Google walks away empty handed from 700 Mhz auction

The winners have been announced and Verizon and AT&T have picked up large sums of bandwidth in the 700 Mhz auction. Verizon won almost all of the 22 Mhz wide C-block except for the Alaska, Puerto Rico and Gulf of Mexico markets. Verizon shelled out $4.741 billion for this huge chunk of bandwidth. It appears that everyone was correct in assuming that Google was just bidding in the auction to make sure that the reserve was met and the airwaves would be open to its Android devices.

AT&T has picked up a good portion of the regional B-block of spectrum. It won 12Mhz in many of the 700 markets up for bid. The D block, which has been reserved for public safety and community purposes, did not make the $1.3 billion reserve. So if you're interesting Auction 76 will be held to sell off this remaining 10 Mhz of real estate.

So a big win for Verizon and AT&T. And even a big win for Google who can benifit from the open networks without having to spend a penny to buy them.