Frequency Spectrum Auction + Apple

malokata

The federal government is auctioning off part of the radio spectrum in the 700 MHz band, a portion prized by broadcasters for the long-distance range of signals and ability to permeate solid barriers. Government estimates place total corporate expenditure for the frequency range to raise between $10B and $20B from the private sector.



Apple is sitting on nearly $14B in cash reserves and just released a cell phone, criticisms of which so far focus primarily on the drawbacks of required service through AT&T.



So. Purchase a portion of the wireless spectrum? Use it to levy extremely favorable deals with existing cell phone providers/set up a more open cellular network in tandem with Google?



Seems like good business to me.

splinemodel

I hope Apple doesn't buy this. That 700MHz spectrum would be a boon to wireless sensor net operators and developers, and I don't see it in Apple's business model to license technology for operating on this band. I almost want Google to buy it, because they have this openness about them, and it would be almost a foregone conclusion that the band would be available for many varieties of clever usage by companies big and small.



Just for the record, the space between about 400MHz and 1GHz has optimal qualities for low-to-medium data rate, low power devices. The cell market has quickly segmented itself in the ~2GHz area, and I don't expect it to go too much higher for a variety of reasons.