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Here’s something I didn’t know before talking to a few industry folk at CTIA: The anti-collusion rules set in place by the FCC expired right after the show ended. Clearly, this was to cut off people like me from asking questions. Not that I minded. After all, the trade show wasn’t about the 700 MHz auction. It was about the industry as a whole, and although the auction has become a large part of it, I can understand the desire to keep it from being the sole focus. In any case, the rules are now lifted, and it appears that AT&T wasn’t too happy with the open-access restriction put on the C-Block, on which it did not bid.

AT&T spent $6.64 billion for licenses in the 700-megahertz band auction but avoided licenses in the consumer-friendly “C block” because of the additional regulatory requirements, said Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of the wireless unit.

“The auction worked well … but it highlighted that people put a premium on spectrum that is not encumbered by heavy regulation,” said de la Vega in a conference call with analysts and reporters.

While I can understand why AT&T shied away, I think de la Vega completely misses the point here. People, as in consumers, don’t put a premium on unregulated spectrum. Far from it. Unless, of course, by “people” you mean “wireless carrier executives.”

At this point, this has nothing to do with the people. The people didn’t decide on the regulation, the people did not bid in the auction, and the people have not seen the services offered pursuant to the newly acquired spectrum (nor will they until at least February, 2009).

I didn’t hear the rest of the call, so I can’t comment on anything that de la Vega might have said. But to me, the restrictions didn’t work because of the alternatives available. AT&T could eschew the larger C-Block spectrum because it already bought spectrum from Aloha Partners. Google wasn’t really interested in the first place, as they made apparent during the auction. So that left Verizon with an essential monopoly on the block.

This also hurt smaller companies, since AT&T bid on smaller licenses. With large chunks of 700 MHz spectrum already in place, they had little need to buy up the C-Block, restrictions or not.

Honestly, I think that AT&T’s acquisition of Aloha was more problematic for the auction than the open-access restrictions. It left the serious competitors for the C-Block to one, and we know that things can get a bit screwy when one company has the control. The Aloha acquisition also caused many smaller companies to lose out on the A- and B-Blocks, since AT&T could easily out-muscle them.

Yes, the open-access restriction proved to not be all it was billed to be. But to place the blame solely there is to forget AT&T’s part in lessening the competition.

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