Can Google Beat AT&T?

Imagining Google's next move has the same dreamy qualities of buying a lottery ticket - a mountain of cash pulls the heavens closer and the term "extravagance" loses its meaning. In short, it's fun to imagine the possibilities, even if a dream, of what Google can achieve.

battles with a Congress sympathetic to telecommunication giants who want to tighten control over Internet access, take a peak at their account balances and realize they can become ISPs. And they can do it rather easily. These same telecoms that have been muscling anti-Net Neutrality measures into federal and state-level legislatures have also been hounding Google and bandwidth-exhaustive content providers to share the cost of delivery. But what if Google, either alone or with partners like Amazon and eBay (even Microsoft) could buy that radio spectrum, set up a wireless network, and bypass their struggles with the telecoms altogether? We the people, continuously under the thumb of telecom extortion, would herald them as heroes. There are two upcoming spectrum auctions. The one in June offers 1710-1755 and 2210-2155 MHz frequency bands. A second one, which could happen as late as 2008, is for a larger and possibly cheaper 700 MHz frequency band. "A consortium of new media companies could wind up leading the pack to buy that spectrum (700 MHz) and provide a third (broadband) pipe into homes," said Washington Analysis' George Dellinger. AT&T's Jim Cicconi, in that same Investors.com (Applause) And if you allow yourself to float dreamily down this road, it is easy (in your thoughts at least) to put the puzzle pieces together, dropping each jig-sawed kernel into place. We remember the video and patent applications. We've dreamt and speculated, been immensely disappointed, and then continued on again (once over our heartbreak) to imagine what could be done with all that money. What does Google have to say about it? The same thing they always say: Hi Jason, Thanks for your email. Unfortunately I'm unable to comment on rumor or speculation. Thanks for checking in with us though. Megan Quinn Google inc. Tag: | document.write("Email murdok here.") Drag this to your Bookmarks. Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") Yahoo My Web