It’s official. Google is in.
Official Google Blog: Who’s going to win the spectrum auction? Consumers.
Google would like to be your telco. Well its not actually clear what they want to do, but if they do succeed in winning their chosen swaths of Spectrum in the 700 MHz auction, they will be able to offer an array of mobile services that could easily googleize our mobile existence to the same extent or more that our static web existence has. A tremendous opportunity that we will have to wait until 2009 to see.
In his post Chris Sacca points out that the big winner in all this is the consumer. A mantra that Google has been repeating over and over again during their push for open access and one that the FCC certainly doesn’t mind hearing. Remember they are charged with acting in the “public interest.” The biggest winner from Google joining the game, though, is of course the US Treasury. With Google’s giant coffers, they can drive up the price on lots they don’t buy and competitors can drive up the price on the lots that they do. As we know so well, Google does no evil, so there’s no way they would kick up the price on certain lots out of spite or competitive zeal. Nevertheless, their big stake can have the effect of driving prices up in lots where they do compete.
It’s official. The FCC gave concessions to Google on open access and the ROI is on the way.