Saturday, April 5th, 2008
$19 Billion for Spectrum
In case you haven’t been following the FCC auction of old TV airwaves, here’s a brief outline of the key points.
Verizon paid $9.4 billion for open-platform spectrum (meaning open to all applications and devices). This “open” regulation was the result of some lobbying and bidding on Google’s part, but frankly open-platform seems like a better business model to me anyway.
AT&T got spectrum (cost $2.5 billion) it touts to be more valuable because it “is not encumbered” by the open-platform regulation. Again, from a consumer vantage point, I’ve always found the closed-platform marketing model extremely annoying.
Meanwhile, DISH Network Corp. spent $711 to ALMOST establish a nationwide network. Coverage holes include LA and New York. It remains unclear what there trying to do.
Lastly Qualcomm Inc. paid $554.6 million for spectrum to supplement their existing service areas.
Tags: AT&T, Auction, DISH Network Corp., FCC, Qualcomm, Spectrum, Verizon
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