Palscience

Google may make a solo bid for frequencies to run a wireless network, but analysts say it needs a carrier partner.

Google is making the necessary preparations to bid for wireless spectrum in an auction be held in the U.S. in January — but it will likely need a carrier partner to help build a network to use it, analysts said Friday.

The spectrum, between 698MHz and 806MHz, and collectively called the 700MHz band, is currently used for analog TV broadcasts. It is due to be freed up for other uses, such as operating mobile telecommunications networks, by 2009. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission plans to auction off the right to use that spectrum on Jan. 24, and bidders must declare their intention to participate by Dec. 3.

In July, Google said it would commit a minimum of US$4.6 billion to bid for a license to use the spectrum, if the FCC set certain conditions on the licenses. Those conditions included giving people the freedom to choose what applications and networks they use with the phones they bought, and giving service providers the freedom to connect with those networks and buy wholesale minutes from network owners on reasonable terms.

Google is still making “the necessary preparations” for a bid, a company representative said Friday.

The company is planning to finance that bid alone, without partners, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Laying out that kind of money for spectrum — and even paying for the construction of a wireless network to use it — would present no great problem to Google, which, as of Sept. 30, had $13.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand.