Businessweek is reporting that Apple is considering bidding on 700 Mhz spectrum going up for auction in January of 2008. Maybe they are waking up and smelling the bad aroma of their bed mate AT&T after all?
Dubbed “beachfront property” by the Federal Communications Commission, signals at the 700Mhz spectrum could provide far faster Internet access than today’s cellular or even Wi-Fi networks and the signals can easily pass through buildings and work glitch-free, even in nasty weather.
Read all about it here.
7 Comments
September 10, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Well, Apple has some $13 billion in cash laying around.
September 10, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Hmmm… Apple + Google partner to purchase and use the 700 Mhz spectrum. I would welcome our new phone overlords.
September 10, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I think a partner purchase with GOOG would be FOLKLORIC. But, I expect Monkey-Boy Ballmer would jump in and bid the auction up to the last penny he had in his piggy bank.
Anybody know anything about the bidding process? Blind bids? One big room with someone from Sotheby’s standing in the front?
September 10, 2007 at 8:56 pm
700 MHz? That’s gonna ’cause a lot of cancer people~ (thou not proven)
September 13, 2007 at 5:35 am
>>700 MHz? That’s gonna ’cause a lot of cancer people
There has already been broadcasting in this spectrum for decades – it is the UHF TV band that will be repurposed with this auction. I’d be more worried about higher frequencies like 2.4 GHz wifi which is still unproven. People also seem to think this auction is about alternate phone service (and the cancer guy perhaps thinking about holding a phone to your head) but it is about much more. This is about data devices and cloud computing of which voice calls are but just one low-bandwith aspect. Perhaps this will finally give us the videophone we all deserve.
September 20, 2007 at 10:23 pm
[...] Cellular Competition: Both Google and Apple are thinking about purchasing from the 700Mhz Wireless spectrum in an auction of this frequency in [...]
September 21, 2007 at 11:09 am
[...] Dial up is getting me down. Because of my location (beautiful and great for the kids but not so hot for high-speed internet) my only choice is dial up or satellite. The household budget had dictated the choice for the most part. I did investigate satellite, but wasn’t impressed with the comments I found wandering the internet. My hope now lies in the government auction of the 700 MHz spectrum. [...]