Sunday, April 22, 2007

700 MHz Auction - A Spectators "Field Guide"

For your reading pleasure, here's a few links to almost everything you might want to know about the FCC's up-coming 700 MHz auction - likely to be the most important spectrum allocation proceeding in recent history - brought about by significant advances in technology and our society's rapidly changing life-style.

The first - from Harold Feld's 'Tales of the Sausage Factory' blog - is an interesting, informative, and, if nothing else, definitely entertaining (well, sort of) spectators "field guide" to the proceeding:

Excerpts:

Few events in the wireless world matter so much, yet get so little coverage, as the upcoming 700 MHz wireless auction. Why? Because they're hard, and the mainstream media (MSM to us "bloggers") are afraid you will get all confuzzled and bored. Besides, isn't non-stop coverage of Anna Nichole Smith more satisfying? (Hint: She's still dead.)

Issues include network neutrality, open access, wireless competition, the future of broadband competition, and a whole lot of public safety stuff. It includes a cast of thousands from Frontline to Cyren Call to the Ad Hoc Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (I thought up the name myself! O.K., I was in a rush . . . .) and an army of incumbents that like the universe just the way it is, thank you and do not look kindly on those of us trying to shake things up.

I warn you, this is extremely long (13 pages, I probably should have broken it up into more than one post), and complicated, and all that stuff that mainstream media figures your pretty lil' heads can't handle without getting all confuzzled. So, if ye be readers of courage, willing to risk getting all confuzzled and thinking about how our wireless and broadband future will unfold for the next 10-15 years, read on! Or you can go back to Google News and plug in "Anna Nichole Smith" (yup, still dead).

The second - 700 MHz: A Pivotal Auction: Who, What, When, Where, Why - from Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc., a multi-disciplined financial services firm, is an overview focusing on the technical "nuts and bolts" and economic aspects of this very significant event.

Both are well worth a few minutes of your time if you are at all interested in wireless spectrum matters.

NR


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