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Verizon has been lobbying for changes to the 700MHz wireless auction that would remove an open access requirement permitting subscribers to use any handset they like with that spectrum.Google cited Verizon’s chat with Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin on September 17th about open access, a meeting that ran counter to FCC rules.
Consumer Affairs said [...]

Phone and cable companies are losing the Net Neutrality debate, and losing it badly. And Google’s Washington Telecom and Media Counsel Richard Whitt doesn’t mind pointing that out.

Google Says It’s Time To Turn Japanese

"We hope policymakers take a careful look at exactly what is now happening overseas, why, and then draw the right conclusions [...]

If Google wants to see the winner of the 700MHz spectrum adhere to its four proposed openness conditions, Google will have to push its money into the pot. That isn’t going to happen.The Federal Communications Commission picked two of the four recommendations as conditions for the wireless auction scheduled to take place in 2008. Google [...]

What’s this? Is FCC Chairman Kevin Martin actually about to acknowledge that incumbent phone companies may have too tight a grip on their market and discourage real innovation? Maybe his head’s not as thick as we thought. The upcoming 700 MHz wireless spectrum auction has been a pretty contentious arena. AT&T and other companies want [...]

With a nationwide transition to digital television slowly taking place, Google may be interested in participating in the federal auction of the 700MHz wireless bands.Those bands will not be needed once the digital transition happens in 2009. Many companies have an interest in grabbing this bandwidth for themselves.
Google has been thought to be one [...]

After starting out on an internal-only basis, the Google Public Policy blog has been opened for public consumption and commentary.Did you know that 99.6 percent of Americans receive their broadband service from either a cable or a telephone company? Or that many people have only one choice for a broadband provider, if they have one [...]