Google’s used to arguing with Microsoft, and the Mountain View-based company has had many dustups with Yahoo. Now AT&T and Verizon have stepped in, however, and are opposing Google’s plans for the airwaves.
“[T]he two biggest U.S. mobile-phone companies … urged U.S. regulators to reject Google’s proposal for the mandatory resale of some airwaves the government plans to auction by January,” reports the Bloomberg News’s Molly Peterson.
Qualcomm has also announced that it will stand against Google’s proposal, but this won’t become a case of the search engine company versus the world. “Frontline Wireless, a closely held company whose founders include former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, welcomed Google’s proposal,” writes Peterson. “Frontline wants to buy 10 megahertz of the spectrum,” and “told the FCC it would try Google’s auction technique if it won the airwaves.”
Google’s airwave auction technique is, by the way, modeled on its method of handling AdSense. Google’s plan would (theoretically) lead to a more efficient use of the airwaves.
But AT&T and Verizon beg to differ. “Google’s plan would disrupt the auction and diminish the airwaves’ value, AT&T and Verizon said,” according to Peterson.
This dispute is being closely watched by a lot of people; by trying to shape the outcome, Google is making itself heard well outside our little eBusiness and SEO sphere. Google – and AT&T and Verizon – should tread carefully.
