The fact that Apple’s new MacBook Air contains no optical drive or ethernet port is a sign that the fully wireless age is approaching rather quickly, and with the auction of 700Mhz spectrum starting today, such an era is increasingly coming into view.

Google, along with Verizon, AT&T, Echostar, and Cablevision, has let their intentions to get in on the spectrum being abandoned by television in favor of digital signals. The spectrum is powerful. It can travel long distances with little power, it goes through thick walls, and will be a boon to underserved rural areas.

The FCC is auctioning off five “blocks” of spectrum with a mimium total price of $10 billion. The last such spectrum auction fetched total bids of $13.7 billion, and many expect this auction to exceed that number.

Over the next weeks and months, the bidders, who will remain anonymous for now, will bid on the spectrum. Bids will be posted on the FCC auction website for people to look at every day.

Google has promised to bid the minimum amount of $4.6 billion for the coveted “C” block, which could be used as a national network. But many don’t expect Google to compete seriously for the spectrum. Their primary goal in getting involved in the spectrum bidding process was to get the FCC to require the winning bidders to open up their networks to larger number of devices and applications. Verizon and AT&T opposed this, but lost.

So even if Google doesn’t win any of the spectrum, they’ve already won a big battle.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 2:10 pmand is filed under Business, Technology, Web Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.