A Closer Look at the 700 MHz Auction

Let the mental cud chewing begin. Late Tuesday Dec 18, the FCC released its list of applicants for the prime chunk of wireless real estate known as 700 MHz.

What's the deal with the 700 MHz spectrum? Wired has an excellent FAQ here: FAQ: Inside the High-Stakes 700-MHz-Spectrum Auction.

Basically, the 700 MHz spectrum used to be used for UHF TV signals which no one really cares about anymore so it's going to start being utilized for mobile communications. The spectrum is choice because its signal carries better than those currently in use by the major mobile service providers. In other words, tired of getting shitty signals? Help is on the way and it may be provided by everyone's online hero: Google. Google has said it's willing to shell out over $4 billion for a big chunk of the spectrum.

Yesterday I spent a couple hours perusing FCC 700 MHz Band Auction Auction ID: 73 Accepted Applications. Yes, a couple hours...at least. BusinessWeek has a mediocre article about the participants in the auction: Look Who's Bidding in Auction 73. They say:

Due to limited information provided by the filings, many of the organizations listed are nearly impossible to trace to their owners, often turning out to be foreign-backed companies, investment funds, and law firms.

I can attest to many of them being nearly impoosible to trace. I thought it was because I don't normally due that kind of research. I'm glad to see that even the pros thought the fact-finding was tough.

One company that nobody seems to be mentioning, the one I think is most intriguing, is a company called Aristotle, Inc. What is Aristotle, Inc.? From their website:

Aristotle is recognized as the pioneer in political technology. Every occupant of the White House — Democrat and Republican — for more than 20 years, has been an Aristotle customer, as are most U.S. Senators, most members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Democratic and Republican state party organizations. Year round, thousands of Americans involved in the political process — from grassroots organizers to Washington insiders — rely on Aristotle.

Basically Aristotle, Inc. owns huge and alarmingly detailed voter lists. From Aristotle, Inc.'s site I made my way to a truly worthwhile article about the company at Vanity Fair, Big Brother Inc. From the article:

“What we do is help a campaign run more and more like an effective business,” Phillips says as he types on his laptop, bringing up on a large projection screen the profile of an actual voter in Atlanta, whom we’ll call John Smith.

Phillips hits a button and up pops Smith’s basic information—address, phone number, etc. A click of the mouse brings more personal information—his photograph, his age and occupation, the names of his adult family members, his party affiliation and approximate income. Another click summons the exact amounts of political donations he has made. Phillips clicks once more, and a kind of molecular model appears on-screen, showing every political donor and potentially influential person Smith is linked to, in Atlanta and beyond, with dozens of interlocking nodes. Each node leads to the profile of another voter, about whom Aristotle knows just as much or more.

So what the heck is an ultra-tech-savvy political data mining near-monopoly doing bidding on some hugely expensive wireless real estate? Inquiring minds want to know.

Originally posted on my Tumblr blog: Bulging Shorts!

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