Google Hopes to Disaggregate Carriers with gPhone

Hugh Pickens writes "The New York Times has a look at Google's plan to loosen the carriers' control over their mobile phone networks in an effort to bring the dynamics of the PC-oriented Internet to the mobile Internet hoping that it can beat competitors in an open environment. The Google Phone or gPhone which is expected to be unveiled later this year will not compete with the iPhone but will help Google distribute their online services. Google intends to provide software that will be built into phones sold by many manufacturers and, unlike Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Google is not expected to charge phone makers a licensing fee for their software. Google will make its money brokering ads on the mobile phones and even envisions a free phone service one day supported entirely through ad revenue."

Comments

But the cell companies like control

[morgan_greywolf]

They like control because it provides them a way to sell additional software and services for the phones. They don't want companies like Google stepping in and selling ads. Even on smart phones, Windows Mobile is customized for that purpose. Will Google allow that level of control to the cell companies? I'm guessing no more than they allow other third parties to control their content on the Web.

Re:But the cell companies like control

[davidsyes]

Hopefully DO NO evil will translate into UNDO evil.

If Google charges reasonable or no fees to the carriers, but then allows the carriers to still make a living with reasonable caps, then the carriers should shut the hell up, since it appears Google won't be charging them a fee, unlike mshaft. Afterall, they, like the smaller of us, have an OPPORTUNITY, not a RIGHT to do business. They need to update their aging business models.

Meanwhile, Chinese on the mainland (and possibly in Japan, Korea, and a few other places, customers replace their cell phones every 3 or 4 months to the tune of $300 to $400 a pop so as to not look behind the times.) Here, I pick a phone that is not FUGLY, one that I can live with for 2 or even 4 years and not get screwed upgrading a phone which I didn't like in the first place. (I recognized that not ALL upgraders get screwed, or pay a ton to upgrade the phone-- well unless they do it too soon or are trying to upgrade to too expensive a handset.)

ads

[McGiraf]

Ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, and ads.

And then some ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, and aslo ads and ads.

I think there is enough ads already, I'm starting to hate Google.

look an ad in my sig!

heurg!

Just curious

[jtroutman]

What is the possibility that Google gets the 700MHz spectrum and then uses it for their own phone service? I have no idea if that's even feasible, but if so, it would bypass any problem they may have with the current carriers not using their software because they see them as competition for advertising dollars.

Google's Experience

[jeremiahbell]

From Article - "Running a Web site and a search engine is one thing," said Mr. Weide of IDC. "But developing a phone is a whole different game. It will not be easy for them."

They claim that Google will have hard time because it doesn't have the experience dealing with complex hardware. Sure, maintaining what is probably the world's largest search engine isn't complex. And as far as the handset hardware goes they won't be the first to port the kernel to a mobile platform, and someone else may have already done the work for them. Communication is Google's business, and they have spent a ton of R&D time and money to prepare and launch their product. I bet they are further along than IDC thinks.

Why Would Google Tip its Hand?

[CodeBuster]

It occurs to me that it is not in the best interest of Google to tip its hand prematurely on this announcement, before the spectrum auction of 700 MHz, in which Google is a bidder, is complete. If this is true then Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, and AT&T will know that Google represents a serious competitive threat and must therefore be outbid in the spectrum auction at any price so that Google can be denied the spectrum that it needs to roll out the competing services. It should be abundantly clear to everyone that the type of services that Google wants to offer in the mobile space are anathema to the entrenched providers who are used to the revenue stream from nickle and dimming practices that are enabled by absolute control of their networks. The existing carriers will certainly not offer the Google mobile OS on terms that Google would accept (Google wants freedom whereas the telcos want lock-in). This upcoming spectrum auction may prove to be very interesting indeed.

Re:Why Would Google Tip its Hand?

[tomhudson]

You're assuming google actually wants to acquire the spectrum, rather than make the carriers do a repeat of the dark fibre build-out.

1. get competing cell-phone carriers to overbid on spectrum
2. now that carrier has spectrum, they build out the infrastructure at great expense
3. oops - not enough revenue coming in - google buys out their infrastructure and license for cents on the dollar

Re:Why Would Google Tip its Hand?

[kcbrown]

You're assuming google actually wants to acquire the spectrum, rather than make the carriers do a repeat of the dark fibre build-out.

1. get competing cell-phone carriers to overbid on spectrum
2. now that carrier has spectrum, they build out the infrastructure at great expense
3. oops - not enough revenue coming in - google buys out their infrastructure and license for cents on the dollar

Uh, your item number 2 is suspect. Who says the carriers are actually going to build out anything? And even if they do, what makes you think they'll do it at their expense rather than getting government "incentives" to do so (not that getting incentives has anything to do with actually building the infrastructure).

What's most likely, I think, is that one of the major carriers will acquire the spectrum and then they'll either sit on it or they'll gradually use it for their own purposes. What they won't do is any sort of massive, expensive build-out.

Oh, they're "contractually obligated" to build infrastructure around the auctioned spectrum? How naive. Such contracts are only as good as the enforcement, and trust me -- the government has no intention of enforcing such a contract on the telcos. The telcos pay them too well for that.

There is precedent for this: their handling of the internet infrastructure (particularly the last mile), where they got lots of government "incentives" and wound up doing...well, nothing.

In other words, you can expect the phone suckage to continue without end. It's in the telcos best interests, after all, and that's all that really matters, right? This is the US, where the individual customer is the least important entity in the "business" relationship.

Re:And

[JimDaGeek]

I want my money to be what controls the services

But that is not often the case when a few large companies control everything. I recently got a mobile phone for my wife and I. After much searching, there was not much that differentiates the different companies. You will get basically the same features (depending on what you spend) and you will pay similar prices. All the big carriers I went to wanted to lock me in to a 2 year contract. All of them had annoying sales people that tried to sell me the latest whizz-bang phone. And all of them are way over priced IMO. The only thing I found my money could give me a choice over was if I wanted to pay a lot of cash for a phone to take crappy pictures or to listen to some songs, or maybe look at a web page in a crappy browser.

In looking at options to get the lowest monthly cost, well there just weren't many options to be truthful. One option was 700 shared family minutes for $79 USD/month or 1,400 shared family minutes for $89 USD/month. WTF? If I can get 1,400 minutes for $90/month, why can't I get 700 minutes for $45/month?

When it comes to the mobile market, my money doesn't seem to control much of anything.

Forcing the Airwaves Open

[Doc Ruby]

Google and others like it should force open the airwaves for mobile telecom. Telcos like AT&T, Sprint and Verizon have fled to their mobile divisions because it's still much more regulated against competition, though without the "common carrier" regulations that forced competition in landlines, and cable, and carried over into Internet. Even though radio phones are the least reliable, and often the most urgently needed, the redundancy that any phone connecting to any network available at the time/place is still out of reach. Except at outrageous roaming rates. Including the charges for text and other async messaging.

Google tried to force the 700MHz band open to any terminal device, unbundling the network from the dialtone. It didn't work. But there are other ways, and Google is persistent. Google bought lots of fiber and built lots of datacenters, so it can mount its own competitive telco. But Google's model calls for everyone to have unfettered access to all content and people on all the networks, so Google can help everyone navigate everyone else's content (and each other). They'll get there. And the incumbent telcos (and cablecos which keep their own bundled monopolies, though they just got the cableboxes unbundled from them this year) can't compete with Google. It's too rich, too popular, too smart. Unfolding history is on Google's side. I just wish it would all happen a lot faster.

VOIP

[Paul_Hindt]

I can't believe how out of whack the telco and data services industries are in the United States (I don't know how they fare elsewhere). Its seriously about time we have a big push for fiber-to-the-premises, and extended WIFI coverage for rural areas. You would think that the U.S. would be able to get something like this going by now. Yes I know that Verizon and ATT have their limited coverage fiber services out now, but there is still a loooong way to go. Once we have a large-scale broadband network in place, we can do ALL of our communicating over it...VOIP, videoconferencing, VR marketplaces, whatever...If we actually spent time putting together a solid digital communications backbone, I believe customers would be much happier with their service and the possibilities it offers. Of course someone better pinch me, I'm probably dreaming.

Re:Diaggregate Carriers? Only one catch...

[adolf]

It will help loosen carriers' control by forcing them to accept Google's software in its entirety.

I mean, one can only assume that Google would require the carriers to offer either all of the features of their application suite, or none at all. And once one or two national carriers (or a handful of regional ones) start adopting this software, the rest will be compelled to make a decision:

Play ball with Google and adjust business models accordingly. This is obviously a somewhat frightening concept for companies like Verizon which are deeply entrenched in selling individual services for exorbitant sums, and it will likely be an expensive task to perform.

or...

Distance themselves from the household name of Google, stubbornly maintain the status quo, and fade into obscurity as an increasingly-clued consumer populace flocks toward their Google-embracing competition. And where the former choice was merely frightening and expensive, this one will be downright terrifying and death-bringing.

Go Google

[Anonymous Coward]

gphone+wimax+iptelephony=end of mobile providers business model.

You can bet they are not going to let google anywhere near them. This can only benefit google and destroy their business model. But for consumers nothing could be better.