Next tuesday the FCC will vote on the rules for auctioning off the valuable 700 MHz spectrum, and the politicians involved in the process are beginning to be heard. InternetNews has a piece on the US House hearing on the sale, and notes that the other five members of the commission (3 Republican and 2 Democrat) are not giving any clear indication on which way they’ll vote—although InfoWorld notes that other Republican politicians are already protesting the proposed sale rules. Martin needs 3 votes for his plan to be accepted.

The main talking point is “open access”, and there’s been a lot of different FUD being thrown about so it’s hard to work out exactly what is going on… those opposed to the plans claim that it will force the operators to change their business plan, which doesn’t make sense because the rules will only apply to the spectrum sold, in fact only to a third of it. The carriers can continue operating the way they do—even if they buy the spectrum with “restrictions” they can still continue the same way with the rest of their spectrum. The only issue will be if their customers leave en masse to the new player, which would say a lot about the service being offered by the carriers.

Some of those who support the rules seem to think it will let them take their mobile handsets between carriers, which doesn’t make a lot of sense because the “restrictions” are only on a third of the spectrum being sold. A network on that spectrum would have to allow any device that didn’t damage the network, but a network on any other spectrum—such as that currently being used by the operators—would still be allowed to block devices. One commentator embodied the position: “A phone that works on one network should work, or be made to work, on all networks.” Whether that’s idealogically sound is irrelevant—the effort required to make sure that GSM phones work on CDMA networks and vice versa far outweighs any benefits. It’s possible, there are handsets that work on both networks, but they are larger and, well, not as good as handsets designed for a particular network.

From what I can see the carriers prefer the spectrum auction to have the same rules as before because it’s very good spectrum, and they want it without having to worry about any additional requirements. The “open access” crowd want the restrictions because it would stop the carriers overbidding to prevent any competition. Personally, I hope Martin gets his rules through—it wouldn’t suddenly destroy the industry, and it just might see something new hit the market. If I’ve missed some important point about the auction or its rules, please let me know…