Google Is Applying to Bid in the FCC Spectrum Auction

Today, Google cleared up a lot of rumors by announcing that they are indeed applying to bid in the upcoming FCC wireless spectrum auction, which will begin on January 24th. The FCC is auctioning off wireless spectrum in the 700 megahertz (MHz) band, which will be freed with the US conversion to digital television.

Google had earlier advocated four "open" standards for the auction, but the FCC chose to adopt only two of those standards. Provided the reserve price of $4.6 billion dollars is met, consumers on a key portion must be allowed to download any application they like and use any device they'd like on that network. That's nothing but good news for Google's efforts in creating mobile applications and hardware standards.

Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO said, "Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today's wireless world. No matter which bidder ultimately prevails, the real winners of this auction are American consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet."

Google may just be entering the auction to make sure that $4.6 billion reserve is met, or they may be trying to psych out the competition in the anonymous bidding by not making aggressive statements about how they intend to bid. Either way, it should be an interesting show.