For FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, Google’s threat to pull out of the 700MHz auction next January if their open-access demands were not met (is it me, or is it all sounding a tad James-Bond-villain?) must have been hanging like an unpleasantly scented cloud above the head; with a claimed $4.6bn investment to play with, that’s a big ball to take home if the game isn’t going to their favour.  And prior to the FCC ruling, Google’s people made it very clear what their stance was:

“If there is no openness requirement there, Google won’t go” Richard Whitt, Telecom & Media Counsel, Google Washington

With various sops in place (albeit not the full package the search giant demanded), the question remained of whether it was enough for Google to stay in the game, a question they refused to be drawn on.  However, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has thrown a tempting tidbit back into the ring when asked by T-Mobile USA’s government relations chief Thomas Sugrue whether Google would take part in the auction:

“[Bidding] probably would be the way to answer that” Eric Schmidt, CEO Google

It’s an answer very much open to interpretation; as of yesterday Reuters took it as a sign that Google’s participation with a bid of some degree would be “probable”, but equally Schmidt could have been avoiding answering altogether at this stage.  No doubt the semantics of the comment will be pored over until the next soundbite, but it seems fair to say that only the very naive would count Google out of the game; Schmidt followed up with a rousing speech praising the US government for its hands-off attitude to the internet and again stressed the importance of “net neutrality”.

[image via http://www.smh.com.au/]