Will Google bid to lose in the FCC auction for wireless airwaves?

I think probably everyone and their mother knows that Google is going to be an active bidder in the wireless airwaves auction by the US government next year, given its interest in the mobile advertising segment. If you’ve been following the Internet giant’s moves of late, you might also know that Google persuaded the “powers that be” to change the rules of the game a little to make the winning bidder open its network to others. Google successfully managed to convince the regulators and by now it’s clear that anyone who wins the auction will be forced to open his network to its competitors. Having successfully finished the first part of the story, Google is now ready for the sequel. It’s not going to be the topmost bidder in the auctions next year. With the kind of interest that Google showed last year, everyone thought it would be the topmost bidder in the auction and would walk away with a big slice of the spectrum. But Google has other plans though.

Now that the topmost bidder is going to have to open its network with its competitors, Google can get what it wants even without paying big bucks. So, there is a talk in the market that Google might actually take part in the auction just for the sake of it and might lose the bid to, yeah; you guessed it right, none other than Verizon. This will make Verizon Wireless the topmost bidder and subsequently the winner, but still they will be forced to open their network to others, most importantly Google. What this means is, Google need not build a separate wireless network as they’ll have access to Verizon’s. So, Google might actually have the perfect recipe to get what they want without even paying for it. Talk about a master stroke!!!

Categories: Google.

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