Google is given to grand statements as it pushes its vision of how the web should look, but some of them do eventually translate into reality. In the run-up to the last US spectrum auction in early 2008, the search giant talked a great deal about a dynamic system of spectrum-on-demand, where all kinds of service providers could purchase access to airwaves, when and where they needed it, using a marketplace system. This was typical Google ‘ setting out an idealistic vision of a system that supported thousands of small providers and innovative services ‘ while actually pushing the giant’s own political agenda, to weaken the grip of large carriers on the mobile internet and to pass control, and web…