Well played Google, well played indeed

Posted 18 April 2008 - 04:30 PM

As many of you know the FCC had recently opened up auctions for buying various frequencies for wireless communications. Many big players went into the bid, the usual telephone giants like AT&T, Verison etc. The FCC also knew that Google had an interest because of their Android mobile platform project they had been working on.

The grand prize of the auction was the C block frequencies. The government had put in an auction provision that if a company put in a minimum bid of 4.6 billion that the company would have to then open up the frequencies to the public for use instead of hoarding them and making consumers pay.

So what did Google do? When everyone thought they were "in it to win it" they played smart and bid the minimum to get the prevision enacted and open to the public, then let another giant outbid them. The other company owns the frequencies, but because of what Google had done by bumping up the price the public now (including Google themselves) can use those frequencies.

Now realizing that they had been duped a bit by Google, several senators on the FCC is calling out Google for acting badly and taking the auction for a ride. Everyone else is calling the senators a bit it ridiculous because now the consumers win (they get access and the government also made a lot more money... about 20 billion to be exact).

Since they didn't win the auction, they never paid the money but got the frequencies open anyways. Well played Google, well played.

Look Who's Beating up on Google