Loading ...Google’s spectrum play
So Google will be a player in the upcoming 700 MHz U.S. wireless spectrum auction after all. Speculation’s been rife, but speculating’s easy, since Google guaranteed the Federal Communications Commission it’ll bid a minimum of $4.6 billion for a block of spectrum back in the summer.
The company has since announced a mobile development platform, Android, which wasn’t the branded mobile phone watchers were anticipating with bated breath, but still made you wonder: What are these people up to?
I’m standing by the conspiracy theory that Google wants to be a guerilla wireless carrier, though SeaBoard Group principal Iain Grant disagrees. Iain feels the spectrum buy is about shaping the net neutrality debate; you can read more here. But I like the planks of the alternative wireless carrier theory, some of which I outlined when Android was announced: Google has what may possibly be the biggest stash of dark fibre in the U.S.; it has a huge block of IPv6 addresses; it has a platform for developing mobile handset applications; now, if all goes to plan, they’ll have a chunk of wireless spectrum that is a) required to be open to access by any device regardless of manufacturer and 2) in the 700 MHz range, where TVs used to live.
Analogue TV dies in the U.S. in 2009. Analogue TV signals are spectrum hogs. Forcing broadcasters to go digital frees up about half the radio spectrum that was devoted to television broadcast. What’s different about the resulting “white space” as compared to the wireless spectrum that Canada is raffling, er, auctioning off next summer that it’s comparatively low frequency — 700MHz instead of two-plus GHz. As you can read here, that lower frequency makes it easier to push signals farther. It’s better at penetrating obstacles. There’s more range for less power, perfect for, say, really long-range Wi-Fi transmission, which would play into Google’s strategy quite nicely.
Make sense to you?
Watch what Google does with this. That same spectrum will eventually come up for auction in Canada (probably after 2011), and Google’s strategy could be a model for an enterprising Canadian player to ape.
Posted on December 3rd, 2007 by Dave Webb and filed under Future Technology, Web 2.0, cell, mobile, wireless |