The CTIA found that the number of wireless subscriber connections has surpassed the number of people in the U.S. and its territories. It also found a 111 percent increase in wireless data traffic.

While the situation is by all means challenging, the massive eruption of content that sparked it is both encouraging and exciting.

“We’re in this exciting arms race where the creation of content is happening so fast it’s exceeding even these amazing improvements in computing power, these amazing improvements in storage capacity, and particularly, these amazing improvements in connectivity,” said Bruce Mehlman, the former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Tech Policy and the Co-Chair of the Internet Innovation Alliance.

To help solve this problem of congestion, Congress is currently examining legislation that would free up more spectrum from broadcast radio and television companies. While everyone agrees that more spectrum is needed, the dispute is over how it would be distributed and, specifically, the FCC’s role in this process.

In the past, the FCC has had a very active position in managing the auctions. In other words, it has had the power to place restrictions on auctions or conditions on spectrum based on the bidders’ market dominance and spectrum holdings.

However, the bill that’s currently in the House would remove this power from the FCC, which is a move that is sparking a lot of debate. Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt recently called the proposed bill “the single worst telecom bill” he’d ever seen.

The House argues that previous government allocations are the reason that the current “spectrum crunch” is happening. It also believes that limitations in auctions would result in less revenue to help reduce the federal deficit.

As Mehlman explained to us, Congress is remembering what happened in the controversial 2008 spectrum auctions as well as the recent failed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. He sides with policymakers on this issue because he believes the previous restrictions are to blame for the current problems.

In a post on the Internet Innovation Alliance, Mehlman wrote:

Many in Congress fear FCC micromanagement and seek open auction rules free from FCC interference. The FCC, of course, objects to Congressional micromanagement of their micromanagement, seeking maximum flexibility to set auction rules.

The irony here is that these auctions are needed because the last time this spectrum was assigned, policy makers limited its potential use and transfer. Thus much of the spectrum is under-utilized and our economy suffers for it.

In our recent interview, he expressed concern that the same issues would continue if the FCC were permitted to keep its authority.

“The biggest challenge is if the FCC gets its way and follows through with what many in the House fear they might do, which is limit who’s allowed to compete, I think the very spectrum crunch these very auctions are expected to alleviate doesn’t get alleviated… then problems continue,” pointed out Mehlman.

“I think most people would concede the reason there’s inefficient use of spectrum is because of old government decisions on who could and could not use spectrum,” he continued. “Logically, you want less government constraints in the future.”

Some mobile companies are perfectly happy with the FCC’s authority over the auctions as a group of them led by Sprint and T-Mobile sent a letter to lawmakers asking that the Commission’s position remain the same. AT&T and Verizon are not part of this support since they believe the FCC would favor the smaller carriers.

Incidentally, not everyone agrees that auctions would solve the issue. Rick Whitt, Google’s Washington Managing Counsel, recently indicated that auctions would not completely eliminate the spectrum crunch saying, “Auctions will fall short of meeting that gap.”

Mehlman told us that he agrees with Whitt in that content will likely be created faster than bandwidth can be apportioned. But, he believes that this provides an even greater urgency to get policy in place that would encourage an open marketplace.

“Having everybody eligible to acquire the spectrum and to subsequently sell the spectrum to a higher and better user is letting the market allocate the spectrum,” he said. “If we had done that the first time, we would have less congestion, we’d have more high speed wireless, and, I think, we’d have the same amount of competition.”

“We don’t have a problem with lack of competition, we have a problem with a lack of investment, [and] we have a problem with a lack of spectrum aggregation to meet the marketplace needs,” he added.

Even though Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO David Smith said it was doubtful that Republicans and Democrats would be able to agree on legislation for a broadcast television auction this year, Mehlman thinks it is a possibility. As he explained, this legislation is part of larger jobs bill that both sides want to see pass.

Should auctions be open, or should the FCC have a say? What do you think? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Verizon will flip the switch tomorrow on networks in Glens Falls and Utica in New York, Brownsville and McAllen in Texas, and Lawton, Oklahoma. Networks in Atlanta, Houston, and Spokane are being expanded.

Users connected to Verizon’s 4G network should generally experience downlink rates from 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps), and uplink speeds of 2-5 Mbps.

Verizon offers a wide variety of 4G devices on its network, including LG’s Spectrum, which was announced at CES 2012, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, and Motorola’s Droid line of phones. The iPhone 4S is not LTE capable, so it cannot run on Verizon’s network (a problem AT&T worked around by dual-layering their LTE network with an HSPA+ network, which the iPhone 4S is compatible with). The next-generation iPhone, presumably coming this summer, will probably have LTE capability.

Well, Martin needed some decent legacy to point to during his tenure as the nation’s chief communicator guy, right? Who gets credit for free national Internet will be a trivia question for academic teams, Trivial Pursuit, and high school multiple choice exams for generations to come, like which FCC guy smoothed out radio and TV, which was of course. . .yeah, I don’t know either. Bet ya he didn’t have quite the bumbling go at it Martin did though.

Anyway, back to this free Internet business. Martin’s proposal will presumably get the green light now that it’s been shown that use of specific spectrum won’t interfere with T-Mobile’s or Deutsche’s 3G networks. Nobody was using the airwaves surrounding those networks, T-Mobile and Deutsche just preferred the cushion—oh, and that nobody was getting free Internet.

If all goes well, the government will auction off the spectrum to a buyer willing to offer an ad-supported, free network—filtered for content, which we’ll get to in a minute. M2Z made a similar proposal to Martin a couple of years ago, only to be rejected after pressing the FCC to finally make a decision on it. M2Z was looking for a hand-out of spectrum in exchange for revenue-sharing from ad sales and higher-speed premium services.

Besides the “give us some spectrum, sugar” flaw in M2Z’s proposal, Martin couldn’t quite put his face on it in the waning months of his appointment and have his legacy if he signed off. Alright, so that last part’s pure conjecture, but a continued political career for Martin is not. Won’t it be nice he’ll be able to point to free Internet for everybody when he runs for office?

Free spectrum and potential interference aside as possible deal breakers—after all, those are just pure technicalities—Martin and proponents (or, if it helps in the characterization, those who smell money and lots of it) barely flinched at the requirement that the free Internet be filtered for content. They also didn’t put much stock in fundamental differences in one-way and two-way communication systems (TV is one-way, Internet is two-way). As is all too often the norm, the protect-the-children, dare-you-to-oppose approach wins over the basic fact that the government, or someone leasing airwaves from the government, will be deciding what Internet content is appropriate for you to see.

Accidental Super Bowl Pop Star nipples?

Fahgettaboutit.

Or maybe specific bloggers are declared obscene, just based on the filthy words they use. Martin foresees no problem with this.

What will be really interesting is how, after Martin slides this through, he and the FCC respond to Google and other major Internet players’ advocacy for use of white spaces—those bits of static cushion between TV signals that come available next year. Google was looking to provide a little free Internet of its own with those, probably uncensored, which will suddenly run in direct conflict with the government’s desires.   
 

Technically, the white spaces are the unused portions of spectrum between broadcast channels, used as a buffer to prevent interfering signals. Google, Microsoft, and some other major companies want to use them for WiFi signals. Verizon et alia (the telecommunications industry), broadcasters, and, interestingly, churches are not in favor opening up the white spaces.

The opposition claims use of the white spaces will interfere with network signals despite claims new technology will prevent it. Users of wireless microphones, like those used in church services, also fear interference despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

In previous FCC tests, the technology in question failed, but testers also failed to test a backup unit. At the time, Microsoft protested that testers didn’t also test the backup provided. Since then, though, both Motorola and Philips have successfully demonstrated how the devices work for the FCC.

From the tone of today’s Google Public Policy blog post, it sounds like Google isn’t as confident in the upcoming tests, which are slated for tomorrow at Fed Ex Stadium during a Redskins Buffalo football game. Google’s Washington Telecom and Media Counsel Richard Whitt reminded readers about a Google-developed "enhanced protection plan" introduced in March the company guarantees will protect against interference.

"Regardless of how these tests validate certain technical parameters of spectrum sensing," wrote Whitt, "those venues would be fully protected anyway under Google’s March proposal. In particular, standalone use of a geolocation database with a look-up function would offer complete protection to digital TV and wireless microphone signals at major venues."

Google’s plan recommended the use of geolocation databases, beacons, and/or safe harbors in conjunction.

Verizon, as usual, is on the other side of this, noting that white space technology hasn’t past all tests yet, and therefore they still have concern that their own wireless signals will be in jeopardy. Even if not, Verizon’s not so sure it wants WiFi sent over unlicensed spectrum, as proponents have suggested. They’d rather keep it out of public hands and use it for storage.

But of course the bigger reason is that licensed spectrum makes it harder for competition to enter the marketplace. Not that any voice in this is necessarily altruistic and proffered in the best interest of the public; broadcasters are protecting their niche, Google gains tremendously by greater Internet accessibility, and technology manufacturers stand to make tidy sums by making the devices. It just so happens, once again, Google’s interests run parallel to the public’s, while others’ do not.  

Chalk one up for razor’s-edge stategery cutting right to the quick of Verizon and AT&T.

A couple of weeks ago, Portfolio.com revealed one can buy three whole legislators for just a couple hundred grand. Chump change if you’re dealing in billions, right? Though AT&T is the top contributor to the Washington stooges, they deny the telecom giant’s contributions had anything to do with their belief that Google chased away higher bids in the 700 MHz spectrum auction by lobbying for open access requirements, thus cheating the government out of more money.

The Congressmen must have felt kind of silly when it turned out the auction brought in a record amount, the "Google block" in question bringing a ton o’money from Verizon. AT&T swallowed up quite a bit of the other blocks, even if it seemed last fall they were staying out of the race by purchasing Aloha’s chunk of nationwide spectrum.

Google was quickly criticized after it didn’t win the auction, and had to field accusations that the company lobbied so hard for open access requirements because of its Android mobile platform, which has yet to materialize. Whether that’s true is cause for additional speculation to follow, but Google rightly said the people won the auction. Open access means wireless providers can’t dictate subscribers’ every move.

Open access also means competition, which neither wireless giant has ever liked.

More recently, the news breaks that Google and Sprint, among others, are investing over $3 billion in wireless broadband startup Clearwire, headed up by Craig McCaw, formerly of McCaw Cellular Communications, a company acquired by AT&T in the 1990s. It’s this type of development that lets you know Google is pretty serious about the wireless space.

Then Valleywag drops this bomb, implicating Google in a multi-company plot to drive up network costs for WiMax competitors, like the 4G networks to be operated by AT&T and Verizon. McCaw, according to the report, drove up prices in the last major spectrum auction:

When AT&T first bid on wireless spectrum back in the ’90s, after its acquisition of McCaw Cellular Communications, it found that during the auction all their key markets had been bid up by a mysterious third party [McCaw]. Though [AT&T] finally won the licenses they so coveted, they paid far more than anyone had expected.

After you pick your jaw up and you finish being wowed at the tangled web of corporate maneuvering, consider that Google, in a classic move, seems to have done us and itself a favor at the same time by ensuring open access and paving the way for some more competition, even if the competition is the company itself.

It’s better than paying off Congressman to something stupid, anyway.
 

Google added a little more spin to their position that losing the national C block license to Verizon actually ended up being a good thing for everybody.

Richard Whitt and Joseph Faber, counsels on Google staff, discussed the attention-getting auction on the official Google blog. They touted achieving Google’s top priority, which was to get the bidding for the C block license up over $4.6 billion to activate the open devices and open applications requirements for the winner

“In ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid – even though no one was bidding against us – to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block,” the blog post said. “That helped increase the revenues raised for the U.S. Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would be applied to the ultimate licensee.”

Google’s strategy looks like it represented an approach to secure a couple of goals. First was to get the open devices and applications requirement attached to the auction winner; Google never believed it could win this auction, based on Whitt’s comments in July 2007.

The second part comes down to their efforts to gain access to the white spaces within bands of the spectrum won by Verizon. T-Mobile and Sprint complained about potential interference with white space wireless access to the FCC in January.

The basic idea about white space access allows Google and its partners in the Wireless Innovation Alliance to set up shop within the 700MHz spectrum. We think there could be a flaw in Google’s plan, one that could stop the white space effort in its tracks.

When Google first said it wanted four open requirements on the auction to guarantee their participation and ensure the FCC would receive no less than $4.6 billion from the rights to 700MHz, the FCC only accepted the two open requirements we mentioned, devices and applications.

It’s long been our position that these were the least important of the two. People can bring wireless phones to carriers that aren’t part of the line of officially offered phones, and get service. As far as applications, other than Skype or any other VoIP client there doesn’t seem to be any difficulty downloading something like Opera Mini onto a phone, even with an existing web browser on the device.

The FCC rejected Google’s other two requests, for open networks and open services. We envision a legal challenge to the white spaces supporters if they ever manage to keep their wireless broadband signals from interfering with TVs and wireless microphones.

It isn’t hard to imagine Verizon telling a judge that using the white spaces infringes on their rights to the spectrum. Open networks and services were not a requirement of the auction winner, and wireless broadband in white space falls more logically into those categories than into open devices or applications.

We like the vision Google has for wireless access, but it seems they need to hope for a change of political parties in the White House, a subsequent replacement for Kevin Martin as FCC chairman with someone more forward-thinking on wireless issues, and possibly a legal decision in their favor over white space access.

The bids are anonymous, with penalties for collusion or otherwise discussing the bidding taking place for the FCC auction taking place for the 700MHz spectrum. It may not matter if Forbes is correct in its assumption that Verizon engaged in a different strategy:

But Verizon likely didn’t bid for the C block directly, analysts said. Instead, it likely bid on a host of less expensive regional slices of spectrum and made sure that the total amount was more than what was bid for the C block. It’s a savvy strategy, because under FCC rules, if the regional bids top the bids for the C block, that block must be split up and apportioned to the highest bidder or bidders. By the end of Tuesday, the regional bids added up to $4.74 billion, about $30 million more than the current total for the C block.

Forbes writer Elizabeth Woyke also mentioned the highly misunderstood concept of “open access.” Many people have misconstrued this once the C block bidding passed the $4.6 billion reserve price.

We’ve mentioned this before on WebProNews and we’ll say it again here. The two provisions of openness that became conditions for the winner of the C block auction – open devices and open applications – have nothing to do with open access.

People already enjoy the right to bring unlocked open devices to a wireless carrier like Verizon. They still have to pay to access the network. The same thing goes for applications. Sure you can grab a free copy of Opera Mini or Gmail For Mobile, but you still have to pay for data access  on the wireless network.

Now the Auction 73 process becomes a whodunnit mystery. Someone pushed the bidding for the 50 state package to over $4.7 billion today.

Google had promised to bid at least that price provided the FCC imposed four conditions of openness on the auction winner. If Google were to win, they could make the spectrum available under those conditions without the FCC’s help.

Verizon and AT&T both would be logical competitors for the spectrum. Used for analog TV broadcasts, the spectrum could be converted into a wireless access technology with particularly intriguing usefulness in densely-packed urban areas where walls disrupt typical wireless radio signals.

Some have contended a failure to meet the reserve price would lead to the FCC removing “open-access rules Google requested” from the auction and running it again.

However, the FCC never approved an open access rule in the first place. Google asked for open access to the network as a condition of bidding the $4.6 billion reserve; they also requested open services, applications, and devices.

The FCC only approved the last two conditions, rejecting requirements for open networks and services. Now the thought process behind the bidding has to consider the future. If Google wins and supports wireless across the new spectrum, with its Android software and their hardware partnerships, AT&T and Verizon could see their business prospects falling into deep, smelly stuff.

Head first.

That would make bidding an act of self-preservation. In order to avoid competing with Google, and a swath of ad-supported devices making calls and online services free, the current telcos may feel pressure to preserve the business model by gaining control of the spectrum.

If the bidding hits the next minimum listed by the FCC, we’re inclined to think it will be the telecoms pushing the price up for the spectrum.

Who blinks first in a standoff over the prized slice of spectrum? As the FCC uses an anonymous bidding process, including penalties for collusion to keep it anonymous, the progress of Auction 73 is a little less interesting than it could be.

Someone should eventually push the bidding for that block of spectrum, which will be freed with the digital television signal conversion in 2009, up and over the $4.6 billion mark. The minimum bid for the next round for this piece of the 700MHz spectrum will be over $4.7 billion.

As CNNMoney noted, open access conditions for this piece of the spectrum come into effect once the bidding passes $4.6 billion. Google proposed four openness conditions for the auction, offering to bid the minimum $4.6 billion if the FCC embraced all four.

But the FCC opted for the two less meaningful conditions – open applications and open devices – which in some ways the existing wireless telcos already permit. If Google wants all four conditions, the two mentioned along with open services and an open network, they will have to bid up the price.

The auction gets interesting here. Will Google up the bid? Last year, pundit Robert X. Cringely called Google’s interest a head feint, aimed at getting the FCC to impose conditions on a winner that Google could then enjoy for free.

If the bidding passes $4.6 billion, the wireless telcos like AT&T and Verizon may think Google has pushed the bid up to ensure it can enable those conditions. That could start more active bidding in earnest.

Right now it looks like everyone’s waiting for someone else to blink. It all comes down to how much value companies believe they will derive from winning the auction. If the 700MHz spectrum represents a shift in how people access online services, we’re pressed to see a limit on how valuable this auction may become in the future.

Here’s a crazy thought: what if the federal government decided it could be the one to benefit the most from the 700MHz spectrum? Instead of auctioning it, they turn it into a public works project, a 21st Century TVA, but with transmitters rather than electricity.

It won’t happen, since apparently the Feds have already spent the money being raised in the auction. Too bad, really, as it seems from the news the US economy could use that kind of boost to the workforce, amid outsourcing of manufacturing and tech jobs abroad.

Complaints to the Federal Communications Commission from Sprint and T-Mobile should be ignored, in the minds of Google and other tech companies. The tech firms want to offer services to people using unlicensed devices in those unused white spaces.

CNNMoney said Google sent a letter to the FCC, advising the agency that Sprint and T-Mobile overstated the interference aspects of white space connections.

Google also said the two telecoms submitted their complaint “quite late in the day.” The telecoms want to use that white space for data transfers, a usage Google dismissed as inefficient.

On their Public Policy blog, Google disclosed its interest in those white spaces of spectrum in August 2007. Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, noted how Google and other tech companies had formed a White Spaces Coalition to explore the feasibility of that idea.

“The FCC’s engineering analysis confirms what we have stated all along: it is technologically feasible to provide Internet access through this segment of spectrum without interfering with either digital television signals or wireless microphones,” said Whitt.

These white spaces would allow for the operation of low power connections, with WiFi rather than real broadband. Perhaps that could lead to better implementations of mesh networking in building-dense urban areas to allow for the connections the tech firms propose.

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