For those of you playing along at home, the Federal Communication Commission’s 700 MHz spectrum bidding reached an important milestone today: The FCC received a bid of $4.71 billion, surpassing the $4.68 billion minimum and setting in motion events that could have profound changes on the U.S. wireless industry.

With the minimum now achieved, the winner must abide by the “open access” rules the FCC agreed to last summer, meaning that the winner will have to allow consumers to use any handset or software application on the spectrum purchased.

Funny, but no one is celebrating in the streets outside.

Anyway, who made the $4.71 billion bid remains a mystery. There’s plenty of speculation all over the Web (here, here, here), but Saul Hansell of The New York Times seems to have the best grasp of what’s going on. Suffice to say, early analysis has Verizon, the No. 2 U.S. carrier, and newcomer Google punching it out for the coveted C Block, with No.1 carrier AT&T in the mix somewhere.

Without full media access, the 700 MHz spectrum auction is a game of pure speculation because the participants — and for our purpose that’s Google, Verizon, and AT&T — cannot talk about their bids until the auction is over, whenever that will be.

Suffice to say, by reaching the open access milestone, a new market has just been launched. For those scoring at home, put a “W” next to consumers, handset manufacturers, and third-party software developers and a ? next to Google, Verizon, and AT&T.

Looks like the rumors and back-room talk about Motorola are true: The company is looking to spin off (or “strategically realign”) its Mobile Devices business, or sell it outright.

Which begs the question: How the heck did Motorola — the company that delivered the first commercial portable cellular phone in 1983 — get to this point? Or, more recently, how did the company that made cell phones fashionable and highly desirable with the Razr and Krzr fall so low as to even think about selling off its Mobile Devices division?

As a friend who works at Motorola told me today, “Can you imagine Motorola not playing in that space anymore? That’s f***** up.”

Bernstein Research analyst Tony Sacconaghi estimates that more than a quarter of the iPhones sold in the U.S. have been “unlocked” to work on network providers other than officially sanctioned AT&T.

That’s about 27 percent of the iPhones sold in 2007.

It works out to about 1.45 million handsets.

What do these numbers mean?

Even if they are estimated, these numbers mean that an amazing number of people have taken the time, effort, and trouble to unlock the phones, no matter the complexity or risk. Some of these people are techies and hackers who are comfortable messing around with the innards of electronic equipment.

But to hit these numbers, it means that a whole lotta average folks are unlocking their iPhones or — more likely — paying a cottage industry to do it for them.

Granted, the start of today’s FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction is no spectator sport. No network coverage. No $3 million ads. No pre-game shows.

And yet the auction isn’t without intrigue for you and me, although it’s more along the lines of Tammany Hall or a Dick Cheney cabinet meeting. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at AT&T, Verizon, Google, and the Federal Communications Commission, the chief players in the spectrum hunt.

For the most part, nobody yet cares about the 700 MHz spectrum (FCC table) except for teleco geeks, the tech press and bloggers, and the players themselves. It’s too early for any of this to matter at a practical, day-to-day level. But do not underestimate its importance to our lives in the long run, at least here in the U.S.