In a bold and surprising move this morning, Dish Network made a $25.5 billion offer to purchase Sprint — a takeover that would satisfy the satellite TV company’s wireless ambitions, while also squashing takeover efforts by Japan’s Softbank.

Dish’s offer is 13 percent more than the $20.1 billion Softbank offered for a 70 percent share of Sprint last year. The big difference: Dish’s deal would be a complete takeover, while Softbank’s would leave Sprint as a separate public company, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The move follows an informal bid by Dish for Clearwire earlier this year. Sprint offered to buy out Clearwire for $2.2 billion back in December, but Dish jumped in with its own $5.5 billion offer. It seemed like Clearwire shareholders were leaning towards Dish’s higher offer, but then Clearwire ended up taking $80 million from Sprint to stay afloat, which indicated that they were back to considering  Sprint’s deal.

By buying Sprint, Dish would have access to both Sprint and Clearwire’s precious wireless spectrum, and it would have the country’s third-largest cellular network. Dish already has more than $9 billion worth of wireless spectrum, and it won approval from regulators last December to use it. But building a network of its own would take forever and likely cost more than what it’s offering for Sprint.

The deal would enable Dish to offer a similar variety of services as competing cables companies: TV, home phone, and Internet service. Charles Ergen, Dish’s chairman, says customers would be able to get Internet access from Sprint’s network via antennas on their roof.

If Dish successfully kills Softbank’s deal with Sprint, Ergen says that it would pay off the $600 million breakup fee owed to the Japanese company.

The real question for Sprint’s shareholders: Are they willing to go with a suitor unproven in the wireless industry? Dish may have a bunch of useful spectrum, but it doesn’t yet have any experience in the mobile world. Softbank, on the other hand, has 32 million mobile subscribers in Japan.

Illustration: Tom Cheredar/VentureBeat

AT&T and Verizon are coming to an agreement — a $1.9 billion agreement, that is, in which both carriers will engage in some spectrum-swapping.

This deal comes at the conclusion of Verizon’s huge spectrum-buying spree. That acquisitive frenzy started back in 2011 and saw Verizon snapping up huge swaths of spectrum from cable companies, a move that aroused plenty of raised eyebrows from federal regulators and competitors. In fact, T-Mobile asked feds to kill the acquisition deals, which it said would give Verizon an “excessive concentration” of spectrum and stifle competition.

Now, the carrier is ready to offload some of that spectrum, albeit not to poor ol’ T-Mo.

Verizon Wireless announced today it will sell 39 lower 700 MHz B Block licenses to AT&T for the aforementioned chunk of change. Also, AT&T will give Verizon Wireless AWS (10 MHz) licenses in certain Western markets, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Ariz., Fresno, Calif., and Portland, Ore.

The 39 licenses being sold to AT&T will cover the following markets:

Chicago
Los Angeles,
Miami
Oklahoma City,
Cincinnati
Memphis, Tenn.
West Palm Beach, Fla.
Rochester, N.Y.
Youngstown, Ohio
Lake Charles, La.
Fort Collins, Colo.
Bradenton, Fla.
Alexandria, La.
Billings, Mont.
Rapid City, S.D.
Tyler, Texas
Longview, Texas
Waco, Texas
Texarkana, Texas
Great Falls, Mont.
Pueblo, Colo.
Casper, Wyo.
Utah 1, 4, 5, and 6
Louisiana 1, 2, and 3
Wyoming 2
Washington 2
Idaho 5
Texas 18
Colorado 4
New Mexico 5
Virginia 10
Montana 8 and 9
South Dakota 1

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Dish Network has won approval to start using its $9 billion worth of spectrum from the Federal Communications Commission, a move that could shake up the wireless market.

Many companies wanted this spectrum, but Dish won out and will use this slice of the airwaves to bring to life a new LTE wireless service that could compete with Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. Or, if Dish wants, it could skip building a new network and sell spectrum rights to other wireless players.

Because the wireless market is challenging, it’s certainly possible Dish could go with option No. 2 and simply sell off the spectrum for many times what it initially paid for it. Dish paid about $2.6 billion for the spectrum by purchasing bankrupt companies TerreStar Networks and DBSD. But the precious spectrum acquired from these deals is now worth more than $9 billion.

Sprint and Google are both reportedly in talks to use the spectrum, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sprint would use it to add more coverage, while Google could use it to make its first foray into wireless service.

While the deal was quite good for Dish, it didn’t get everything it wanted from the FCC. The FCC has put limits on how much power Dish can feasibly use from the spectrum it won. The FCC is limiting it because it doesn’t want the spectrum to interfere with other spectrum it plans to use for a public safety network.

Dish photo via Dave Lindblom/Flickr

It looks like Google and Microsoft might be getting into the wireless network business — at least in the U.K.

The two titans of tech could purchase a portion of white space (unused) spectrum in the U.K., according to a report today from The Telegraph. A high-ranking government official told the publication that both companies have expressed “extreme interest.”

“They clearly see it as very, very important,” the government source told The Telegraph. “They have shown extreme interest in this as a way of getting closer to customers and offering something different to Apple.”

The spectrum is currently being allocated for broadcast television and radio services. However, many interested parties want to repurpose that portion of the spectrum for rural broadband Internet access. That means people who don’t yet have access to high-speed Internet would gain it — and potentially through one of the larger tech companies.

This could be an advantage for either Microsoft or Google because the people who use that spectrum would more than likely end up using that company’s web services.

Via The Verge

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

At a Senate judiciary committee hearing Wednesday, top executives from Verizon and Comcast reaffirmed their stance that consumers would benefit from the approval of a multibillion-dollar spectrum deal between the largest U.S. carrier and the country’s biggest cable television providers.

Last year Verizon agreed to spend $3.6 billion to obtain a portion of spectrum currently owned by SpectrumCo, a joint venture that consists of Comcast, Time Warner Cable Inc., Bright House Networks, and Cox Communications. That deal is currently under investigation by anti-trust regulators due to concerns that it could stifle competition and impact consumers negatively.

If approved, it would mean that the majority of wireless spectrum in the U.S. (which is used to transmit data via cell phones, GPS devices, radios, broadcast TV stations, and more) would belong to only two companies, Verizon and AT&T. And because this is the only nation-wide portion of the spectrum available for the next several years (if not longer), it also means there likely won’t be many new companies emerging as competitors in the wireless market.

“This deal seems to completely abandon the goals of the Telecom Act,” Senator Al Franken said, in reference to the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Telecom Act attempted to make it easier for companies to enter into the business of communication services and expand competition.

Verizon’s argument for why the deal should be approved was pretty weak. During the hearing, Verizon Executive VP Randal Milch said his company would dutifully spend billions of dollars to build out SpectrumCo’s spectrum into a viable wireless network. This in turn would generate more money for Verizon by improving their overall wireless network and charging customers to use it.

But currently, Milch argued, the spectrum is “nothing” because the cable companies aren’t doing anything with it. Seriously, he actually said “right now we have nothing. It’s nothing.”

Franken was quick to respond to Milch’s comments, saying of course its something.. it’s a valuable addition to Verizon’s wireless business. “That’s the reason you want it. Right? OK.”

During the hearing, there were also questions about the cable companies’ intent for purchasing the spectrum six years ago.

“When Comcast and the other cable companies… bought spectrum at the FCC auction in 2006, there was hope that the cable companies would develop competing wireless service,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Herb Kohl. “Instead, these cable companies decided that it would not be economical to spend the resources to deploy this spectrum and enter the wireless market.

Kohl went on to point out that selling this spectrum to the largest wireless company is essentially the opposite of what regulators intended when they agreed to auction it off in 2006.

“Spectrum is government granted public airwaves to be used for the public interest,” Kohl said. “Is it in the public’s (best) interest to sell this spectrum to Verizon, the nation’s biggest wireless company, which will keep it out of the hands of any of the competitors.

“Wouldn’t it have at least been better to have a public auction for this spectrum?” he added.

Kohl also voiced the senate’s “disappointment” over comments made during Comcast shareholder meetings that suggested Comcast never intended to deploy a wireless service. The FCC has regulations against companies that purchase spectrum for its value or allow spectrum to be “warehoused” (intentionally not using purchased allotment of spectrum for strategic advantage over any competitors).

However, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said wasn’t at all the case. In fact, Cohen claimed that SpectrumCo met with every single carrier about deploying a wireless network using its spectrum. The company’s original intent was to have an integrated communication service that included cable TV, broadband Internet, home telephone, and wireless, he said.

Despite concerns over an anti-trust investigation, Comcast determined that the best way to use its investment in the spectrum was to partner with Verizon. As the largest wireless company, Verizon could not only offer the most money, but it could also position itself as the best suited to deploy a wireless network using the spectrum.

Screenshot of Senate hearing via Senate.gov

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

In an ironic turn of events, the fourth largest U.S. carrier T-Mobile is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to halt Verizon’s pending acquisition of additional wireless spectrum currently licensed by some of the nation’s biggest cable companies.

Verizon previously agreed to pay cable companies (Comcast, Time Warner Cable Inc., Bright House Networks, and Cox Communications) $3.6 billion to license a portion of wireless spectrum currently not in use. In return, the cable companies will cross-market Verizon’s phone, video, Internet and cell phone services to its customers. Additionally, Verizon has also agreed to halt any further build out of its FiOS broadband cable TV and Internet service.

T-Mobile is arguing that allowing the deal to go through would give Verizon an “excessive concentration” of spectrum, which in turn could stifle competition. Verizon, on the other hand, is defending the deal because it will allow the company to boost download speeds and better facilitate the growing number of data-hungry smartphone customers.

The fact that T-Mobile is against allowing any one company to control a vast portion of spectrum is interesting. Just months ago, the company unsuccessfully fought for federal regulators to approve its $39 billion merger with AT&T. The merger fell through in December 2011, leaving T-Mobile, once again, the smallest of the big fish carriers.

T-Mobile isn’t the only one urging the FCC to stop Verizon from obtaining more spectrum. The fifth largest wireless carrier MetroPCS and 10 special interest groups have also filed petitions with the FCC in regards to blocking Verizon’s deal.

Via WSJ; Image via Freepress.net

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Both houses of Congress passed a bill today that could give Americans access to more of the wireless spectrum; however, this access will cost us some free broadcast TV stations.

If you search for some kind of appropriately named piece of legislation like the “Open up more wireless spectrum so my iPhone browser will load faster act”, you won’t find it. That’s because the bill Congress passed was actually an extension of the payroll tax, which essentially lets people keep more of their paycheck by removing some of the standard taxes.

To pay for this extension, Congress needed a new source of income. That’s where the TV spectrum comes in.

The bill is setting up a voluntary auction for the block of spectrum currently reserved for television broadcasts. Many of the owners originally granted a license for their part of the spectrum are getting a pretty good deal; they paid very little money compared to what it’s now worth on the open market.

To give you some kind of understanding of the spectrum’s value, the 2008 auction for wireless spectrum ended up bringing $19.6 billion, with more than $16 billion of that coming from AT&T and Verizon. Verizon is also poised to pick up a large chunk of wireless spectrum from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks for a cool $3.6 billion (pending approval by the Department of Justice).

So clearly, we’re talking about a lot of money here, of which the U.S. government will get a hefty cut.

Despite the FCC’s countless pleas to make more spectrum available, Congress has mostly neglected to address the issue directly. The payroll tax extension is more or less seen as a way to kill two bird with one stone. And that’s both a good and a bad thing.

The good thing about this auction is wireless carriers will be able to speed up their networks, expand coverage area of high-speed internet to rural areas of the country, and (in turn) create more jobs.

The bad part about this legislation is that it has the potential to sacrifice some the broadcast TV channels that are barely starting to get used by tech companies as a valuable public resource.

For instance, Boxee just launched a Live TV stick, which feeds the HD TV broadcast signal into the company’s Boxee Box set-top box, thus providing owners with a way to both cut the cord and still get some live content like local news and sports. There’s also recent Barry Diller startup Aereo, which uses tiny HD antennas (one per user) to stream the broadcast TV content thru a variety of connected devices.

While I welcome the additional spectrum availability, part of me wonders whether it would have been better for Congress to directly address the issue rather than issuing a voluntary auction to pay an immediate bill like the payroll tax cut extension.

[Via the Washington Post; Gavel photo via ShutterStock]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

With the AT&T/T-Mobile merger dead, AT&T is readying to compensate T-Mobile with precious mobile spectrum that covers 128 cellular market areas. But what exactly does that look like on the U.S. map?

The fine folks at GigaOM and spectrum expert Andrew Shepherd have developed a handy map, shown above, that shows exactly where T-Mobile will be getting new spectrum additions, which will help the company improve its own 4G offerings.

As noted on the map, cities that will be getting a boost in T-Mobile coverage include Boston, San Francisco/Oakland, Washington, D.C., Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, San Diego, Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., San Jose, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City. AT&T very carefully picked the cities it could give up spectrum in to make sure it could still launch a decent-sized 4G LTE network in those cities.

The catastrophic breakup fee from the AT&T-T-Mobile merger not only included the spectrum noted above but also will give T-Mobile a broad 3G roaming agreement that will make life easier for T-Mobile customers out of range. On top of doling out valuable spectrum and the roaming agreement, AT&T had to pay $3 billion in cash to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom.

With this loss of spectrum, AT&T has little choice but to look to new deals to get its hands on more spectrum. One option could be for AT&T to buy Dish Network. Dish owns lots of wireless spectrum to deliver its television service to customers and has even talked in the past about partnering with T-Mobile to offer wireless phone service. Previous reports suggested that AT&T could pay as much to $50 a share for Dish, which would be a considerable premium on its stock.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Perhaps Verizon was a bit hasty in its decision to stop growing its FiOS TV and broadband Internet business in favor of wireless partnerships with big cable companies. U.S. regulators have launched a probe into Verizon’s recent wireless spectrum agreements,which could leave the largest wireless carrier walking away empty-handed.

As VentureBeat previously reported, Verizon will pay Comcast, Time Warner and Bright House $3.6 billion to license a portion of wireless spectrum owned (but not in use) by the three cable companies. In return, the cable companies will cross-market Verizon’s phone, video, Internet and cell-phone services to its customers. Verizon also decided to halt the build out of FiOS, which is a direct competitor to the primary services offered by those cable companies. For Verizon, building a broadband Internet infrastructure is most likely more expensive and less profitable than growing its wireless business.

However, Verizon’s deal with the cable companies is now under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, reports Bloomberg. The DOJ thinks the deal has the potential to hurt competition in the wireless and cable industries. Honestly, it’s hard to make a case against the DOJ’s statement.

The wireless spectrum Verizon is obtaining from the cable companies was licensed out by the government with the intention that it promote additional competition in the wireless service market. This agreement basically does the opposite of that — allowing Verizon to build out its high-speed LTE network and increase the visibility of its existing services. As for Comcast, Time Warner and Bright House, they don’t plan on launching their own wireless service businesses, which means that portion of the wireless spectrum is essentially going to waste.

Lately, U.S. regulators have decided to play hardball when it comes to competition in the wireless business. The DOJ’s push back on Deutsche Telekom’s proposed sale of T-Mobile USA to AT&T caused the deal to fall apart.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The dust is settling from yesterday’s news that AT&T has given up its T-Mobile acquisition plans, and it turns out even a failed merger is quite expensive.

Because its proposed $39 billion merger fell through, AT&T now has to give up piles of cash and benefits to T-Mobile. AT&T will enter into a 7-year 3G roaming agreement that will boost T-Mobile coverage, and it has to give up a valuable package of AWS (Advanced Wireless Solutions) mobile spectrum that covers 128 cellular market areas (CMAs), including 12 of the top 20 U.S. markets. Overall, the agreements will boost T-Mobile’s blanket coverage from 230 million to 280 million people in America.

On top of doling out valuable benefits that will help the competition, AT&T will also pay $3 billion in cash to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom. That $3 billion amount is one of the highest break-up fees ever.

The new service agreements will be important to T-Mobile USA if it wants to stem the tide of customers leaving its service. At the very least, T-Mobile’s current customers will benefit from the company having more coverage and spectrum that can help deliver data on smartphones.

T-Mobile said early today that there was “no Plan B” and the company is scrambling to figure out what to do next. Because the company doesn’t officially offer the iPhone, it has a major disadvantage when going up against AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

AT&T has abandoned its plans to take over T-Mobile due to too much opposition from the FCC and the Department of Justice, the company announced this afternoon.

AT&T sought to buy T-Mobile from its parent, Deutsche Telekom, for $39 billion, but lawsuits and vocal opposition from the U.S. government have been piling up. On top of an lawsuit issued by the DOJ in August, the FCC went on the record in late November by saying the merger would ultimately hurt U.S. consumers and the wireless market.

The main goal of the T-Mobile acquisition was for that company’s valuable wireless spectrum. Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO, said in a statement that AT&T planned to keep heavily investing in wireless technology, but it urges Congress to address the issue of unused wireless spectrum.

“To meet the needs of our customers, we will continue to invest,” Stephenson said. “However, adding capacity to meet these needs will require policymakers to do two things. First, in the near term, they should allow the free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the U.S. wireless industry, including expeditiously approving our acquisition of unused Qualcomm spectrum currently pending before the FCC. Second, policymakers should enact legislation to meet our nation’s longer-term spectrum needs.”

AT&T will have to pay Deutsche Telekom $4 billion because the deal fell through, but said it also plans to “enter a mutually beneficial roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom.” In theory, that should mean AT&T and T-Mobile customers should end up better off, even though the deal was killed.

The biggest winner of a dead deal between AT&T and T-Mobile is clearly Sprint, which would have become far and away the smallest major U.S. carrier. Sprint had also sued AT&T to stop the merger. Sprint’s shares are trading up 6 percent in after-hours trading, while AT&T’s share price is nearly unchanged.

Are you glad the deal is dead?

McAdams said the company will end its wireless LTE partnership with DirecTV in favor of new agreements with major cable companies Comcast, Time Warner and Bright House, reports the Washington Post.

Under the terms of that new agreement, Verizon will pay the three cable companies $3.6 billion to license a portion of wireless spectrum currently not in use. In return, the cable companies will cross-market Verizon’s phone, video, Internet and cell phone services to its customers.

Verizon also plans to stop building out the infrastructure for its FiOS services, McAdams said. There are two main reasons for this decisions: One, FiOS directly competes with big cable companies, and two, Verizon would rather spend its money expanding its wireless business instead of the expensive costs associated with building out the FiOS infrastructure.

McAdams said Verizon intends to maintain and promote FiOS within existing markets. However, judging by Verizon’s current strategy, it seems more likely that the FiOS portion of the business will get split up and sold off eventually. That’s sad considering the lack of high-speed Internet options available in the U.S.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

In a bid to shore up its 4G wireless network, Verizon has agreed to buy 122 wireless services licenses from Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, the company announced today.

Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks initially set up a wireless venture called SpectrumCo in 2007. But because the venture didn’t turn into anything substantial, the companies are cutting their loses and selling the assets to Verizon. The deal stipulates that Comcast will receive $2.3 billion, Time Warner Cable will get $1.1 billion and Bright House Networks will bank $189 million, based on how much ownership each company had in SpectrumCo. The SpectrumCo companies actually bid $2.4 billion for the spectrum in 2006, so Verizon is paying a $1.2 billion premium for it.

If U.S. regulators approve the move, Verizon will own much more spectrum, as the assets cover 259 million Americans. The goal would be to give more Verizon customers across the country its 4G LTE service, which is already the largest next-gen 4G network. The U.S. Government plans to open more of its wireless spectrum to mobile operators at an auction, but Verizon is preemptively moving ahead of that to secure itself spectrum.

“Americans deserve excellence from a wireless service provider, and innovative wireless companies plan ahead in order to deliver on that expectation,” Dan Mead, President and CEO of Verizon Wireless, said in a statement. “Spectrum is the raw material on which wireless networks are built, and buying the AWS spectrum now solidifies our network leadership into the future, and will enable us to bring even better 4G LTE products and services to our customers.”

The deal, pending approval from a highly regulatory FCC and DOJ, would put a ton of pressure on AT&T, which already is behind Verizon in building out a true 4G network. Verizon offers 4G LTE in more than 150 U.S. markets. AT&T (and T-Mobile) mostly offer up HSPA+ as its version of 4G, which delivers faster speeds on already established 3G networks. That said, AT&T now has LTE live in nine markets in the U.S. and plans on steadily adding more.

AT&T is also struggling right now because it is looking less likely that its proposed buyout of T-Mobile will happen. The FCC has blasted the potential AT&T-T-Mobile merger in a 157-page report that ultimately concluded that the merger would ultimately hurt U.S. consumers. AT&T and T-Mobile-parent Deutsche Telekom have actually withdrawn their FCC application for the merger, so the company’s may also be planning to lose this fight.

Your move, AT&T.

However, those carrier road maps will become far more difficult to navigate through into the future unless more of the wireless spectrum is made available by the FCC. Such was the consensus opinion of discussion from AT&T chief technology officer John Donovan, Verizon CTO Tony Melone and Sprint Senior Vice President of Network Bob Azzi.

“We feel pretty good about the next 3 to 5 years,” Melone said, adding that Verizon’s he road map includes the faster data speeds that utilize most but not all of the network’s resources.

Verizon, Melone said, is interested in dedicating “a slice” of their new LTE network toward broadcasting video, despite limiting it’s maximum speed capabilities.

Noticeably absent from the panel was T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray, whose company is currently in the process of being sold to AT&T.

With the roll out of LTE networks “there’s a lot to be excited about because it’s not like the one we built (before it).” Donovan said, adding that the additional spectrum available to them from the T-mobile deal will benefit customers in the end by allowing them faster wireless access and much more.

T-Mobile’s portion of the spectrum would level the playing field for AT&T against Verizon, which purchased the 700 MHz for their 4G LTE network and Sprint, whose deal with Clearwire gives customers access to the 4G network that was recently rolled out.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s Mad Money, moderated a panel consisting of top wireless executives from AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint that discussed topics ranging from the possibility of a spectrum crunch to AT&T’s just-announced deal to purchase T-Mobile.

The spectrum crunch — a shorthand term for fears that the amount of spectrum commercially licensed to carriers will be inadequate to consumers’ fast-growing demands for mobile bandwidth — has become an increasingly divisive issue amongst the top telecommunications companies. So much so that AT&T decided to buy T-Mobile, another of the largest wireless providers, for $39 billion in order to get ahold of the company’s wireless spectrum.

An executive from T-Mobile scheduled to appear was noticeably absent after AT&T announced Sunday that it would purchase T-Mobile.

You can view the entire keynote in the videos below.

There’s a lot of excitement coming from a decision by the Federal Communications Commission chairman to propose rules that will set aside wireless spectrum for creation of an “open network” free from the chokehold of large telecom carriers.

The spectrum would be auctioned off early next year. Chairman Kevin Martin’s proposal will circulated as early as Tuesday.

This could provide an opening for other technology companies, notably Google, to make a major strike at the monopoly currently held by the carriers. See this story for the number of steps Google has already made to roll out its own network. Outwardly, Google has said it doesn’t want to become a full-fledged network, saying it isn’t part of its core activities. More on Google, and the challenges that remain to its bid, in a sec.

In covering the start-up world over the past several years, we’ve noted that one of the biggest bottlenecks to innovation has been the carriers’ control over the wireless industry. Start-up after start-up has complained about the large fees carriers charge any company hoping to offer services on their networks. The latest visible manifestation of the carriers’ power has been AT&T’s control of the iPhone.

The FCC move was anticipated, and we’ve been reporting the efforts of companies like Frontline Wireless to push it along. Technology entrepreneurs and investors have also written columns for VentureBeat in support of the opening. We also ran a column by investor Paul Grim today calling for T-Mobile, a network to boldly take action to open up its network as a way of challenging the bigger networks.

Google’s blog on the matter is here. Notably, Google has concluded that the carriers and cable companies will win the auction, because they will have so much to lose from it that they’ll pour huge resources to make sure others can’t compete. Here’s a Google lobby letter. And Reed Hundt, head of Frontline Wireless, has reportedly even called Martin’s proposal a “dreadful plan,” before it is even released, apparently believing there will be so many loopholes that carriers will dominate despite the “open” ruling (details at GigaOm).

The WSJ has more here.