Tag: aws auction

Cablevision’s WiFi Roll Out — A Wireless Plan B?

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As I discussed in the context of the Sprint/Clearwire/Etc. spectrum menage (and discussed a bit more with Gordon Cook on his blog), the reality of the post-700 MHz auction world makes it necessary for cable operators to have some kind of wireless strategy if they want to meet the potential next generation competitive threat from either AT&T and Verizon or possibly from newly en-spectrumed DISHTV. At the same time, cable operators are desperate to avoid the downdrag on the their stock that would come from a heavy investment in wireless licenses and further nvestment in infrastructure — especially when analysts don’t give them a prayer of taking on the wireless carriers in what has become a reasonably mature market. How to resolve this difficult dilemma?

Those cable systems with the combination of resources and forethought to address this have opted for different solutions. Comcast, Time Warner and Brighthouse –through their new partnership with Sprint/Clearwire etc. — have flopped back to the old cable standard of joint ventures and strategic investment. (Anyone else remember @Home Network?) Cox went out and won its own set of licenses covering its cable service area, as did Charter parent Vulcan Enterprises (as have a few lesser systems, such as Washington Post owned CableOne, which captured a bunch of licenses in the AWS auction).

Cablevision tried twice to acquire its own set of licenses: first in the AWS Auction in 2006, and again in the 700 Mhz Auction. Both times Cablevision went home empty-handed, outbid by the wireless giants. With no new spectrum on the horizon, and apparently no invite into the Sprint/Clearwire Happy House ‘o WiMax partnership, Cablevision found itself in need of a spectrum “Plan B.” Happily for Cablevision, there is also such a thing as “unlicensed spectrum” which — as I and other boosters of the competitive power of open spectrum continually point out — is available to everyone and cheap to deploy (relative to building a licensed network from scratch).

Hence the recent Cablevision announcement that it will deploy a wifi network in conjunction with its cable network. As a Plan B, it has some real advantages over using licensed spectrum, as well as some potential disadvantages. But given Cablevision’s unique deployment situation — it is primarily located in New York City and Long Island which gives it incredible population density for its relatiely small footprint — this fall back position may work for it where it would not work for other cable companies.

A bit more analysis below . . . .

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700 MHz Aftermath: What Does The EchoStar Win Mean?

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EchoStar getting a near-national footprint ranks as one of the major successes for the 700 MHz auction. Chased out of the AWS auction, deserted by its former partner DIRECTV, no one gave EchoStar much hope of winning anything significant (with the exception of yr hmbl obdn’t blogger).

But what does it mean? Can EchoStar become the broadband “third pipe” hoped for by Martin and others? Or is the conventional wisdom right that this is just about improving EchoStar’s subscription television service? Or is there something else at work here? According to the Wall St. Journal (subscription required), the same analysts that could not understand why Ergen would play, and did not believe he could win, now wonder what the heck he will do. Nor is the journal alone in asking this question.

My short version is: EchoStar cannot become a serious broadband provider with just E Block spectrum — particularly given the current service rules for E Block. But, as we all know, FCC service rules are fluid — particularly when licensees promise to deliver broadband services (the recent changes to the AWS service rules providing a perfect example). But even with favorable rule changes, EchoStar faces serious capacity issues if it tries to compete head-to-head with DSL or cable modem service.

Still, there are ways EchoStar can pull it out, especially if it focuses on rural markets with relatively poor broadband connectivity. While the E Block licenses don’t have enough terrestrial capacity to go head-to-head with FIOS or even the high-end cable or DSL services, it can provide a better option than dial-up or ridiculously expensive broadband currently available in flyover country and even in the exurbs. And then there are the perpetually swirling rumors of an AT&T/Echostar merger. Could the E Block merely be AT&T bait? More importantly perhaps, does even Charlie Ergen know what the heck his plan is? Or did he simply see an opportunity and grab it?

In advance of tomorrow’s lifting of the anti-collusion rules, when winning bidders will finally start talking about their plans, I offer my own speculations.

More below….

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That's It! The 700 MHz Auction Is Ovah ! On to Tasting And Judgment . . . .

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At long last, the FCC went three rounds without any new bids and declared Auction 73 (better known as Battle 700 MHz) closed. You can see the final provisional winning bids on the FCC’s Auction 73 page here.

Of course, we are all waiting to see who won what licenses, particularly C Block. But we have some preliminaries to go through first. Most importantly, the FCC has to make a decision on whether to sever the D Block from the Auction so that it can investigate what happened, especially the allegations around Cyren Call and Morgan O’Brien.

Even with the information available, Auction 73 has clearly succeeded on a number of key fronts. Unsurprisingly, I am inclined to credit anonymous bidding with the enormous surge in value for the licenses. Even if incumbents ended up walking away with the lion’s share of the licenses, at least they paid market value for a change (as opposed to the AWs auction, where they picked them up dirt cheap). I also note that at the end of the day, the FCC has only 8 unclaimed licenses (compared with 35 for AWS). As Greg Rose observed previously on his blog, there is good reason to believe we saw a lot of new people bidding.

It remains to be seen, however, whether the auction brought in new competitors or if, as the conventional wisdom predicted, AT&T and Verizon walked off with the big prizes. In particular, we all wait with baited breath on who won C Block.

Finally, two points on D Block. First, even if the experiment failed, that did not make it a dumb move. Babe Ruth used to lead the league in home runs and strike outs, because you can’t hit home runs unless you swing at a lot of pitches. With the FCC trying to satisfy the mandate of Congress to promote a national interoperable public safety network, but with insufficient spectrum allocated and with insufficient funds to build it. So the Commission tried to think outside the box and took a chance. turns out — for reasons still unknown — it did not work out.

Always punish innovators if things don’t go exactly right and you run out of innovators damn quick. Anonymous bidding was also an innovation. So is the open device condition. Before folks rush out to buy stink bombs to lob at Martin and the other Commissioners over D Block, consider if we want the next FCC reduced to such political timidity that we always get the same auction rules again and again and again, because the price of innovating is too high.

Second point: the FCC has a silver lining here. With the auction over, the FCC has fulfilled its statutory obligation to hold an auction commencing by January 28. Not only can the FCC take the time it needs to consider what to do, it can also consider other solutions besides trying to fix up D Block or even auctioning it off the highest bidder. That could include non-exclusive licenses, real time auctions, or even an unlicensed commons — if that would best serve the public interest.

I’m not saying what the best solution for D Block is, because we don’t know enough yet. It will depend on a lot of factors, such as who won the other licenses and how much stomach the FCC has to innovate. But I’m hoping that the FCC and others, when assessing Auction 73, will consider the successes as well as the D Block failure. Otherwise, they will vote to do the politically safest thing. Not a result I’d like to see.

stay tuned . . . .

700 MHz: Notes From The Spectrum New Hampshire Primary, C Block Not Dead Yet

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Everyone remember how Clinton was dead after Iowa? Now who remembers two weeks ago, or even last week, when analysts wrote off the 700 MHz auction as doomed due to credit crunch? But, other than D Block’s utter failure to move (and regular readers will know my opinion of why that happened), the auction has proven a success by every measure we can obtain so far. Sadly, however, the key measures are not yet in, and won’t be until after the auction is over. Which is why, despite C Block exceeding it’s reserve price, I caution folks that we are still at the equivalent of just after the New Hampshire primaries and that any speculation about the important points of the outcome remain unresolved.

Here’s what we know for sure now:

1) The current take now stands at over $14 b. This not only exceeds the $10 b that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated, it will exceed the “wildly successful” 2006 AWS auction (which grossed about 13.9 b). A, B, and C blocks have all met their reserve prices, with the most contentious fighting in certain high value markets B block.

2) Because C Block has met its reserve price, it will not be reauctioned and the open device conditions will go into effect.

So the auction is clearly a success from Kevin Martin’s perspective (again, with the exception of D Block, which is a special case). While those like Commissioner McDowell can argue that C block might have fetched more without conditions, $4.7 billion is nothing to sneeze at. And it is clear that the aggressive build out conditions did not scare bidders away from A and B block, so (assuming the FCC is serious about enforcement) we should see increased deployment of services into rural regions.

What we still don’t know is whether the new auction rules gave new entrants a real chance to win spectrum, or (as the conventional wisdom had it) will incumbents Verizon and AT&T end up capturing the lion’s share of the spectrum (albeit at higher prices, owing to the introduction of anonymous bidding). That we cannot know until after the anonymity lifts when the auction ends (which, if the FCC chooses to reauction D Block under the rules proposed for reauctioning the other blocks, might not be for several months yet). Much depends on the identity of the current C Block holder. Is it Google? Verizon? Some other deep pockets like AT&T or Echostar, or perhaps the mysterious Vavasi NexGen Inc.? And is C Block settled? If the package bidder in round 17 knocked off the previous high bidder, then the previous high bidder will need to respond fairly soon or it will start losing its eligibility (bidding chips) and no longer be able to challenge.

If it turns out the incumbents capture most of the spectrum, I will need to eat a huge plate of crow and tip my hat to Commissioner Adelstein and Publius at Obsidian Wings, both of whom fretted that only Verizon could win a huge block like C Block and that we would get more new entrants by slitting the spectrum up. OTOH, if the Great Google Prophecy comes true, I will become insufferably pleased with myself for at least a month.

But, rather than pull a Tweety Bird and start treating my own speculation in the absence of data as fact, I will simply say —

Stay tuned . . . .

700 MHz Auction Pre-Game: Just A Bit More Unseemly (and perhaps untimely) Gloating . . . .

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So last summer, as we debated the rules for the upcoming 700 MHz Auction, one of the big questions we at PISC repeatedly kept getting asked was “so who is really going to show up to bid?” Especially on controversial issues like open access (and even its wussier cousin, device open access), block size (have big blocks and combinatorial bidding, or maximize smaller blocks), and anonymous bidding, the incumbents all kept repeating over and over again how any deviation from previous rules would keep people from bidding and the auction would be a failure and everyone would hate us forever. Commissioner McDowell reiterated these criticisms (at least with regard to the open device conditions on C Block) in his dissenting statement:

Curiously, however, in an effort to favor a specific business plan, the majority has fashioned a highly-tailored garment that may fit no one. It’s not what Silicon Valley wants; it’s not what smaller players have told me they want; and it’s not what rural companies want. To date, the Commission has received no assurances that any company is actually interested in bidding on the encumbered spectrum. Not one.

Because, of course, everyone knew Google wasn’t going to bid, the DBS companies weren’t going to be real players, and if anyone new was planning to show up, there was no sign of it. Even those most eager to see new competitors emerge (and who ultimately supported the PISC proposals) had their doubts and looked for as much reassurance as possible before taking a leap of faith that we were right.

Well, the FCC just released the list of applicants to bid in the upcoming 700 MHz auction. A total of 266 potential bidders filed (the bulk of the forms are “incomplete” due to procedural defects that will be corrected, but this is pretty standard). That’s more than the 252 potential applicants that showed up at this stage for the “wildly competitive” and “highly successful” AWS auction in August ’06. The list includes Google, Frontline, Echostar, and — as I kept insisting — a number of companies that could not possibly be predicted as bidders until bidding rules were actually determined and potential bidders got to assess whether they had a chance or not.

Towerstream is an excellent example of this last type of bidder. No one could possibly predict that they would show up, and many folks still can’t believe it. But Towerstream CEO Jeff Thompson cites the FCC “embracing the open access model supported by Google” as making the spectrum a “natural fit” for his entreprenurial wireless broadband company, and credits the FCC for making the auction amenable to new bidders. Nor is Thompson alone. A host of newcommers apears to have found the rules attractive enough to make it worthwhile to ante up for a chance to play.

We must still see what happens, of course. I can recall all the pre-game prediction for the AWS auction, where the most valuable licenses ended up in the hands of the usual suspects. In many ways, this is working out like my waiting to see if the Patriots complete a perfect season or if the Red Sox would win the World Series. There is lots of room still for things to go badly. But I can’t help but feel a happy, warm contented glow (and breathe a quiet sigh of relief) that I don’t have to answer the age old question “what if we throw a party and no one shows up?”

Stay tuned . . . .

700 MHz PreGame Show: Reading the Tea Leaves on Verizon and AT&T's Last Moves

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Well the short forms are in, and a surprising number of companies are keeping mum about whether they even filed or not. But a few more interesting tidbits have turned up — notably that Echostar will come to the ball without its dance partner from the AWS auction, fellow satellite TV provider DIRECTV. And Clearwire, an anticipated participant, will sit this one out.

But of course, all eyes turn to the expected big boys of the auction, the largest incumbents, the returning champions, those winners of wireless, the masters of mobility, AT&T and Verizon! These are the guys to beat, the multi-billion wireless guerrillas that should be unstoppable and able to dictate to the market whatever they want. With the cable guys eliminated, they should be on easy street. But with Google making its play, and Frontline getting a 25% “designated entity” discount if it bids on D Block, even the mighty incumbents need to tread warily and brace for battle, lest they end up playing the French to Google’s Henry V at the spectrum equivalent of Agincourt.

With the necessary paperwork in to the FCC on December 3 triggering the anti-collusion rules and ending the last chance to say or do anything related to the auction, every last minute twitch and adjustment of the incumbent will be under intense scrutiny. Professional prognosticators, armchair analysts, and even random bloggers like yr hmbl obdn’t will try to read the tea leaves and predict the outcome of the upcomming spectrum steel cage smackdown.

So with this in mind, it is interesting to note the unusual a last minute wireless asset swap between AT&T and Verizon. Traditionally, wireless carriers have avoided these sort of mutually beneficial deals, preferring to duke it out directly with rivals. But AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless are now fully assimilated into the ILEC Borg Collective. Is this last minute swap a sign that the major wireless players will act more like wireline incumbents and work to defend their common interests — such as resisting the intrusion of newcomers Google and Frontline? Or is it merely that there are so few players to whom the companies can divest these assets (in both cases, the swaps are for licenses the FCC ordered divested as conditions on acquisitions) profitably before the Dec 3 short form deadline that this trade was inevitable?

And what should we make of Verizon’s announcement it will embrace Google’s “android” open platform for wireless? Is it just another move by Verizon to adjust to the T. Googlii lifestyle needs and turn a challenge to its business model into an opportunity to make huge profits? Or is this a final effort by Verizon to ward off my Apocalyptic Google Prophecy by persuading Google it doesn’t need to win licenses to get what it wants?

Finally, there is Verizon’s Petition for Reconsideration asking the FCC to reverse its decision to allow Frontline to keep its “Designated Entity” bidding credit while still doing 100% wholesale, but only for D Block. Is this just yet-another-round of the non-stop sniping between Frontline and Verizon? A signal that Verizon is interested in D Block? Or even a possible feint to disguise it’s intention to go for C Block and leave D Block to others?

More below . . . .

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700 MHz PreGame Show: Ergen’s Echostar Dances Alone; Brave Little Toaster Or Stubborn Idiot?

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Echostar has decided to bid in the 700 MHz auction, despite DIRECTV sitting this one out. This raises the obvious question. Is Echostar founder and CEO Charlie Ergen a “brave little toaster,” boldly defying the odds and the nay sayers to reap a well-deserved reward in the end? Or is this another example of the stubborn idiocy that earned the proposed Echostar-DIRECTV merger the distinction of being the first merger in living memory actually rejected by the FCC because he refused to pull it when it became obvious it was doomed?

Actually, I’m betting on the “brave little entrepreneur” scenario, but the jury is still out.

More below . . . .

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700 MHz PreGame Show: Cable Cos Largely Pass — No Surprise And A Win for Public

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Yesterday was the day for companies interested in bidding in the 700 MHz auction to file their “Short Form” applications with the FCC. While it will still take a few days for the FCC to process the forms and for companies that made errors to correct the forms and give companies a chance to correct possible errors, we are seeing a few interesting developments already — notably in cable land. It is also interesting to see that MetroPCS and Leap never did get together before the auction.

On the cable side, no real surprise that most cable cos are sitting this one out. (Back in August, I already doubtful they’d want to play.) Actually, the mild surprise is that Cox is going it alone. I have not expected Spectrum Co. (the Comcast/Time Warner/other cable co joint venture) to bid, despite winning big in the 2006 and AWS auction and participating in the rulemaking for the 700 MHz auction. For one thing, thanks to the introduction of anonymous bidding, the cable cos cannot effectively target their industry rivals (like the telcos or the DBS guys) to drive up prices or block them altogether, as they did in the 2006 AWS auction. So a big motivator for the cable companies to participate, i.e. strategic blocking outside the value of the spectrum itself, is gone.

In addition, Sprint divorced itself from the partnership and shacked up with Google, leaving the cable cos with an ugly alimony settlement for the AWS auction and no wireless partner to help them build the network. And, finally, the cable guys haven’t figured out what the heck to do with the AWS spectrum they acquired last summer. While that went relatively cheap (45 cents/mhz pop), it still cost $2.5 Billion with nothing to show and a danger that if the cable cos don’t start building out a network they will lose the licenses at the end of the license term for failure to meet the mandatory performance metrics. (Licensees are required to meet build out and service requirements. The aren’t terribly onerous for the AWS band, but they do require you to build something and push a signal through it.) Given that the 700 MHz licenses have the most rigorous build out requirements ever (in no small part to ensure that folks like Spectrum Co. don’t win the spectrum and then “warehouse” it), the cable cos are very unlikely to buy spectrum on the off chance they’ll figure out something to do with it.

Finally, there is the big reason every is pointing to — the cable stock valuations. Cable stocks have declined significantly this year, both as a function of the general decline in the market and because it looks like Verizon bet right on fiber to the home. Competing against FIOS means that cable operators (particularly Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner) are in for another round of expensive capital investment to maintain their competitive footing or risk losing customers to FIOS. In this sort of situation, the last thing investors want to see is cable companies spending billions for licenses they can’t use unless they spend billions more to build networks from scratch.

This last is probably why Cablevision is sitting it out, despite vigorously playing in the AWS auction in ’06, and why Cox, which recently went private, has decided to toss its hat in the ring and play. Cox also has the advantage that licenses that overlap its territories (assuming it does not go for C Block or D Block) also have significant overlap with the area covered by AT&T with its purchase of Aloha. This potentially removes a major competitor for the A and B Block licenses, giving Cox a chance to get coverage of it’s network and offer a package of wireless and wireline services down the road. So Cox can ante up for a chance to catch a bargain without taking a stock hit. By contrast, Cablevision directly overlaps with Verizon for the licenses that cover its region and the adjacent markets into which Cablevision would want to expand. Verizon will fight like a tiger because it wants the spectrum, so the inability to block due to anonymous bidding does not help Cablevision. And, because Cablevision is publicly traded, even anteing for a chance to play will cost it big time.

UPDATE Apparently, Cablevision did file a short form. A Cablevision spokescritter said that Cablevision was reserving the right to bid, but declined to say if Cablevision would bid. Earlier stories I had seen said they wouldn’t bid. Well, I give them credit for trying. Good luck trying to break out of NYC.

All in all, I consider the elimination of Comcast and Time Warner as potential bidders to be a real win for the public interest. As I have written before, allowing cable companies to bid for this spectrum raises extremely serious competition problems and would make it virtually impossible to see a new, independent broadband provider emerge. Given that the 700 MHz auction creates a potential “transformative moment” for wireless broadband, and therefore potentially for broadband generally (especially the much hoped for “third pipe”), I breathe a huge sigh of relief to see the cable boys out of it.

Stay tuned . . . .

Assessing the 700 MHz Order Part III — Anonymous Bidding Alone Makes This a Big Win

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Regular readers will know that, as far as I am concerned, getting anonymous bidding automatically makes this Order a big win. I pushed hard on this in the lead up to the AWS auction a year and a half ago. Sadly, I lost. As a result, the cable companies were able to block the DBS guys from winning any new licenses, and the incumbents generally succeeded in keeping out any potentially disruptive new entrants (the cable guys having made it clear they would not compete with the cellular guys).

Fortunately, Greg Rose spent a year crunching the data and demonstrated that if the incumbents hadn’t rigged the auction, it sure looked like it from a statistical analysis/game theory perspective. With this “smoking gun” evidence in hand (utterly dickish footnotes by the Wireless Bureau staff to the contrary), we were able to persuade the Commission that adopting anonymous bidding rules would make the auction more competitive, give new entrants a better chance, and as a result probably increase the auction revenue overall.

So, having lost this last time around, I consider it a real coup to get it now. As both Google and Frontline supported anonymous bidding as necessary to encourage new entrants, I am hopeful that we may still get our “third pipe” provider even without wholesale open access.

Analysis below . . . .

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Sprint Swaps Spectrum Co. for Google: Care To Guess Who Bids in 700 MHz Now?

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As I repeatedly observed during the lead up to last Tuesday’s FCC meeting to decide the rules for the 700 MHz band, it is an extremely risky business to try to guess who will bid at this stage. Despite the much shorter time between announcing the rules for the AWS auction last year and the time bidders needed to get their forms in, numerous companies changed their positions, created new ventures, and generally did the unexpected.

Now, with everyone speculating whether whether or not Google will really bid or whether the cablecos will give the telcos a run for their money, comes a significant change. In the course of a week, Sprint has forged an alliance with Google, followed a few days later with a surprise request to exit the cableco consortium SpectrumCo. This comes on top of Sprint’s announcement two weeks ago that it will team with Clearwire to do nationwide WiMax.

And suddenly all those wise speculations about how Sprint won’t bid because it doesn’t have the cash and it has enough spectrum, Clearwire won’t bid because it’s too small to challenge the telcos, and Google won’t bid because they don’t have the expertise and don’t want to spend the money, need some serious recalculation. A Google/Sprint/Clearwire consortium (with possible help from Intel, which both owns a chunk of Clearwire and participated in the auction rulemaking as part of the “4G Coalition” with Google, Skype, and Yahoo!) looks like much more of a spectrum player than any of them alone. Sprint and Clearwire have the infrastructure and expertise, Google has the bucks and the need to expand into wireless. Further, depending on the nature of the partnership, Google could start testing and and marketing its wireless services now so that it does not have to wait until it has built and activated a network (which probably won’t be until 2010 at the earliest).

Meanwhile, what happens to SpectrumCo.? Granted the cablecos still have no plan for the licenses they got in the AWS auction (since, lets face it, the real reason to show up was to block DBS from getting a terrestrial broadband pipe), but to the extent they pretended to have a plan, they usually cited their ability to work with Sprint as a means of implementing it. So what happens now? Granted the cablecos still have tons of money to throw at this, but how will Wall St. treat their stocks if they look set to pour another couple of billion into a business without the benefit of an experienced partner with existing infrastructure? And besides, with the FCC adopting anonymous bidding, the cablecos will find it much harder (if not impossible) to target and block rivals without going all the way and actually winning the licenses. (Remember, blocking is usually cheap because you don’t usually have to spend the blocking premium, you just have to prove to the other guy that you are willing to spend the blocking premium. It’s like when tough guy walks in on shopkeeper and asks if shopkeeper would like to buy “insurance.” Tough guy doesn’t have to actually trash the store to get paid. As long as shopkeeper believes tough guy will break his legs, shopkeeper will pay to avoid testing the theory.)

So, a mere three days after the FCC announces rules, we find ourselves reexamining the conventional wisdom in light of changed events. McDowell rather relished the warning he gave Martin and the rest of the majority that it was “risky” to tailor the band plan to attract a single “white knight” who would become a new national broadband provider. Suddenly, Martin’s confidence that if you set the table folks will come to dinner seems a bit more justified.

But it’s still a few months until FCC forms to participate will be due, and anything can happen in between.

Stay tuned . . . . .