The whitespaces project the FCC was involved in doing, for example, was open, and involved a very large number of non-telcos who wanted to produce devices, and in fact, produced working prototypes. It was open. Anyone could do it as long as they could produce a device that met specs.

I get your sarcasm in that you clearly seem to think that everyone just wants to lock everyone else in differently, but at least, the other envisioned use for this spectrum was, in fact, similar to WiFi today. Unlicensed use by spec compliant devices.

I don't think you can reasonably argue that 2.4ghz/5ghz wifi would have been better off being auctioned off.

In fact, wifi would be even better had it had more spectrum to work with.

I don't know too much about this topic, but WiFi seems different since the signal is meant to be pretty local, which has lead us to 5GHz which is meant to penetrate less.

It seems like such a hands off approach to spectrum that is meant to cover a larger area could lead to a situation where it's defacto assigned to whoever deployed in an area first, because deploying additional infrastructure makes no sense due to congestion.

> Who are these people, who might "help free people from the iron grip of broadband non-competition"?

Ideally, the FCC. By licensing the spectrum to smaller providers with guarantees for service (e.g. we connect X customers in Y years or forfeit the license) and at very affordable rates (or free).

Except the new management at the FCC doesn't seem to be at all concerned with making things better for the average citizen...

That's the opposite of what should happen. One of the reasons we're stuck with broadcasters parked on beachfront spectrum was that back in the 1930s spectrum was licensed based on what would serve the "public interest" (in some bureaucrat's judgment). Back then, TV was revolutionary something something education.

Spectrum auctions were a good model when the FCC started doing them. Today we have the technology for devices to mediate spectrum use among themselves (maybe following very high level regulatory guidelines). To use an analogy: you don't "allocate road" to cars. You let drivers figure it out themselves against a background of rules for dealing with conflicts (e.g. Right of way).

I've got a small local ISP by me that runs fiber to the home in rural areas and wifi as well. Them for a start. I would imagine Google and Elon musk if the price were right.

I would think that $19.6B would have been a right price for Google, for at least part of that spectrum.

In one of the previous auctions they tried and failed to outbid Verizon and that was "only" $4.5 Billion or so. Imagine if Google Fi were based on a single country-wide chunk of spectrum exclusive to Google instead of them being an MVNO. Verizon did and made sure Google lost! If Google fiber is any indication, cell phone companies would have faced very stiff competition.