700 Mhz Spectrum Auction

[Nick Johnson]

On 8/2/07, Mark <markitect at gmail.com> wrote:
> 3.  If all the rules were passed the frequencies would have less
> value.  Radio towers are expensive and you cannot charge people for
> them.  Consumer electronics are cheap(to make) and people will pay for
> them.  If a company isn't guaranteed profits from CE, then they have
> less real incentive to put up towers.  (they still have service
> charges).

That's already been raised and pretty much torpedoed by Google's offer
to meet the reserve under those conditions. Even setting that aside,
why would they have less value? The openness conditions suggested
don't preclude charging for service; they merely ensured that the
environment would be competitive, with many different parties able to
resell the bandwidth or resulting network on that frequency band.

> 4.  Nobody really restricts devices anyway they just use retail power
> to push their phones. So point 3 because mostly irrelevant either way.

See above: With open, competitive networks on the same frequency, and
anyone able to buy and resell chunks of it, and devices that are
_required_ to be open, this would be a lot less of an issue. If your
provider of choice doesn't offer your favorite device, simply buy one
from another provider, or a third-party.