Cringely Calls Google 700MHz Bid A Feint
By David A. Utter

As kids, there was always someone willing to suggest the group go do something that could get everyone in trouble. When everyone else is being punished, the big idea kid always seemed to be somewhere else.

Google wants to be the big idea kid, as Robert X. Cringely suggested in his breakdown of Google's assault on the wireless spectrum. The search company has offered to bid the minimum price the FCC wants for the 700MHz spectrum, $4.6 billion, if the FCC will force all bidders to adhere to four principles of openness.

Cringely thinks words may be all Google has to offer in this deal:

This could be a fake, a head feint on Google's part. By attempting to set these conditions on any eventual auction winner, Google is tacitly telling the mobile carriers that it really doesn't intend to bid or doesn't intend to bid above the $4.6 billion threshold. Emboldened by this the telcos, who are also arrogant and have a kind of reptilian craftiness, may decide to save their resources and only bid, say, $10 billion.

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