Google, Motorola and Microsoft are among the companies that want the unused spectrum for a new generation of wireless devices. Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House of Representatives House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a list of questions to Martin, including whether an FCC engineering report was peer reviewed, and how the agency would deal with interference from broadcast signals if it occurs. "Why did the Commission decline to adopt a licensed approach to some of all of this spectrum?" Dingell asked.

T-Mobile USA plans to begin selling the first smart phone powered by Google new mobile software late next month, according to people familiar with the matter, facing off against Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry with a device that blends aspects of both. The phone's manufacturer, HTC, forecasts sales that are rosier than analysts' estimates. HTC says it expects to ship 600,000 to 700,000 units of the smart phone, dubbed the Dream, this year, a person close to the situation said Monday.

That's why earlier this year Google kicked off a competition that awards cash prizes to companies creating innovative applications for its Android mobile platform. The search giant has earmarked US$10 million for the Android Developer Challenge, for which it says it has received more than 1,700 submissions from around the world.

Comments continued to be filed with the Federal Communications Commission over whether some top cable operators and Google should be able to team up with Sprint Nextel and Clearwire to provide a new WiMax-delivered broadband service. Free-market think tank The Free State Foundation weighed in Monday, saying that it will boost competition and adding that it should "eliminate" – or at least reduce –the calls for imposing network neutrality on broadband providers.

T-Mobile USA expects to deliver an Android-powered phone in the fourth period. But that launch is taking up so much of Google's attention and resources that Sprint Nextel Corp., which had hoped to launch an Android phone this year, won't be able to, a person familiar with the matter said. China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world with nearly 400 million subscriber accounts, had planned to launch an Android phone in the third quarter but it has run into issues that will likely delay the launch until late this year or early 2009.