Hance Haney, senior fellow of the Technology & Democracy Project ...

that Google’s “top priority” heading into the auction “was to make sure that bidding on the so-called ‘C Block’ reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important ‘open applications’ and ‘open handsets’ license conditions.” Whitt also wrote that Google was ready to buy the nationwide C- block licenses “at a price somewhat higher than the reserve price” but wasn’t prepared to outbid Verizon Wireless. “This certainly isn’t consistent with the way Google presented the open access proposal to the Federal Communications Commission last summer,” Haney replied. “Google stressed that open access was for the purpose of leading to the introduction of new facilities-based providers of broadband services… Obviously, the idea that an open access requirement would facilitate a third ‘pipe’ was naive on the part of pliant regulators.” Whitt said in response that Haney had misread his company’s comments from last summer. “We consistently have argued that the open access license conditions adopted by the FCC would inject much-needed competition into the wireless apps and handset sectors, but would not by themselves lead to new wireless networks,” he said Monday. “Only if the commission had adopted the interconnection and resale license conditions we also had suggested -- which the agency ultimately did not do -- would we have seen the potential for new facilities-based competition.”