It's official: Google has been accepted to bid for a chunk of wireless spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission auction coming up in January. A report last month by Wall Street Journal, claimed that Google is prepared to bid on its own without any partners for a sum of up to $4.6 billion or higher. The company later confirmed it is going to bid.

The search engine leader is listed among other 96 accepted applicants on a list released by the FCC. Initially, 266 companies applied. The next step for all 96 bidders to stay in the race is to submit an up-front payment before a Jan. 4 deadline. Google is bidding as Google Airwaves Inc. The auction is scheduled to take place Jan. 24.

Paul Allen's venture-capital firm Vulcan Inc. is also among those accepted. The 170 companies whose bids were rejected as incomplete can apparently still resubmit their applications. Among these there are several big names such as AT&T, MetroPCS, and Verizon.

The FCC two months ago rejected again heavy pressure from those "wireless cartels" (as described by former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Reed Hundt) and said it won't budge on the rules it announced for the 700 MHz spectrum. Specifically, the FCC requires winning bidders for a certain portion of the 700 MHz spectrum called the "C-block" open up their services to their customers' choice of equipment.

The auction, which was postponed by a week, is expected to raise at least $10 billion for the U.S. government from airwaves being returned by television broadcasters as they move to digital from analog signals in early 2009. The official date for the auction is now eight days later than previously announced, on January 24, 2008, reportedly as a small concession to companies deciding whether they still wanted to bid.

The open-access rules were adopted by the FCC at the suggestions brought by Frontline Wireless and Google.

Google already reportedly operates an experimental advanced wireless network at its headquarters in Mountain View, California, that could be used if it wins the spectrum and decides to become a national mobile carrier. The network, operated under a special license from the FCC, allegedly tests the newly announced Android platform.