The Wall Street Journal ran a well-reasoned editorial and Op/Ed piece by Robert Crandall and Hal Singer (both require sub for full view) about the upcoming 700 MHz-auction. Collectively, they argue that placing restrictions on the public sale of the spectrum in order to favor certain content providers will hurt consumers. Both pieces implore the FCC not to allow politics to drive the auction process by conditioning some of the spectrum to be auctioned which would certainly lead to government "picking winners".  See also Scott Cleland’s take.

 

I will have something to add on this later.