The auction for rights to a highly valuable swath of the United States’ airwaves (700 megahertz auction) will begin on Thursday, January 24th, beginning at 10am and is expected to include multibillion-dollar bids from the nation’s two biggest wireless phone companies, Verizon and AT&T, as well as Google.

Although industry executives and analysts agree that Google is unlikely to win any licenses, the company already has an invaluable victory: in setting the auction rules, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has forced the major telephone companies to open their wireless networks to a broader array of telephone equipment and Internet applications.

Read Full Story (New York Times)