Anyway, I’m very excited. However, there are a few elements to this auction that are definitely going to bring me down.
Specifically, the FCC, in all its wisdom, has designated this as a blind auction, meaning the agency won’t reveal the round-by-round auction action. We won’t get to know the names of top bidders at the close of each round; instead, only the amount of the top bid for particular licenses in each round will be publicly disclosed. The anonymous bidding technique is intended to prevent anti-competitive activity during the auction.
The FCC will announce winning bidders only after the auction ends, which could be in March. Bummer, huh?
On the plus side, though, there is all that nonsense surrounding the C and D Blocks.
On the C Block, open-access stipulations mean winning bidders cannot block third-party devices and applications on the network so long as they cause no disruption to other communications. Google has indicated interested in the C Block, which carries a $4.6 billion minimum bid requirement.
And on the D Block, it must be shared between public-safety and consumer users, with first-responders having priority access during emergencies. The D Block winner will have to negotiate a network-sharing agreement with Public Safety Spectrum Trust Corp., the non-profit first responder D Block licensee.
With these stipulations in place, I think it’s fair to say there will be plenty of business and legal drama on the C and D Blocks, which is really good for wireless news junkies like me.
My prediction for the D Block is that no one will bid on it. Who in their right mind would want to share a network? More importantly, who would want to share a network with public safety? I can almost bet that police, firefighters and public-safety agencies would tie up the network during major crises like Hurricane Katrina — which is precisely the time you would want the network to function at its best.
My prediction for the open-access C Block is that Verizon Wireless gets it, and then Google sues them. That would be great.
But the best part of the 700 MHz auction? The chance that AT&T could win some spectrum. That would mean that AT&T would need a phone that supports 700/850/1700/1900/2100 MHz. That would be awesome.
OK! Enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this Worst of the Week column. And now, some extras:
–I received a number of excellent letters on the column last week, “Worst of the Week: Getting the message.” A number of you posed some thought-provoking questions, so here are my answers: Yes, no, maybe, probably, no and yes.
–Apple held its annual geek convention (I think it’s called Macworld) earlier this week, and the company did not announce a 3G iPhone, as some had hoped. To mollify saddened fanboys, Steve Jobs showed off his 9th level blackbelt skills by breaking a cement block with his face. He then sang “Amazing Grace” while tap dancing, causing a number of 20-something Apple fans to swoon in wonder.
–U.S. Cellular tapped Alcatel-Lucent for a five-year contract to provide infrastructure equipment to increase coverage and capacity of the carrier’s CDMA network. Hilarious, huh? There’s nothing funnier than network infrastructure.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at mdano@crain.com.