Well, it's election day and apparently the FCC commissioners liked voting so much they took votes on just about everything. Amazingly, it looks like they even made some good decisions. The big one, of course, and the one that will get the most press, is the unanimous vote to free up television "white space" spectrum. While the NAB made a last ditch effort to stop this, the FCC made the right call here. This spectrum can be put to much better use, which can have a huge impact on increasing innovation and wireless technologies. This is a big win. The FCC also approved Sprint and Clearwire's deal to set up a joint venture for their WiMax operations, as well as allowing Verizon to buy Alltel. Both of those deals make sense as well, so it's good to see them approved.

Other than that, the FCC said that it's going to start looking into the pricing policies of cable companies... and Verizon. Who's missing? FCC boss Kevin Martin's best friends over at AT&T. To be honest, while it's quite likely that the cable companies and the telcos (yes, including AT&T) are abusing their oligopoly position, the answer shouldn't be having the FCC act as a watchdog over pricing policies, but for a better system to be set up that encourages real competition. In the meantime, though, can someone explain why AT&T was left out of the bunch?

While there's been a ton of propaganda from TV broadcasters (and, oddly, wireless microphone vendors) concerning requests from tech companies to make use of the so-called "white space" spectrum that surrounds the spectrum the TV broadcasters use, it appears that FCC boss Kevin Martin is now prepared to support freeing the spectrum for other uses. This isn't all that surprising, given that the FCC has been pushing to free up such spectrum for years, but it is very good news. While there were some early test device failures, the problems were with the devices themselves, not in creating any interference, as the critics claim. This totally unused spectrum could open up all sorts of interesting new wireless technologies that could be tremendously useful in many different ways.

Mathew Ingram notes that Google is continuing its campaign to use television "white spaces" for Internet connectivity, a promising concept that hasn't panned out so far. I think the most interesting tidbit in Ingram's post comes from an interview with Richard Wiley, the guy who chaired the committee that developed what became the current digital television standard. Ingram says Wiley told him that one of the broadcasters' criteria for the new standard is that it use as much spectrum as possible. That sounds backwards, but it made sense for the broadcasters, because they knew they'd have to give back any spectrum they didn't use. And it's consistent with past experience; we've written before about the broadcasters' spectrum-hoarding tendencies.

Perverse incentives like this are an inevitable consequence of the FCC's Soviet-style process for assigning spectrum usage. As long as the uses for spectrum are decided by fiat by the FCC, current licensees are going to play these kinds of games to ensure they get the biggest slice they can, even if they waste spectrum in the process. A better way to handle the transition (and still a good idea today, for that matter) would have been to give the broadcasters a fixed spectrum allocation and then allowed them broad flexibility on how to use it—including the right to lease or sell unused portions to third parties. That way, if they found a way to transmit television signals with less spectrum, they would have been able to lease out the unusued portions to third parties who could put it to more productive use.

In addition to promoting more efficient spectrum use in the short run, putting more spectrum on the market (as they're doing in the UK) would have positive effects on the overall telecom market. By driving down the price of spectrum it would make it easier for new firms to get into the wireless market. So far, the relatively small number of licenses that have been put on the market has allowed incumbents to snapped them up and keep out new entrants. Putting more spectrum on the market would make this strategy a lot more difficult to pull off.

In a move that is clearly designed to just piss off and waste the resources of a competitor, AT&T has filed papers with the FCC opposing Sprint and Clearwire's plan to merge their WiMax divisions, which was announced a few months ago (found via Broadband Reports. Of course, AT&T has a chummy relationship with the FCC, who has allowed it to merge with telco after telco without many real conditions (and even telling it that it can ignore some of the conditions it agreed to to get those mergers approved).

In this case, AT&T claims that it isn't really opposed to the merger, but it's filing opposition papers because it feels that Sprint and Clearwire aren't receiving the same level of scrutiny that AT&T received in its mergers, specifically with regards to it spectrum holdings. This seems like grasping at straws by AT&T just to throw some sort of extra paperwork roadblock in the path of the new Clearwire, which is an obvious competitor.

There's been a huge amount of confusion concerning the February 2009 transition from analog over-the-air TV to digital over-the-air TV, but one of the big points of confusion is the false assumption by many that this has something to do with HDTV. It doesn't. It's just about the television content that's available freely over the air -- as opposed to via cable or satellite TV. For anyone who is a subscriber to cable or satellite (i.e., the majority of Americans) the transition basically means nothing. Yet, thanks to years of FUD from folks resisting the transition (mainly the TV broadcasters who wanted to keep their spectrum) many people are quite confused about what this means. Some new studies have looked at public readiness for the switch, and while most of the headlines focus on the fact that about half of those impacted are unready for the shift, what may be much more interesting is a tidbit not found in most of the coverage, but tucked into the Washington Post coverage:

About 30 percent of the respondents indicated they had plans to ready themselves for the transition, even though they do not have to do anything to maintain service.

In other words, an awful lot of people who already have a digitally enabled TV, cable service or satellite service somehow think they need to upgrade to keep service after February. Obviously, they're confused, and it would be a good guess to assume the root of at least a significant percentage of that confusion is that idea that this has something to do with HDTV. So, it sounds like a large group of cable or satellite TV subscribers are planning to upgrade to HDTV, not because they want to, but because they incorrectly think they need to to keep getting TV after February of next year. HDTV providers must be thrilled.

As for the percentage of folks who will be impacted and haven't done anything about it yet, that doesn't seem too troublesome. After all, there's still seven or eight months to get it done, and people sure do like to procrastinate. What's more troubling, perhaps, is the fact that the $40 coupons for converter boxes that are being sent out to those who request them expire after 90 days. Why? No one seems to have any clue, and its leading to many of these coupons expiring before people have a chance to redeem them.

We noted recently that Verizon Wireless' new PR campaign around its "open" network offerings seemed open in name only, and it appears that the same concept is being expanded to cover the recently won 700 MHz spectrum, which FCC rules require to be open. Google has filed a petition to deny Verizon the spectrum, noting that the company's public position on how it will "open" the spectrum isn't really open at all. Basically, it looks like Verizon Wireless is trying to reinterpret the rules in its favor. Google isn't really asking the FCC to deny the spectrum sale, but really just wants the FCC to actually enforce the rules that were put in place. Given the FCC's friendly attitude towards telcos bending the rules, don't be surprised if that doesn't happen. Even if the FCC somehow tells Verizon to follow the rules more closely, it seems likely that Verizon will still figure out some way to wiggle out of them again.

You may recall the well-hyped venture-backed startup named M2Z that wanted the FCC to hand over a segment of unused spectrum. Part of the plan was to offer a free ad-supported wireless service that would cover 95% of the country, that would be slow and "filtered" so that it was "family-friendly." It would also offer a higher-level paid tier, as well as priority services for public safety uses. The kicker, though, was that M2Z hoped the FCC would hand over the segment of spectrum for free in exchange for a piece of the profits down the road. The FCC turned down the request, but apparently that's not the last we've seen of it.

Congressional Representative Anna Eshoo has introduced a bill that would reserve the same slice of spectrum for a wireless service that would cover 95% of the country, that would have a free tier that was slower and filtered, as well as a higher-level premium tier, and which would offer priority services for public safety uses. The difference, though, is that it looks like this bill wouldn't involve just handing spectrum over, but would include an auction component towards how that spectrum is used. While it does seem like M2Z is well meaning in its plans, it's still hard to see why setting up all these rules makes sense. It still seems like it would make much more sense to create a much more open market system, to allow the spectrum to be put into the best use possible, rather than setting so many rules for each slice of spectrum.

As you probably have heard, in early 2009, over-the-air TV stations will no longer be broadcasting analog signals to those who receive television over-the-air (with an antenna). This is part of a necessary effort to reclaim valuable wireless spectrum that the broadcasters have held (for free) for many years, and put it to much better use. This change only impacts those who watch TV over-the-air. That means it has no impact whatsoever on anyone who receives their television via cable or satellite TV (representing the majority of TV viewers out there). Yet, this apparently didn't stop at least one cable company from claiming otherwise.

Consumerist has caught Cablevision telling customers that they need to upgrade to a digital cable box by order of the FCC. This is simply untrue. Cablevision is upgrading many of its channels to digital format from analog, and those channels will no longer be available to customers who don't have a digital cable box. But, that's entirely a business decision made by Cablevision, and has absolutely nothing to do with the the FCC-mandated switch for over-the-air broadcasts. It's just that Cablevision timed this deal to coincide with all the stories about the over-the-air switch, and is using that to make people think that it's the FCC's fault. Cablevision responded to Consumerist admitting that the change has nothing to do with the FCC's mandated change -- but refused to explain why every customer support person Consumerist spoke to gave the FCC as the reason, even after they specifically went to check their training notes. It's a rather sneaky (and likely illegal) move to claim that people need to upgrade due to the FCC when the FCC has nothing to do with it.

We've already explained why Google's actions in the recent 700 MHz spectrum auction wasn't "fleecing" taxpayers as some lobbyists had contended. Yet, it appears that the lobbying has been effective. A set of Congressional representatives have started asking whether or not Google gamed the system. This is a pretty bizarre claim against a company that put up $4.6 billion in an auction and was then outbid. Clearly, in putting up the bid, there was a chance that Google could have won and had to pay the $4.6 billion. There's no rule that Google had to keep bidding. The company stopped at the point at which it was comfortable bidding. Of course, it will probably surprise no one that if you look at the top campaign contributor to all 3 representatives attacking Google's actions, you'll notice a pattern (in the letters A, T and T). Check it out for yourself. There's Fred Upton, Cliff Stearns and John Shimkus. You think that had something to do with their opinion on the spectrum auction process? Nah...

We've talked about Scott Cleland before. He's a "telecom analyst" who has a reputation for stretching the truth as far as it can go in order to contort himself into making telcos look good and anyone opposing the telcos look bad. Jim Harper points us to Cleland's latest, where he accuses Google of "fleecing taxpayers" out of approximately $7 billion with its actions in the recent 700 MHz auction. He notes Google's admission that it was only in the auction to push the bid over the threshold requiring any service on the network to be open. This isn't a surprise. It was widely assumed that Google would merely bid up to the threshold, knowing that if it could buy the spectrum at that price, that would be great, but if someone else got it and the network was then required to be open, that was great too. So this is hardly a shocking admission on the part of Google.

Cleland then compares the prices of the other blocks of spectrum available (those that didn't have open access rules) and does a back of the envelope calculation that the average price per MHz was noticeably higher on the closed access spectrum than the open access spectrum. From that point, he jumps to the conclusion that the C block (the open access block) was significantly underpriced because (he claims) telcos valued it less since it was open. Of course, there are all sorts of problems with this. He determines the amount of the underbidding by merely averaging the % difference in the A and B blocks to the C block -- but it's a massive difference. The A block was 50% higher and the B block was 250% higher. He then just averages that to 150%. Yet, anyone who bothered to actually think about it (rather than look for a weapon with which to bash Google) would note that this calculation is quite dubious. Beyond the "small sample size" problem, the very difference in price-per-MHz in the A and B blocks should make it clear that there are many other reasons why the price would fluctuate having absolutely nothing to do with whether the network was open or closed. To assign the entire blame to that makes no sense whatsoever and ignores the realities of what these different blocks of spectrum were good for.

Next, Cleland tries to spin this story as Google illegally swiping $7 billion from taxpayers -- since this entirely mythical $7 billion would have gone into the treasury, which will now have to make it up from taxpayers. On top of that, he suggests (totally incorrectly) that the only real beneficiary of the open access rules would be Google for its Android offering. Except... not quite. He's ignoring (conveniently) the other half of the equation. The open access rules benefit plenty of other companies beyond Google (in fact, any company that wants to take advantage of those rules), and will likely lead to much greater innovation and new and valuable businesses and services, that will likely generate much more tax revenue for the government than the totally mythical $7 billion. But Cleland decides to ignore all that inconvenient information in order to make an entirely bogus claim against Google.