Google Improved Part of Your Future

Simply mho, but didn’t we really know this all along…

Google: Spectrum bid goal was openness, not winning

Google says it participated in the recent wireless spectrum auction not with the goal to win, but to help drive bidding high enough to ensure that open-access rules it had pushed for would be adopted.

“Google’s top priority heading into the auction was to make sure that bidding on the so-called ‘C Block’ reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important ‘open applications’ and ‘open handsets’ license conditions,” Richard Whitt, Washington telecom and media counsel, and Joseph Faber, corporate counsel, wrote in a posting Thursday on Google’s Public Policy Blog.

That post makes reference to an entry from last July which says;

Our position is simple enough. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and the other commissioners have argued persuasively that we need a real third pipe broadband competitor in this country. They also believe that the upcoming 700 MHz auction is the best way to get there. All we are saying is that, based on what we know, new broadband competition will emerge from the upcoming auction only if the FCC’s rules allow it to happen. For Google, and other potential new entrants, the prevailing imbalance can be corrected most effectively by introducing license conditions based on open platforms.

I believe the day will come, perhaps not in the immediate future – possibly much later – as whatever democracy is left, when folks look back, this effort by Google will be seen as truly beneficial to all. Unless, the Telcos gain immunity…