What Google wants, Google gets. It’s that simple. Federal regulators pulled the rug out from under Verizon and AT&T by requiring that the winner of the upcoming 700-megahertz auction provide an open source standard that could work with any devices and applications. This came nearly a week after Google said it would bid $4.6 billion on a scheduled airwave auction to dish out former analog UHF TV spectrum to emergency services groups and wireless service providers.

The agency approved rules for an auction of broadcast spectrum that its chairman, Kevin J. Martin, said would promote new consumer services. The rules will let customers use any phone and software they want on networks using about one-third of the spectrum to be auctioned.

To refresh your memory, the key reason why Google is so keen on the newly available spectrum is because it is the last piece of beach front property where the frequencies can travel at a greater distance as well as going through walls.

“The 700 MHz auction may well be the FCC’s most important wireless-related action for many years, because it could lead to the introduction of new facilities-based providers of broadband services, wielding new business models,” Google attorney Richard Whitt wrote in a letter earlier this month to the FCC.

While many may rejoice at this ruling, CTIA-The Wireless Association® President and CEO Steve Largent issued the following statement today in response to newly-established Federal Communications Commission rules for the upcoming 700 MHz auction:

The FCC’s considerable deliberation over the 700 MHz auction rules has left us pleased in a number of respects and still concerned in others. Specifically, we believe the Commission has taken the appropriate approach by recognizing the importance of not restricting the number of auction entrants, nor requiring them to fulfill wholesale licensing requirements or requiring geographic build-out on all the licenses. In these regards the FCC has replicated past auctions that have led to tremendous benefits for consumers and the U.S. Treasury.

At the same time, we are disappointed that a significant portion of this valuable spectrum will be encumbered with mandates that could significantly reduce the number of interested bidders. We remain committed to the principle that wireless consumers and American taxpayers are best served when such a valuable commodity is auctioned in a fair and competitive manner with no strings attached, and we commend Commissioner Robert McDowell for his belief in flexible auction rules and the free-market system.

The competitive wireless marketplace that the FCC has encouraged in the past with market-oriented flexible-use policies has delivered benefits to American consumers that are nothing short of spectacular. The FCC’s deviation from the spectrum auction process that has proven to be so successful in the past could prohibit those benefits from being even more fully realized, and that’s unfortunate.