Many people in our industry (mobile) are following the 700Mhz Auction. It is something that might change the wireless market in the US, which tends then to spread the innovations to the rest of the world (not the case with the cellular market, but true in pretty much every other case, like wi-fi for example).
The one I was looking at was the C Block. It included a provision for open devices and open access. That means, who wins that block MUST provide open access and open devices. Which is huge.
The issue was that it had a reserve price ($4.6 billion). If they had no bidder over that, the open provision would have been screwed and the spectrum re-auctioned without the open access requirements.
Many thought the open provision would limit the bidding. Many thought the reserver price would not be met.
Instead, yesterday the reserve was met, with a $4.7 billion bid.
We will have open access in the US.
Open wins again. Now also in mobile. I'll go out and open a bottle of champagne. It is a great day for this industry, and software developers in particular. My thanks to Google for pushing this (although I do not believe they really want to win the auction ;-)
