Open Access Wireless

When it comes down to a contest between Google (motto: Don't be evil) and the phone companies (motto: 'Big Is Beautiful'?) my loyalties are clear.

Read "FCC to Rule on Wireless Auction: Lobbying Intense As Google Seeks To Open Market" by Kim Hart, The Washington Post, July 30, 2007.

The article states:

"The Federal Communications Commission will set the rules tomorrow governing the auction of $15 billion of public airwaves, a decision with stakes so high that the major U.S. cellular carriers and Google have spent millions of dollars on a lobbying campaign in an attempt to influence the outcome. The decision could dramatically alter the nation's cellphone industry.

Google, the giant Internet search company, wants to extend its popular tools, which include e-mail and video, to the rapidly expanding mobile phone market. To do so, it may spend billions to build a new, open network it says will loosen the grip telecom operators have over how consumers use their cellphones.

Currently, the major U.S. wireless carriers, including AT&T and Verizon Wireless, largely decide which Web sites, music-download services and search engines their customers can access on their cellphones. This is accomplished by wireless companies determining which cellphones will receive their services: AT&T, for example, is the only carrier available to users of Apple's iPhone.

Google wants to end that restriction and has urged the FCC to require the winner of the auction to build a network that will be open to all cellphones and services, so any consumer can have access to Google's array of offerings."

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