Verizon Wireless snapped up a good portion of available spectrum during the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) recent 700 MHz auction, including several licenses in the open-access C-block.

Bidders have been limited in what they could say about the auction due to FCC-imposed guidlines, but those rules lifted Thursday night at 6pm EST. Google has already weighed in on why it didn't place any winning bids, and now it's Verizon turn.

Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam and Verizon CFO Doreen Toben will be on hand for an 8am conference call about the auction results.

More details after the jump ...

8:05am - Technical difficulties solved. Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam is talking shop. "We see maturing. We see smart phones more and more in the market place. And you're beginning to see a better Internet access experience. Lots of activity around improving browsers. We're seeing a nice hockey stick kind of trend. We've talked with investors over the years. We see a real opportunity to transform and super charge [data]."

8:08am - "Goal is to keep Verizon Wireless in double digits revenue growth here as we move from 3G to 4G. Another opportunity with 4G that shifts metrics to think about revenue growth overall, margins, etc. The industry for us is really not just for people anymore, it's about a broad array of connections."

8:15am - Talk about Verizon's open access efforts, including its recent open devices conference. "As broadband capability has increased, we have seen all of the applications ... want to naturally move over to the mobile space. There are thousands of application providers that are waiting to [take advantage of this]. By tapping into those networks and all of those administrative platforms (voicemail, GPS, IP backbone) by allowing outside developers to meet our minimum specifications and bring devices onto our network through non-traditional channels, we can tap into a whole new stream of revenue growth. Any device through any distribution model to get to the customer. There's no subsidy or sales support."

8:19am - LTE 4G network trials with Vodafone. "Because of our purchase with LTE and our unique partnerships, we believe we can bring the best product sets in the industry, the quickest and at the best cost."

8:21am - Finally, 700 Mhz.

"It's a very strong position, especially on the east coast. We're in a good position across the country. We look at all of our growth and capacity needs and we're in good shape for the next few years. Still some thin spots. We wanted to increase our depth.

The spectrum is the lifeblood of the business, so when something like 700 comes along, we look at it very closely. It's been called beachfront property ... best overall coverage, best penetration of buildings, best throughput. We felt we had a once in a lifetime opportunity to provide a long-term foundation for Verizon Wireless as a business.

We had not had a clear, nationwide, single frequency ... in the history of any of our predecessor companies and we saw this as an opportunity that would really super charge our growth if we could clear a nationwide spectrum

Thought we needed a minimum of 20 MHz. So 10 up and 10 down was important to us. We would see throughputs in our engineering design of about 75-Mbps. If we only had a block of 10, that would drop to 30-Mbps. We also wanted to have depth in key markets. There had not been, nor would there be, an opportunity like this going forward.

Get that spectrum now, get it behind us, so we didn't have to keep going back and purchasing spectrum over the years.

We filled in all of the thin spots that we had, all of the white space is filled in and we feel that we have a lot of flexibility going forward. We spent what we expected to spend. We got very good economics on a per MHz per basis.

C-band was a significant acquisition because we think it will be the first place the developers will go on a forward basis. A nationwide band means that they get access to every person in the US with one device, with one introduction.

We will not have any constraints going forward. No need for us to do any spectrum purchases [in the future]."

8:25am - Back to LTE and Vodafone. "2010 - launch network commercially and have a rapid acceleration to get full deployment. Important for us to more aggressively because LTE came with our global partnership with Vodafone, there are tremendous scale opportunities across the board. We felt that with the 700 c-block we're in a premier position to provide the fastest, most complete footprint. And the two togther place us really in the poll position the first stop for device and application providers."

8:30am - Q&A session

8:32am - Question: Will voice business be totally on LTE in the future or will you run the two side-by-side for a number of years?

Ivan: At least for some time there will be parallel use of this. But in the long term you'll have a whole [new set] of electronics

Lowell: CDMA will continue in the short run and voice will be on there, but it also does very well for a lot of the data applications, so we don't see a need to rush the transition. WE just finished the transition from analog [now moving to EVDO]. But there is no rush to move any application off of the CDMA.

Ivan: Our view is we are now looking down the pipe of next three to four years ... enormous reductions in cost of running the network. [Confirmed that Vodafone committed to the same timetable].

8:35am - Ivan: Revenue opportunity is clearly in the tens of billions of dollars for the industry and if we create the opportunity, we should get more than our fair share. [Cannibalize our own revenue streams?] Industry is going to do that whether we like it or not. Revenue streams will shift to data, convergent-centric models.

8:40am - Money talk

Doreen: We have to work with the accounting firms to come up with a plan. It will take us some time to do it. It never gets capitalized initially. Think of this first 60 to 90 days ... not capitalized. Part of it will probably be capitalized and when we go through it, we'll share that with you, but that'll be a little while now.

Lowell: Strategy here - this is an overlay network for us with 700 MHz that is clean, so not a lot of frequency planning. What we need to do on the towers is put in some new antennas, some site work that needs to be done. But we're well ahead [with that]. Remember analog is coming out of that right now, which took up a lot more room, so we don't view it as a disruptive [thing] at all.

Ivan: Single, nationwide [network] gives us chance to work with developers, reduce costs. When you have the opportunity to reach every person in the nation with one ... device, there's a huge opportunity to scale very quickly.

8:45am - Question: Thoughts on C-block and the FCC?

Ivan: When the FCC came out with the C-block, I didn't particularly appreciate all the conditions they put on it because I was worried they were going to try to write rules for a market that was still developing. They were primarily focused on the literature ... what Google had written. Now we have an opportunity to explain that our thinking about [open access] goes much beyond what the commission might have been thinking about with Google. The pivot that the industry is going to have to take anyway ... I think what will happen is, the FCC's expectations will be more than met by the things that we're doing. Kevin Martin already said at CTIA ... he feels he'd like to wait and see how this develops. Short answer: I happen to think the direction ... goes well beyond these little conditions created. We'll deal with them as they come along.

Lowell: It's not on the C-block that we have those build-out requirements; [it's on the A and B blocks]. Especially on the B, the footprint is relatively small and in urban areas. So we don't view those as particularly onerous. As we get the C-block built out, putting in the A or the B to meet those types of requirements very quick. It's plugging in a card in the base station. It's not something that will take us a long time to get build out. From manufacturers side, three of the four big ones were all there, they were talking about their investments .... R&D and tying in global manufacturing capabilities. I don't think any of them would say they are concerned about meeting the demand. Some of carriers have time frame ... we see huge potential from getting this deployed.

8:48am. Question: Will we see joint Vodafone/Verizon RFPs and purchase orders?

Ivan: Lot of joint purchase work being done now. Doing field trials together, purchasing together, verifying together. I predict their deployment may be slightly different than ours [but we'll take advantage of purchasing together]

8:50am. Conclusions? Ivan: Like any transfomative acquisition, [we] feel good about where we are. Think we have platforms and management to fully execute.

8:52am. Line is still open.
Ivan: Are we clear?
Doreen: Yes
Ivan: Are we sure?
Doreen: What number do you want me to call you at?

8:53am. Damn, they figured it out. Line closed; no extra tidbits or Ivan's cell phone number.