We'll come right out and say it, we like Julius Genachowski. Whether you agree with the dude's policies or not, you can't deny he's pursuing them with gusto. Having already noted the insufficient carrying capacity of current mobile broadband airways to deal with incoming 4G connections, the FCC chairman is now reported to be moving ahead with plans to provide greater spectrum allocation for those purposes. Currently in the draft stage, the latest Commission proposals include a plan to reclaim airwaves from digital broadcasters (and pay them appropriately for it), which are to then be sold off to the highest bidder from among the wireless service providers. Executing the most extreme version of this plan could generate around $62 billion in auction revenues, though it would require transitioning digital TV viewers over to cable or subscription services and is therefore unlikely. Jules and his crew are still "looking at everything" and ruling out nothing, but we can probably expect to see a moderate shift of TV spectrum rights over to wireless carriers in the final plans when they're revealed in February.

[Via Phone Scoop]

"What happens when every wireless user has an iPhone, a Palm Pre, or a BlackBerry Tour?" Speaking at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment in San Diego today, FCC head Julius Genachowski has said that he wants to "close the spectrum gap" -- the difference between the spectrum it's making available for wireless data versus enormous usage projections (400 petabytes a month by 2013, he says) that'll be brought about by smarter, easier-to-use devices and ubiquitous high-speed data through a handful of initiatives including the promotion of the smart use of existing spectrum through the use of femotcells, WiFi, and smart antennas, and -- more importantly -- reallocation of existing spectrum. Genachowski says there are "no easy pickings" for reallocation, but the Commission is aggressively pursuing additional airspace that can help keep 4G rollouts on track. He's gone on to say that they'll be adopting the widely-discussed "shot clock" policy for placement of new towers, giving locales a limited window to protest placement of cell sites that'll help spread 4G services over wider footprints. The guy seems genuinely concerned about keeping 4G rollouts rolling, so let's see just how far the guys in Washington are willing to go to do that.

Here's one straight from the depths of left field. If you'll recall, Microsoft's co-founder Paul Allen was considering buying a bit of spectrum from the 700MHz auction after founding Vulcan Spectrum LLC. Evidently, the guy's bid ended in a win, but he's obviously not so keen on getting in on the flagging MVNO business. According to a document filed with the FCC, Allen has agreed to sell the licenses he owns -- which cover sections of Oregon and Washington -- to AT&T, though the carrier isn't disclosing financial terms. According to AT&T spokesman Michael Coe, the company is making the purchase to "meet customer demand and to support its transition to LTE." Unfortunately, Mr. Allen wasn't available to say what he was planning to do with the proceeds, though we did hear that one Kayne West was available to reiterate his belief that LTE was the best of all time.

[Via phonescoop]

After stone-cold blowing past its original planned start window in January, India has announced that its huge 3G spectrum auction will finally kick off on December 7 of this year. Interestingly, operators MTNL and BSNL have both already begun their respective 3G rollouts, but they're not getting out of paying fair market prices: when the auction concludes, they'll need to pay the equivalent of the high bidder's price to keep their own slices of the airwaves. After the WCDMA 3G auction wraps up, both EV-DO and WiMAX auctions kick off two days later, which means the world's second most populous country is about to get a whole heck of a lot more high-speed wireless data -- or the promise of it, anyhow. [Warning: PDF link]

Just because MetroPCS' unsolicited advances to Leap got rejected doesn't mean it can't check its damaged ego at the door long enough to get some other business put away. The two regionals sat down recently to hammer out a pretty comprehensive package of collaboration, throwing in a new 10-year roaming agreement, a spectrum swap whereby Leap gets coverage in San Diego, Fresno, Seattle, and parts of Washington and Oregon while MetroPCS picks up Dallas / Fort Worth plus some Louisiana and Florida territory, and a mutual agreement to drop any pending litigation against one another. Can't you just feel the love in the air?

As it promised it would, Cox went big in the glitzy 700MHz auction a few months ago, coming away with a nice chunk of spectrum valued at some $304 million. That amount of outlay is nothing to sneeze at -- and it sounds like Cox is fully prepared to take the investment seriously, with president Patrick Esser commenting this week that his company intends to invest over half a billion dollars into the airwaves by the time all is said and done. Where's that money going? Some sort of vague "differentiated product" that it believes will help it miraculously capture 20 percent of the wireless market share by providing "simple" calling plans, integration with Cox's other content and services, and a consistent user experience across all its platforms. Bottom line, he really couldn't have revealed any less than he did -- but if we had to guess, they're looking to do some phones that can consume media from their set-top boxes and vice versa. Starting up an all-new network on the 700MHz band sure doesn't seem like a very cost-effective (or coverage-effective) way to do that, though.

Just over a year ago, we were all making bitter beer faces at FCC chairman Kevin Martin for not going along with a delightful sounding "free internet" plan. Now, it seems the main man's tune has changed. During a recent interview, Martin stated that there was a "social obligation in making sure everybody could participate in the next generation of broadband services because, increasingly, that's what people want." He's reportedly looking to attach a free mobile broadband requirement to the AWS-3 spectrum that's set to be auctioned next year, which would require the winner to allocate 25% for gratis access. 'Course, we wouldn't get our hopes us for this to actually go down like it surely is playing out in your mind just now, but we won't fault you for dreamin'.

[Via phonescoop]

Having just completed a rather rousing auction of its AWS spectrum, Canada is now turning its attention to the 700MHz bandwidth that just got sold off south of its borders a few months back. Minister of Industry Jim Prentice says that he reckons an auction will take place about a year and a half from now, giving the dust from the AWS action enough time to settle -- and with any luck, there'll be some new players in the market by that point that could potentially give the big guys a run for their money on some of the licenses. If the US is any indication, much of the spectrum would ultimately be allocated by its winners to 4G buildouts, which require immense swaths of bandwidth to be maximally effective. Can't complain about that, unless you hate speed, we guess. Which we don't.

[Via MobileSyrup]

What started as a hard 45MHz limit enacted back in 1994 to ensure that there was enough spectrum to go around in every market was first raised, then eliminated, then later changed to a somewhat more toothless guideline used for analyzing proposed mergers, and rural carriers are pretty fired up about it. Following an absolutely dominating performance by the big boys in this year's 700MHz auction, the nation's back-country providers are more concerned than ever that license distribution in some markets is making it virtually impossible to compete. The solution? Bring the ol' cap back into play, but plug it at 110MHz instead of the 45 they started with nearly a decade and a half ago, a reflection of the RF-saturated, heavily licensed world we now inhabit. They've managed to pique the interest of some congresspeople, too, so there's a fighting chance this could go through; if it does, the Verizon-Alltel merger could turn into a fire sale of freed spectrum, which we imagine these little guys would be just delighted to scoop up in bulk.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Holy cow, we're actually out of breath just thinking about how long it's been since Canada kicked this off. After running some two months and hauling in nearly three times as much cash as had been widely predicted -- $4.2 billion in Canadian currency, to be exact -- the Great White North's AWS auction has drawn to a close, and it looks like there's going to be some new competition in the mix whether Rogers, Bell, and Telus like it or not. The most prolific bidder has turned out to be Globalive, which runs the Yak brand and made off with licenses pretty much everywhere except Quebec at the cost of some $442 million CAD; several other new players came to bat for some licenses as well, and naturally, the big three incumbents took the opportunity to snap up some extra spectrum -- Rogers to the tune of nearly one billion dollars. It'll probably be a year or two before any of the rookies have service to offer, though they're helped out by new regulations that require existing networks to lease space on towers for new transceivers and offer roaming rates that aren't prohibitively high.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Though the final paycheck to the US government will almost certainly far exceed that going to Ottawa when bidding closes, here's an interesting little stat: the companies involved in Canada's ongoing AWS auction will be paying far more per megahertz per covered resident. The total value of the bidding is now up around $3.16 billion CAD (about $3.11 billion), and even back when it was hovering in the mid-$2 billion CAD range, that put the per-resident valuation up over 80 cents -- far more than 54 cents paid when the action closed in the US back in 2006. Helping to drive up those numbers are Rogers and Telus, who are reaching deep into their respective wallets to pony up serious cash for the fresh spectrum. Don't you feel loved, Canadians?

Well well, what have we here? Nary a fortnight after Qualcomm committed $16.3 million in the UK to scoop up about 40MHz worth of nationwide spectrum to test MediaFLO there, along comes word that two huge across-the-pond players may be interested. If you'll recall, Qualcomm noted that it wouldn't be launching commercially in the UK sans a partner, but according to the Financial Times, O2 has expressed interest in the chipmaker's plans, specifically noting that "MediaFLO is a technology well suited to providing TV to mobiles." Beyond that, Auntie Beeb proclaimed that she was "watching the current situation with interest." We know, this could all boil down to nothing in a matter of seconds, but it's certainly worth keeping an eye on until that does / doesn't happen.

[Via IntoMobile]

The US just wrapped up a huge airwave auction not long ago if you recall, and now it's Canada's turn, kicking off the first round of bidding for a grand total of 6,510 individual licenses covering 105MHz of spectrum in the 2GHz range on Tuesday. The format of the auction shares a couple of key points with the one that took place south of the border just a few weeks ago, chiefly that there's no limit on how long the auction can run (it just keeps going until bidding peters out), bids take place in set rounds, and there are strict anti-collusion rules set up to prevent companies from tag-teaming the action. A full 40 percent of the freed-up space is reserved for newcomers to the wireless game, so it should be an interesting time for consumers up there -- particularly those tired with the choices they currently have (c'mon, guys, raise your hands).

[Thanks, Jacob K.]

Google's been making all kinds of a fuss lately over what it claims are Verizon's plans to subvert the intent of the 700MHz open-access rules, but it looks like the carrier isn't interested in fighting it out (for once). Verizon issued a statement today saying that it "understood the FCC's rules," and that "of course we'll abide by those rules." Of course, that doesn't really mean anything until they build out the network and we see how they actually implement open-access -- which will take years -- but once again, it seems like Google is really the one in control of the 700MHz spectrum, even though it didn't win. Crafty!

It's been known for years that some of Sprint Nextel's Direct Connect spectrum causes bouts of interference with public safety equipment, and the FCC got the ball rolling on a plan several years ago for the carrier to swap some airwaves with agencies around the country by June of this year to keep everyone happy. Problem is, some 500 of those agencies still aren't ready to trade, and Sprint has taken issue with the fact that the FCC wants it to meet its end of the bargain by next month anyhow. Nevertheless, a federal appeals court has ruled in the FCC's favor, setting the wheels in motion for a possible massive loss of Nextel coverage on the drop-dead date of June 26 -- but industry analysts aren't too worried. Most seem to be predicting that the FCC will end up extending the deadline by six months or so anyway, so Kevin Martin and his ragtag gang must just love watching carriers sweat. Oh, not to mention a few million Direct Connect customers.

[Via Phone Scoop]