If there's one thing I know about spectrum, it's that it's terribly boring to talk about. So when news hits the wires about the coveted 700mhz spectrum auction starting today, most folks' eyes glaze over and their brains switch to hold-music.
Thankfully, the good folks over at Engadget Mobile have put together a handy list of need-to-know items about today's auction and have translated the FCC-speak into Normal-speak. GigaOm has a nice breakdown as well.
There's some 214 bidders in this auction. Some of the big-boys to keep an eye on are AT&T, Verizon and Google, not to mention Cox, EchoStar, and Paul Allen (the deep pocketed co-founder of Microsoft) - check out USA Today for a nice chart breaking down the interests of some of the key players.
What does this mean to satellite radio? Nothing right now. Ultimately I think Block C, which is the nationwide block with the most bandwidth, will lead to the much fabled Wireless Internet (one of the FCC's requirements is to make Block C an "open-access" network), but that's all just pipe-dreams right now. There needs to be a winner first.
Heres what I think:
Google will get the bandwith, then after the merger, Google will snap up the newly merged SAT company, and we will see some beautiful integrated devices...
Having the bandwith is one thing but that is just the start.
Next comes the hard part like rebulding the Cell Phone System all over.
Remember that Google and Apple are partners, whatever they use it for would somehow be related to that partnership, feasibly they could pool their resources (Apple DOES have $15 Billion in cash reserves right now) and buy one or both companies, but that's the least likely scenario.
Yes not so fast, but remember even if apple and google were in cahoots over this... Dont you think apple and google would rather buy the spectrum to promote the Iphone? not Satellite radio. Those reserves would help you on your way to pretty nice cell/data coverage and then apple could control the phone and service plans and make all the money.
At present satrad is probably one of the lowest sought after services.. Apple, or google for that matter, probably dont think its very significant.
XM has a market cap of $3.5 billion and Sirius has a cap of $4.3 billion. Apple has $9 billion in cash and another $9 billion in short term investments. Google has $5 billion in cash and $7 billion in short term investments. Either certainly is liquid enough to purchase a merged SATRAD entity without the other.
But, I don't see this spectrum being wasted on SATRAD. Instead, I see Google creating an free albeit ad-supported cellphone service.
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