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Google Plans Major Play In Wireless Partnering With Sprint and T-Mobile
MojoKid writes There's a new report suggesting Google is partnering with select wireless carriers to sell its own branded wireless voice and data plans directly to consumers. According to sources and the "three people with knowledge of the plans," Google will tap into networks belonging to Sprint and T-Mobile for its new service, buying wholesale access to mobile voice and data in order to make itself a virtual network operator. That might sound disappointing on the surface. Had Google struck a deal with Verizon and AT&T, or even just Verizon, the deal could potentially have more critical mass, with great coverage backed by a company like Google and its services. The former might be a winning combination but at least this is a start. The project will be known as "Nova," which is reportedly being led by Google's Nick Fox, a longtime executive with the company. Apparently Fox has been overseeing this for some time now, and it seems likely a launch will take place this year.
Maybe. The devil is in the details, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it. But Google has a shitload of money and they blow way too much on useless crap that no one wants like Google Glass and autonomous cars. They're launching fiber now here in Austin, giving Time Warner and AT&T some much-needed competition. Backing underdogs like Spring and T-Mobile makes me think Google may end up owning both. One thing Google does well is networking.
However, there is one caveat: will Google be sniffing all the traffic it sees on these newly-acquired traffic just to harvest it and sell to advertisers. THAT's where I draw the line. My ISP has only ONE JOB: connect me to the web without getting in the way. That's what I pay for and that's what I currently get.
They may be afraid of being made irrelevant by a deal like this, but they're much more afraid of being made irrelevant by a deal with their competitors. Imagine how different the market would be today if the original exclusive iPhone contract had been with someone other than AT&T.
Besides, one likely end scenario if this goes huge is that Google buys their partners.
Do you really want to give Google yet more access to your personal information / habits?
Based on all the wonderful services they provide for me with that information (like Google Now, automatic traffic notifications based on my traveled routes,etc), and the fact that I haven't seen any actual bad things from it, yes, yes I do.
Ting's à la carte pricing is fine for light users, but the average smartphone addicted millennial, it's a certified ripoff. But yeah, Google is entering a crowded marketplace. Just by themselves, Sprint and T-Mobile have quite a few of their own virtual carriers. Sprint has Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile. T-Mobile has MetroPCS, GoSmart Mobile, and they've also partnered with Walmart for Family Mobile and Target for BrightSpot Mobile.
Then you've got the big daddy of MVNOs, América Móvil. They already resell competitively priced wireless service from all 4 national carriers. You might be more familiar with them as Tracfone, Safelink, Net10, Simple Mobile, Page Plus Cellular, Telcel América and Straight Talk.
Until Google actually starts building their own network, don't expect a huge industry shake-up. In the cellular industry, the networks are gold and you know the golden rule...
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Right now the cellular phone industry (at least in the U.S.) is highly vertically integrated. A single company owns the service, owns the towers, owns the POTS connections, and sells the phones. This has resulted in people begrudgingly subscribing with a provider not because they like their phone selection or service plans, but because they have the best network. Or subscribing with another provider because they have an exclusive on a phone. etc.
IMHO this vertical integration is a tremendous impediment to market forces trying to improve price and quality, and needs to be split up. You should be able to buy the phone from anyone. Get your service subscription from anyone. They should be able to contract with individual tower owners to create a network. And connect to the POTS independent of everything else I've just listed. This would make competition orthogonal within each of these layers. The best phones would sell the most independent of other factors. The company with the best plans and prices would get the most subscribers independent of phone selection or tower buildout. Tower networks providing the best coverage would be available to all service providers willing to pay. And POTS interconnects would, like it has for VoIP, be driven down to the cheapest cost for reasonable quality.
The MVNOs were one step in this direction. They partially decouple the service provider and tower networks. I've often wondered why an MVNO doesn't contract with multiple tower owners, which is what Google is doing if it's in talks with both Sprint and T-Mobile (most newer CDMA phones work on both CDMA and GSM networks). The Google Nexus phones (and to a lesser extent the iPhones) are another step in this direction - the same Nexus phone works on all carriers. It's not locked to a specific carrier if you don't buy it from the carrier.
I have the exact same problem. I can get good prices from Sprint or T-Mobile and great prices from MVNOs that operate on the Sprint or T-Mobile networks, but in my particularly corner of American suburb hell the reception sucks on either carrier. So I'm stuck paying Verizon or AT&T more than twice as much money for the same data phone plan I could get from Ting.com (shameless plug) because Verizon and AT&T know they offer a better product.
I'm really hoping Google's investment in T-Mobile and Sprint narrows the wireless service gap, because having four more or less equal choices for wireless quality would probably send prices way down.