Both of Frontline’s goals go back to the objectives that guided Hundt when he was F.C.C. chairman and when he worked as an antitrust lawyer: to serve the public interest and devise fair rules for competition.

Of the first-responder’s network, Hundt says that “it’s a tremendous honor to even be a part of this.” During Hundt’s tenure as F.C.C. chairman, the agency allocated some bandwidth for public safety use, but Congress never appropriated the money needed to actually build out a network. When the current F.C.C. chairman, Kevin Martin, began considering rules for the upcoming auction, Hundt and Frontline’s other executives convinced Martin that a public-private partnership would be a way to fund the network at virtually no cost to taxpayers. “I’m really happy with being able to come back and remedy this problem,” Hundt says.

Hundt is equally excited by the prospect of creating an open wireless network. “If we’re successful here, it will really be great for consumers,” he says. “People will be startled to find out what innovation can really do. I predict every electronics device in the world will [eventually] be connected to the network.”

Hundt’s goal of invigorating the industry through competition is shared by Frontline’s high-profile investors and executives, including famed venture capitalist John Doerr, former Netscape C.E.O. Jim Barksdale (who, not coincidentally, is also head of Mississippi’s post-Katrina reconstruction effort), and early Google investor Ram Shriram.

“I think there’s a whole set of wonderful software applications that are not seeing the light of day because the process of getting certified and approved by a carrier is very onerous for lots of little garage startups,” says Shriram. “This is about the next little startup that eventually has the potential to become an important and useful application to consumers.”

Hundt says his deep-seated belief in the virtue of competition is a result of his training as an antitrust lawyer. “I was an antitrust lawyer for 14 years, and competition is the basic tenet of antitrust law,” Hundt says. “That’s what guarantees freedom of choice for consumers.”

In advocating for an open wireless network earlier this year, Hundt and Frontline were lobbying side-by-side with Google, which has not yet said whether it plans to participate in the coming auctions. But partnering with a deep-pocketed interest like Google could make it much easier for Frontline to be a real contender in the auction—and the two do share a commitment to shaking up the industry, as well as key investors like Shriram. For his part, Hundt is tight-lipped about who, if anyone, Frontline might partner with. (“It’s like the Academy Awards,” he jokes.) But when it files its initial paperwork in early December, Frontline and others will be required to disclose any bidding partners, and the battle lines will be drawn.

Even with Google, a team of seasoned telecom players, and a handful of high-profile investors in its corner, however, Frontline won’t have an easy time trying to win the spectrum auction next year. The winning bid is likely to be high, perhaps in excess of $10 billion, and the incumbents have a huge interest in making sure this bandwidth doesn’t fall into the wrong hands—i.e., those of a company like Frontline that would establish a network that would threaten the incumbents’ business model. But Hundt is undaunted. “Undoubtedly, the odds are against us,” he acknowledges. “But you can’t discourage me.”