Google Gearing Up for Bidding War

The much-talked-about 700 MHZ spectrum auction at the Federal Communications Commission is the best way for Google to step in the playing field and provide consumers with more choices in the world of wireless devices. Also much talked about was whether the Mountain View-based company would be bidding alongside with several partners or whether it would go the extra mile alone… and it was the latter, after all.

Unlike other times when statements made it look all too certain that "Google will this and Google will that," moderation is the word for the latest talks with the people over there. Chriss Sacca, Head of Special Initiatives, writing on the official Google Blog said that "We already know that regardless of which bidders ultimately win the auction, consumers will be the real winners either way. This is because the eventual winner of a key portion of this spectrum will be required to give its customers the right to download any application they want on their mobile device, and the right to use any device they want on the network […]. That's meaningful progress in our ongoing efforts to help transform the relatively closed wireless world to be more like the open realm of the Internet."

The auction will be very interesting to follow as it is divided into several parts:

Today was the last day that would-be applicants could have submitted their applications to participate in the auction. By sometime in mid-December, the FCC will release a list of all eligible bidders in the auction, after reviewing all the applications. By the 28th of December, depending on the licenses they are bidding on, each bidder must make a monetary deposit to prove that he has the cash to back up his claims.

The auction will begin on the 24th of January 2008 and all bids will be made in an electronic bidding process amidst which nobody will know who he is bidding against or who bid what because of the anonymity clause. Bid rounds will then start, at the end of each the FCC will announce the highest bid at that point and the minimum bid that the next session will begin with, along with the amounts of all bids placed during the round.

The end of the auction might be as far as March 2008 and, by that time, all the license owners will be announced. In case one bidder cannot come up with the reserve price, a re-auction will be conducted by the FCC.