Even the losers win in this auction: The gag order from the FCC over the bidding and results of the 700 MHz spectrum auction were lifted yesterday, and everyone is jabbering. Verizon and AT&T have announced they'll build LTE (Long Term Evolution) cell data networks, a GSM standard, in the 700 MHz band. AT&T says their network will come online starting in 2012; Verizon, 2010.
Google posted on their own blog and told the New York Times that they were happy enough losing, even though they bid to win...sort of. They raised their own bids a few times to keep interest from other players, but were relieved when another bidder topped them. That turned out to be Verizon Wireless. Google managed to get a few types of openness encoded into the band, and they think (rightly so) that it made a difference. An economist notes in the Times article that Google now only has to spend "$1 million a year on a law firm to ensure Verizon lives up to the openness requirements."
AT&T didn't bid on the C Block that Google was discussing, a set of licenses that provide national coverage in a few easy pieces. Rather, they focused on acquiring 700 MHz spectrum before the auction from Aloha Partners (from the previous 700 MHz auction), and spending billions on smaller licenses all over the country that they can pin together. Those licenses are unencumbered by open device, application, and service provisions, so AT&T thinks they got the better deal. A good summary is at Phone Mag.
Verizon for its part said it was pleased with its national-scope licenses. Despite AT&T acquiring lots of spectrum, it's going to be far easier for Verizon to use these nationally defined bands, with consistent performance across all their networks.
If one looks closely at AT&T Bid for the Lower Band B Block you will see that the 12mhz of spectrum they won there is not sufficient for a true 4G network, like the 22mhz Verizon Wireless won. AT&T said they needed at least 20Mhz to deploy a 4G net.
However the CTO of AT&T stated (in Vegas last week)that they would combine their 12Mhz of 700Mhz with their 20Mhz of AWS Spectrum to build their new Network (speculating that it would be a HSPA+ network upgraded to LTE network when the technology comes available).
They appear to have most of the Lower Band B Block nationwide and at least enough AWS Spectrum to cover much of the Nation as well.
Will be interested to watch what the Vendors will do (both base station and Access Devices)to address the haugepodge of technologies in both areas. First HSPA (and then HSPA+), then LTE for AT&T, while Verizon Wireless will wait and go directly to LTE in 2011/2012 time frame.
What will Sprint do with their WiMAX network based on legacy and limited 2.5Ghz spectrum?? Will other SP elect to deploy a 700Mhz based WiMAX network focusing just on Data/Video and VoiceIP services (no TDM voice)in the late 2009 and or 2010 time frame ??
What AT&T did to the small Service providers is bid up the 700Mhz spectrum so high that if they did win any license in their market they will have a difficult time making money on any network they deploy.
Jim