Google Wants To Be a Wireless Carrier

zacharye writes "Google has already conquered the software side of smartphones and now the technology giant is reportedly in talks to take over the air waves. A report on Thursday claims that Google has held talks with satellite television provider Dish Network regarding the possibility of a venture that would see Google launch its own cellular network and compete directly with the likes of Verizon and AT&T."

Comments

Shut up and take my money

[Anonymous Coward]

When the current crop of American wireless carriers look like a group of mustache-twirling Bond villains, it won't be hard for Google to come off as the better choice. At least they'll have an incentive to give you unlimited high speed data.

Too bad the coverage area will probably be tiny.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[somersault]

As long as it forces the other carriers to have a look at their rates, it's good. It probably won't affect me anytime soon seeing as I live in the UK (besides, my phone is a company phone anyway), but I'd like to see what kind of rates Google considers to be reasonable.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[History's Coming To]

If they follow their general model we'll probably be looking at something ad supported - in-browser, SMS ads, that sort of thing - to support "unlimited" data, and with the option to pay $5/month to remove them. If Google take this as a near-loss-leader then we could see a big shake up amongst providers, although I suspect we'll simply see a host of competitiveness lawsuits and the lawyers will be the only winners...again.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[BlueStrat]

When the current crop of American wireless carriers look like a group of mustache-twirling Bond villains, it won't be hard for Google to come off as the better choice. At least they'll have an incentive to give you unlimited high speed data.

Too bad the coverage area will probably be tiny.

You might get slightly better deals with Google, but the additional privacy/tracking data that Google (and the US government) will have on people...internet and phone/voice history, voice call recordings and internet browsing history, all that data from one convenient source...scares me.

I wish someone would write a credibly-strong voice/data encryption/scrambling smartphone app. They would probably have to develop/release/distribute it outside the US in a country unfriendly to the US, however, to avoid the long reach of the US government.

They wouldn't be happy that a large chunk of the domestic civilian signals surveillance data they planned to store in that mega-sized (and a mega-sized price tag) government data storage center they're building in Colorado became all but useless to them before they even cut the opening-day ribbon. That's one very large chunk of taxpayer money I wouldn't mind seeing turned into waste.

Strat

Re:Shut up and take my money

[Anonymous Coward]

If they follow their general model we'll probably be looking at ...

If they follow their general model we'll probably be looking at Google tracking anything and everything your phone sends and receives, and then they'll send you ads. So, in the middle of texting back and forth to pick a time and place for dinner you'll get a Google sponsored text message telling you about a great restaurant in your area and they happen to take Google Wallet as a payment method.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[neonKow]

Actually, if they follow their general model, then we're looking at something data-mining supported. Google products may have ads, but don't forget how many non-google sites carry google ads.

As for how it'll affect the industry as a whole: there won't be lawsuits. Rather, AT&T and Verizon will have to follow suit to stay competitive, and then data mining your unencrypted mobile data will become both legal and the norm. Yay for privacy errosion!

Re:Shut up and take my money

[EvilBudMan]

We'll the government does that tracking anyhow. So why not? That one thing that makes Google successful as their ads are less intrusive and therefore more effective. I would trust them more with my data than let's say any other third party.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[blueg3]

Voice: RedPhone. SMS: TextSecure. Data: SSL. (Both RedPhone and TextSecure were developed and are distributed within the US, by the way.)

Strong encryption isn't hard. But it requires both endpoints of the communication to agree to use the same system for encryption and it requires them to share information ahead of time (or to both have shared information, like a PKI infrastructure).

Re:Shut up and take my money

[chill]

Uh, banging a porn star is easy, all it takes is money. Many of them have side jobs as escorts in Las Vegas.

You DO realize porn stars are essentially prostitutes with a camera crew, don't you?

Of course, they charge more than the $20 crack-hos you're used to so you'll need to have some serious income first. Stupid details.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[h4rr4r]

AT&T and Verizon already do a lot of this.
I know Verizon had an opt out page I had to go to recently to end some of it.

http://www22.verizon.com/about/privacy/

You will note that the document about how much they share your data is called privacy. Talk about double plus ungood.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[Vintermann]

Because intrusiveness is what Google is famous for! It's what made them out-compete search engines such as Excite and Lycos!

Re:Shut up and take my money

[Vintermann]

If Google follow their general model, they're not doing this to make money directly, but to pave the way for their main product when unacknowledged monopolies and soft cartels threaten their advance.

See also: Android.

If the telecoms have any sense, the mere threat of competition ought to scare them in line. But don't count on it.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[Adriax]

Taking into account the prices they have set for their broadband rollout trial, I'm guessing pretty darn good.

I really hope their wireless is a data only thing, giving users the choice of what voip provider to choose for their voice/text. Google talk would be an obvious choice, but skype integrates nicely with my old droid x as well.
Plus, if they don't go the "subsidized phone via 2 year slave contract" route it would help bring down handset prices to sane levels.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[Malenx]

And for a cheap rate, I would gladly give over that information as long as it doesn't require work on my part.

You act like many people wouldn't be willing to sell information about themselves if they could easily do it in exchange for a product they want.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[alostpacket]

Indeed, this has been their strategy for years. Warren Buffet Called it building their "moat" around the "castle" of the search business. Datamining helps with targeting and increases the value of an advertisement. But the primary purpose here is to make sure no one can throw up a toll bridge between them and the consumer. Their original and still current goal was/is to "be the interface to information."

Good

[dnahelicase]

Competition is nice, but I don't live in Seattle or Kansas City, so it probably won't affect me. ATT will probably just come up with a new plan where my family can share just a little bit less data for a little bit more money than I'm already paying.

I think it's a mistake

[drinkypoo]

If Google were ever going to get nailed up for antitrust, it would be because they provided network, cell network, phone, software, and content.

If it goes through I'll consider it a sign that they're considered usable

Re:I think it's a mistake

[Enry]

1) Just because you're a monopoly means you're going to get sued for antitrust
b) Just because you provide a bunch of services at once doesn't make you a monopoly
iii) Verizon and AT&T better watch out

Re:I think it's a mistake

[gclef]

Having a monopoly is not illegal. Using a monopoly in one area to unfairly distort the market in other areas is illegal. Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop (in the past, don't start with me about right now) was legal. Using that monopoly to give away a product and drive Netscape out of business was not. Google's monopoly on search is legal. Google does not have a monopoly on phone software.

With all that said, if Google gives away wireless, the way they make money back would be interesting. It might be legal if it's something that Verizon or Sprint could also do (data mining user behavior and selling SMS ads based on user behavior, for example). On the other hand, if google pays for it by simply taking money from their search ads & intentionally losing money on free wireless, that would probably be illegal.

Re:I think it's a mistake

[neonKow]

There will be one more itty bitty carrier, run by a ragtag band of Linux and BSD geeks, with connections to Tor and the EFF. They will use cool, cutting edge tech paired with some ancient, unscaleable techs and almost everyone who is willing to use the carrier in their limited markets are only separated by 2 or 3 degrees by PGP keys. A connection will require line-of-sight to a tower, even by hovertrain, you only see them once every 5 minutes, but a connection is so fast that most users carry a cache of 95% of the web with them if they need it on-the-go. Their motto will be "More free than beer" (or some recursive acronym), but they will be nameless, but people will still whisper among each other about the ones who managed to find their way to "a truly open connection."

Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

A carrier that wants you to spend as much time as possible using its service.

Technical Question

[trout007]

I don't work in this field so I'd like to know if there is a technical reason that cell phone companies charge different for text, data, and voice? In other words is the data all treated the same on the network or is voice given bandwidth priority because it needs to be real time?

Re:Technical Question

[somersault]

I don't know the technical details, but even if voice is given priority (which is probably is), the rates they charge for texts have always been ludicrous, even compared to their data plans. So obviously they're just milking it for all they can get, rather than charging differently for technical reasons.

Re:Technical Question

[kriebz]

No, SMS came from a GSM feature that sent data in tiny packets in the control channel phones used all the time for presense and syncronization. The bandwidth was always in constant use, so packing data into it didn't really cost anything. CDMA probably implements a similar feature that uses squat bandwidth.

Now, the weird thing is, carriers charge the same for SMS as MMS, at least in my experience, where MMS uses 3G to send potentially a lot of data.

Re:Technical Question

[h4rr4r]

A lot of backhaul is now packet switched.
Circuit switched stuff is going the way of the dodo.

VoLTE will bring an end to there even being a difference at the end point.

Re:Technical Question

[YoopDaDum]

The pricing is not so much driven by the technology than by what operators can charge. It's particularly true for text, where the margin is really really huge and unrelated to technology. But as it's a geek site let's go over the tech now ;) All 3 use slightly different mechanisms.

Short messages (SMS, or text) piggy back over the signaling protocol.

With GSM and WCDMA 3G (3GPP standards), voice and data share the same radio network. But on the network side there are separate core networks for voice (CS domain, for Circuit Switched) and data (PS domain, for Packet Switched). In the CDMA world there are actually separate radio networks for voice (CDMA 1x) and data (EVDO). This is why you can't do both voice and data at the same time on most CDMA phones: it would require 2 radios, which adds cost and complexity. Whereas with 2G/3G, both goes over the same radio network so both can operate concurrently with a single radio.

Starting with 4G, or LTE in practice, there is still a single radio network as before but now the core (EPC, Evolved Packet Core) is also unified and built over IP. Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is not common yet but it's basically VoIP built on IMS. All is unified, but voice is of course prioritized over best effort data using QoS both in the RAN (radio access network) and EPC.

Re:Technical Question

[squiggleslash]

Prior to LTE, all networks used technologies that made heavy distinctions between packet switched data, voice, and control/signalling. Generally speaking, the available bandwidth (not to be confused with spectrum) is split into fixed-width channels. In TDMA this is done via frequencies and time slots, in CDMA (not to be confused with IS-2000) this is done using a coding system for each bit, with a different code assigned to each channel. But either way, that was the result: each voice call/direction was generally allocated a channel to itself, data was generally allocated channels, and so on.

The most "expensive" is actually the system everyone thinks is the cheapest - SMS. Generally SMS goes on the signalling channel, the channel you use to set up and tear down calls. You can actually take down a cell tower by getting a handful of phones to constantly transmit SMS messages.

So yeah, given they use bandwidth in slightly different ways, you'd expect different charging models.

On top of that, bear in mind that LTE or not different applications have different usage scenarios. You generally expect a heavy voice user to use it for two or three hours a day, at most. At around 2k per second, that's only about 400-700 megabytes of data per month. The original "Unlimited" data plans were propsed when carriers actually expected data usage to be a fraction of that, because people would just be checking their email and browsing mobile websites, and, given users could expect a lower quality of service for that data, it was kinda assumed by carriers that giving someone unlimited data wouldn't actually result in significantly more network use.

Why not just buy someone?

[Fished]

Google has $47B in cash, Verizon's market cap is "only" $118B. I'd imagine AT&T's market cap is lower. Surely they could finance buying one of the major carriers. Shoot, sprint they could buy outright with $30B case left over.

Why wouldn't they just buy a network?

Bring it!

[slashgordo.]

Presently with Google Voice + GrooVe IP on my Droid, I have no need for an extremely overpriced minutes plan, texting plan, or share everything plan. Just give me some data at a reasonable rate, which will happen judging by their Kansas City internet rates. I'll be the first in line to dump Verizon, AT&T, etc for a Google Wireless plan. Just don't be evil with it, and I'll be very happy.

And the Google love should stop there

[erroneus]

Google may be a great beneficiary and contributor to the internet with its use of open source and open technologies and history of giving back to the community. The exchange for this is that people use their services from which they collect lots and lots of data to be used for lots and lots of things. (Sales/advertising data primarily, but also providing information to governmet and law enforcement in particular)

On one hand, I can see Google lowering the cost of mobile/wireless telephony and causing all sorts of competitive horrors for the few major telecom companies out there raking in their reportedly 6452% markup profits (that's actually the Canadian telecom data from a previous slashdot story but it's fair to presume we're in the same ballpark where US carriers are concerned). On the other hand, there needs to be some limits on what and how Google can collect as far as user data goes. But now that I think about it, there's probably not much limitation on that in place now with the traditional set of carriers' services. But I know this: Data collection and sales of that data is the #1 source of income for Google. I am not sure I can say the same about the carriers.

This news makes me uncomfortable though I can't say precisely why other than the fact that I generally distrust data collectors and sellers.

YEOW! MY PANTALOONS ARE AFLAME!

[Thud457]

two words : mesh networking.

Android phones for everybody and their dog. literally.

Re:And so it begins...

[chill]

You forgot "3. Profit!"

The Wireless Networks are setup wrong!

[bartoku]

We do not need huge carriers that produce individual networks.

Cell towers should run like WiFi access points, and the mobile device should handle the hand off between towers.
Each tower can even be run by an individual entity if desired.
Instead there would be entities that sell data credit.

A mobile device would have an account with a data credit reseller.
The mobile device can scan for access in its area and connect to a tower based on how the user priorities (cost, speed, signal strength...)
The tower would then charge the data credit reseller for the user's usage.

This setup allows for each cell tower to compete for users in an area.
This would allow start-up wireless companies to compete immediately.
Once enough individual towers went up then it would compete with the big carriers and force them to change.