If the whole FCC auction malarkey has got you confused, then thankfully more analysts are stepping in to lay out exactly what might be on offer for existing carriers, potential new carriers and customers alike.  And while normally the correct name for a group of analysts is “a gobshite” for once they’re actually helping push through some clarity.  One thing’s for sure, Google’s preliminary toe-dip into cellular waters - and their ostentatious $4.6bn credit card waving - has got plenty of people talking.

So what do we know already?  Well, if you want to get pantomime about it, there are the “good guys” and the “bad guys”; Google, Frontline Wireless and others would like to think they sit firmly in the former camp, while existing carriers such as AT&T and Verizon lament in the latter.  Google would have you believe that a new paradigm of wireless usage is at stake, breaking down so-called “open access” into four interconnected chunks.

First off, they want consumers to be able to use any wireless device on the newly unlocked band and they want freedom of downloads for applications and content.  If you had a smartphone, then, you could feasibly connect to the 700MHz band and grab a new, Google-developed mobile OS should that float your boat.  The final two parts of the paradigm concern the management of the network itself: first off, it should be inter-operable with existing networks (so that consumers aren’t left stranded in a neutral zone, disconnected from friends and family using traditional carriers) and secondly that potential operators should be able to purchase, wholesale, network capacity that they could then use or resell with some sort of value-add.

“I don’t have to ask Verizon for permission to attach a computer to their network, or to launch a Web site, but for some reason that I can’t understand, I have to ask for permission to attach a computer or computers they now call phones to their wireless network and have to ask permission to run services and applications on those phones” Jason Devitt, Skydeck

It sounds great, but voices of dissent are being heard from more than one corner of the industry.  For a start, try finding a mainstream cellphone on the market at the moment which can use the 700MHz band - I’ll save you the effort, you can’t.  Manufacturers would need to begin fitting 700MHz-capable radio transceivers to their devices; that’s if doing so doesn’t contradict some sort of lock-in agreement with an existing telco (think Apple’s iPhone exclusivity agreement with AT&T).  And don’t confuse “open-access” with “free” - whoever wins the auction will be looking to make some return on their investment, even Google, and consumers will still be expected to pay for the privilege of utilising it.

It’s these misconceptions that have led some to speak out against recent FCC adoption of all but the wholesale aspect of Google’s four conditions.  Andrew Seybold, a wireless analyst and consultant, is particularly vocal about the potential pitfalls of open-access:

“I can’t download software that will necessarily hurt my BlackBerry because they won’t let me do it.  The whole idea of the open-access thing came from the Internet, [I don't have any problem] with the Internet people, except their perception of open access is that I can go anywhere and do anything and do it for free. That doesn’t work in wireless world”

Rather, it looks as though potential winners from open-access - Google aside - might be the blue-sky thinkers currently riding the tide of so-called Web 2.0; currently bounded by either the limits of a WiFi network or expensive and limiting access to mobile consumers via traditional telcos, they’d be able to increase consumer access to their services by packaging wireless along with them.

“We could see some really interesting devices or services that a carrier wouldn’t have thought to approve or gotten to approve because two guys in a garage built it and they called AT&T, but weren’t able to get the right person on the phone” Avi Greengart, Current Analysis

The possibility of one of those “interesting devices” being the much-rumoured GooglePhone is still very much up in the air.  While they’ll admit to being “pleased” with their current experience of partnering with manufacturers to provide Google services on cellphones such as the iPhone and BlackBerry, they still decline to comment on whether they’re working on a handset themselves.  With less than six months to go until the auction, however, carriers such as Verizon putting pressure - via the CTIA - on the FCC to make the 700MHz conditions as broad as possible so as to maintain its value, and representatives from both sides of the house split on the issue, we can only wait to see which way the commission eventually leans.

[quotes via Seattle Times]