A couple days ago I wrote about the quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt in Forbes that made it seem as if his company’s bidding on the Open Spectrum was far from a done deal. I ended that post with the following statement:

Personally I’m leaning towards the ‘fake-out’ idea. I still see Google going full-force into the spectrum bidding – you simply don’t revolutionize an industry without shaking things up.

Today Ars Technica has direct confirmation from Google that they fully intend to launch a bid for the Open Spectrum and will make their intentions public on December 4th:

“Our goal is to make sure that American consumers have more choices in an open and competitive wireless world. FCC rules require us to reveal our plans by December 3, and we fully intend to do so. In the meantime, we are making all the necessary preparations to become an applicant to bid in the auction.”

Quite a few sites, including The Wall Street Journal, are now suggesting Google’s plans go far beyond a simple open source cellphone operating system – they could be aiming for their own mobile network.