Your Guide to the Year in Science: 2008

The New Internet Goes on Sale

This month's spectrum auction could set off a telecom gold rush

The most significant airwave auction in more than a decade could mark the beginning of a new era in mobile communications. On January 24, the telecom giants will begin bidding for the last prime real estate in the radio spectrum, a swath of bandwidth that might one day provide a coast-to-coast mobile, high-speed voice and data network. For years, these 700-megahertz frequencies have been licensed as channels 52 to 69 on your TV. But the broadcasters are finally clearing out to go digital, and whomever takes their place will help determine the future of the wireless Internet.

The new network will have better reception, especially in remote areas, because 700Mhz signals can zip right through leafy trees and penetrate into basements and subway stations. It took 30,000 cellphone towers to cover the nation with an 1,800Mhz network; it would take only half that to do it at 700 Mhz.

The new network won't just be cheaper to build. According to the Federal Communications Commission's auction rules, a sizable chunk of the spectrum must be devoted to "open access" service. That means the end of locked cellphones-you'll be able to use any device or software you want on the network. (The rule change is in part due to Google's furious lobbying for it, a move that has fueled speculation that it plans to bid for the spectrum.) The last time the government made a change like this was 40 years ago, when the FCC forced telephone companies to open up their lines to third-party products. It wasn't until after the landline system went open-access that products like answering machines, fax machines and modems hit the market.

There's no guarantee that things will work out as well for the 700MHz spectrum. The big telecom companies have already begun to attack the open-access rules in court. Even if the rules do survive until the day of the auction, they will take effect only if a bidder meets the minimum reserve price of $4.6 billion.

But even without the open-access requirements, any network built in the new spectrum will make it easier for carriers to provide things like VoIP calling and streaming video-currently difficult on bandwidth-limited wireless networks. "We're talking about your phone precisely mimicking a desktop computer," says Joseph Farren of the industry group CTIA.-Daniel Engber

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