You may recall our coverage of the FCC auction for wireless spectrum during the bidding process. I myself have made numerous past suppositions that Google would seriously seek a portion of licenses for its ownership come the sale of the so-called “C-Block” of the 700MHz band.
Well, I was mistaken. A story by Corey Boles published this afternoon in The Wall Street Journal explains that Google managed to secure zero licenses for itself by the auction’s close. Yes, zero. Instead, Verizon nabbed itself some hefty segments of spectrum. Specifically, the telecom giant managed to win “six large licenses [in the C-Block] that effectively will give it a national license to provide next-generation wireless broadband.”
Hey, no matter that Verizon exits the bidding war as champion this week. We can always just shrug Google’s “loss” and know that, regardless of who’s got official bragging rights today, the guys and gals in Mountain View still come away with a technical win: they eventually get to play in the open wireless sandbox that Verizon will supposedly establish in the years to come.