engadget.com — We're sure that you've been following the FCC's blow-by-blow coverage of the AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) spectrum auction as closely as you would the "So You Think You Can Dance" competition, but just in case you've been busy for the last 161 rounds of bidding, we're here to let you know that the results are in......
Sep 19, 2006 View in Crawl 4
noseemeSep 19, 2006
The results are in!!!DirecTV-Echostar consortium, you are NOT the father of the FCCs child!
fohatSep 19, 2006
Yay! Now maybe I'll finally get better reception at my house...
betterthSep 19, 2006
Oh-ho-ho that's no error crawfishsoul. That's a dumbass tax. Anyone stupid enough to not check their bill gives us money for no reason!
suplyndmndSep 19, 2006
So the govt gets 13.7 billion dollars, the cell companies get to still offer crap service and after all is said and done we're still generations behind Europe and Asia with cell phone coverage. Am i the only one who feels the American public just dropped the soap and that we're about to get it prison style?
alphaoneSep 20, 2006
If the govt didn't regulate the spectrum, someone else would have to. If there was no regulation, things would be worse as far as spectrum competition goes. It would be reasonable to speculate that dropped calls and interference from other cell users would actually increase.It isn't just a govt getting money thing. At least they're getting the money from the corporations, which keeps our federal taxes marginally lower (13.7bil split amongst all of us). We have a choice with cell carriers, not so much with federal taxes.
olljSep 20, 2006
FCC equals instand "inaccurate" dump, even if it is not about f**k.
einfeldtSep 22, 2006
hi alphaone,It is not at all true that the spectrum needs to be regulated. Please take a look at Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig's blog to learn more about unregulated spectrum:<a class="user" href="http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001575.shtml">http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001575.shtml</a>Essentially, the deal is that spectrum only needs to be regulated due to stupid receiving devices which can't distinguish the signals from, say Carrier A and Carrier B. It's now possible to broadcast signals that identify the carrier and the program, and smart consumer devices can listen only for one signal, and exclude the rest. Before the digital explosion, that was not possible. Radios and TVs both DID get confused because the technology wasn't available until recently. But now that consumer devices could be made to intelligently discern one signal from another, there is the possibility for unlimited spectrum.Of course, Larry Lessig and most other people have acknowledged that there are hundreds of millions of dumb consumer devices out there, and so yes, we will still need regulated spectrum for a while. But we should be moving to open spectrum, not more limited auctioning of the spectrum to the most wealthy corporations.