The promise of open platforms in the upcoming spectrum auction
As I've written before, Google has become increasingly involved in U.S. spectrum policy issues this year. One of our top public policy objectives is to expand the Internet's reach to more Americans.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google has been building a spectrum-policy presence all year: its May 2007 proposal to the FCC argued that whoever wins newly auctioned airwaves should be required to run them as open platforms. This post is the advocacy follow-through, restating the company's stated top public-policy objective — expanding Internet access to more Americans — and tying it to the auction rules now being written.
The story traveled unusually widely for a policy-blog item, with USA Today ('New rules could rock wireless world') and CNET both picking it up on or about July 10, 2007 — evidence that the open-access question had moved from telecom trade press into mainstream coverage.
First-order effects
- The FCC faces direct pressure to write open-access conditions into the upcoming auction rules; incumbent wireless carriers, whose closed device-and-network model is the explicit target, must lobby against or absorb such requirements before bidding begins.
- For Google, the post converts a regulatory filing into public positioning: it is staking consumer-brand credibility on the outcome and giving the FCC political cover to impose openness conditions on license winners.
Second-order effects
- If open-platform terms attach to the new spectrum, handset makers gain a second path to market outside carrier approval chains, weakening the exclusivity deals that anchor carrier distribution power.
- Carriers would likely respond by competing on price and service bundles rather than network lock-in, shifting where wireless margins are defended — and any rival bidder weighing the auction must now price in the possibility of operating under openness obligations.
Third-order effects
- A pattern of attaching openness conditions to public airwaves would restructure U.S. wireless around contestable gatekeeping: spectrum licenses become platforms others can build on, rather than vertically integrated fiefdoms.
- It also sets a template regulators could extend to future auctions and unlicensed-band decisions, making 'openness' a standing variable in how access to Americans' airwaves gets allocated.
The trend: U.S. spectrum policy is becoming the next battleground over platform gatekeeping, with Internet companies pushing regulators to convert licensed airwaves from closed carrier assets into open platforms.