Internet provider, Towerstream, which reported a $1.75 million loss in its third-quarter, on revenues of $1.76 million. Posted on 12/19/2007 12:51:00 PM PST by ShadowAce
The cast for the federal spectrum auction in January has now been assembled. On Tuesday night, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a list of 266 applicants who want to bid. The auction will offer frequencies that had been used for analog transmission by TV stations, which are now moving to digital.
The applicants include Google, Cablevision, Cox, Qualcomm, Alltel, Chevron, US Cellular, as well as Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., regional carriers such as Leap Wireless and MetroPCS, the startup Frontier Wireless, and a Guam-backed phone company headed by Roy Disney, Walt's brother.
There's also the tiny, Middletown, Rhode Island-based fixed-wireless Internet provider, Towerstream, which reported a $1.75 million loss in its third-quarter, on revenues of $1.76 million.
AT&T and Verizon Communications have applied, but the FCC marked their applications as "incomplete" for unspecified reasons. In all, about 170 of the 266 applicants had incomplete applications, including MetroPCS and Alltel.
'Chance of a Lifetime'
The auction will cover five blocks of 700-MHz spectrum. Many observers are describing it as "the chance of a lifetime," and it certainly has the makings of an epic event.
For one thing, the lead-up to this auction has included lobbying by an alliance of organizations and companies, spearheaded by Google, to require open access for at least some of the spectrum to be auctioned.
This openness would include the ability for any outside, compatible device and nonmalicious software to be used on those frequencies, a requirement that the FCC eventually adopted.
Although other open-access requests were not adopted, including a requirement that the winner make the bandwidth available on a wholesale basis to third-party resellers, the initially reluctant AT&T and Verizon Wireless now have declared their support for open networks.
'No Real Surprises'
Godfrey Chua, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said that the list of applicants has "no real surprises." But he agreed that the upcoming auction is a kind of "land grab," and that the value of the spectrum is much clearer than in earlier auctions.
For one thing, he noted, frequencies in the 700-MHz spectrum are valuable because they can penetrate walls and various obstacles more effectively than other frequencies can. Because of this, the number of towers needed to support a wireless rollout would be significantly fewer than for, say, the 1,900-MHz frequencies.
A measure of the value of these frequencies, he noted, is the presence of the cable companies on the applicants list, such as Cox and Cablevision. "Google put the notion of openness into the limelight," he said, but the cable companies might be the ones to watch.
Chua noted that triple-play marketing by cable companies, which bundles landline phone, cable, and Internet access into one package, "has proven its value" for consumers. The presence of the cable companies in the auction, he suggested, indicates that they may be pushing to offer "quad-play," which would be triple-play plus wireless.
Thanks to Spirit of Allegiance for the heads up!
I was looking at the list last night, and the FCC has marked several of the bidder applications as “incomplete” - including AT&T’s - and they have only one chance the cure the defects by January 4th.
I’m looking around right now. I could’ve sworn I saw Paul Allen’s name as one of the bidders....
He’s listed as “Vulcan Wireless” or something like that.
Who got 666 MHz?...........
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t 700mhz higher than UHF (UHF starts around what, 420mhz?), how does freeing up 2-13 and UHF help there?
Channel 14 is at 470 MHz. Channel 83 was at 884 MHz. This auction is for channels 52-69 (698–806 MHz). Channels 70 and above were removed earlier.
UHF in the area of 300MHZ
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I was under the impression that TV stations would have the chance to re-acquire their original channel allocation once the anaolg transmitters were shut down and everyone was officially digital (by tuning the newer digital transmitters to the original channel frequency).
There is one VHF in our market that was given a UHF channel as their digital home, and they are not happy at all about losing the VHF channel that they had for over 30 years (a Cox station).
Thanks. I used to hear police broadcasts on UHF and was wondering if it was an octave thing or the actual police frequency which was around 440mhz or so from what I remember when I used to listen to a scanner.
Chevron?
Just turn to channel 46.
LOL!!....Trinity Broadcasting!.....
Actually Roy E. Disney, Walt's nephew.
I believe that is in essence correct, with two provisos:
1. If your original channel was 'out of core,' that is 52 or above, you lose it because it's being auctioned off.
2. If you had a 'low VHF' channel (2-6), you might not want to keep it because of propagation anomalies on those channels with regard to digital transmissions.
As you probably know, all stations were given an additional channel to begin their digital broadcasts on. In almost all cases the station can elect to keep its DB on the digital assigned channel.
It is in fact costly to shift frequencies. If you're going from one UHF channel to another UHF channel, there's little point. On the other hand, if you can end up on a high VHF channel when all is said and done, you have the best of all worlds. Good propagation, and a lower-power transmitter that's cheaper to operate.
Complying with the FCC restrictions while optimizing the outcome for your station is a maddening process. A friend of mine has spent 5 years, so far, working on the conversion of about 20 stations.
There is one VHF in our market that was given a UHF channel as their digital home, and they are not happy at all about losing the VHF channel that they had for over 30 years (a Cox station).
That is kind of odd. There may be a technical reason for them to stay with their UHF digital allocation, I don't know. Is their VHF channel 2-6?
There are gaps in the UHF TV band where they stick in various things, including a Ham band at 440 MHz and public service bands at around 470 MHz.
So although the UHF TV channels are numbered consecutively, the channels are not all pairwise adjacent.
That is kind of odd. There may be a technical reason for them to stay with their UHF digital allocation, I don't know. Is their VHF channel 2-6?
They are on Ch. 9 right now and assigned UHF channel 15 (I believe) for their DT. It might be that they will be going back to 9 once the shift has been made. I do know that they weren't too happy about the DT assignment, especially when a local UHF was given a VHF for their DT transition channel.
I work in the business as well, but not up on all the finer details of the roll-out. I worked at UHF channel 35, which was assigned DT Ch. 22. I believe that they will be going back to 35 once the transition is over, since that has been their identity since the 1970's. (Fox O&O)
We are finally probably seeing the beginning of the end of signal carriers controlling design and distribution of basically all cell phone devices. This current situation is as absurd as if owners of the road infrastructure in the U.S. told all car manufacturers exactly how vehicles should be built and exactly what features should be on them, and controlled the marketing of them as well.
Plus the coming of some open networks should also start the beginning of the end of requiring customers to sign a two year contract with one carrier in order to purchase a desired phone, or for that matter, even to get service. Now, if you don't like a 2 year contract, so you purchase a phone elsewhere, and go to a new carrier (one you are not currently with) and ask to purchase month to month service, most will not do it. I have called up and asked.
Some will say, get a phone with prepaid minutes, but those "prepaid minutes" expire if not used after a certain time, and there is a very limited choice in phones on those plans. In other words, you cannot just bring any technically compatible phone to use with those plans. Again, the signal carriers control and sell you the only phones you can use on their networks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.