Google's plans to establish itself as a provider of wireless broadband across the US were put on hold last night after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) refused to agree to two of the search engine's conditions.The FCC had approved two of the terms set out by Google which would have seen consumers able to use whatever software and device they wished on approximately a third of 700MHz spectrum to be auctioned.
However, the company could not get the other, more controversial, pair of conditions past the commission, namely, requirements for the winner of the spectrum auction to sell access to its network to rivals on a wholesale basis and to allow rivals access to infrastructure.
Google had agreed to match the $4.6 billion (2.3 billion pounds) reserve price for the licence, which would allow the company to build its own wireless network if it so wished.
There has been speculation recently as to what Google's ultimate plans regarding the spectrum are.
Since November 2006 the search engine has developed an arrangement with various companies including Sprint, Helio, Leap Wireless and Kajeet to integrate some of its applications with their technology.
On Monday ZDNet reported head of special initiatives at Google Chris Sacca as saying that "mobile is the fastest and cheapest way to reach the largest number of people".
"There are billions of people on this planet who still don't have access to the internet. And we think mobile presents the biggest opportunity to get them on the internet," he said.
The auction for the spectrum must be completed by the end of January 2008.
