Patents Show Google Fi Was Envisioned Before the iPhone Was Released

smaxp writes: Contrary to reports, Google didn't become a mobile carrier with the introduction of Google Fi. Google Fi was launched to prove that a network-of-networks serves smartphone users better than a single mobile carrier's network. Patents related to Google Fi, filed in early 2007, explain Google's vision – smartphones negotiate for and connect to the fastest network available. The patent and Google Fi share a common notion that the smartphone should connect to the fastest network available, not a single carrier's network that may not provide the best performance. It breaks the exclusive relationship between a smartphone and a single carrier. Meanwhile, a story at BostInno points out that Google's not the only one with a network-hopping hybrid approach to phone calls.

Comments

Re:Bidding for Access

[Anonymous Coward]

verifying that the provider is telling the truth would come from a relatively small amount of experience... ie: I tried network X a couple of time and didn't like it... remember, you're not locking into a multi-year contract so sampling a network and then marking it as 'unusable' in your phone's preferences is no biggie

what will doom this (in the US and similar phone subsidising countries) is that suddenly people will actually have to pay for their phones up front... while total cost of ownership will go down (probably by a lot) but the ability of the masses to stay on the annual or bi-annual upgrade treadmill will be broken. unit sales will be down, old phones will stay in circulation longer... really it's what's best for the planet *and* is a proper market solution (no anti-consumer collusion between network and device mfgr)... yep, won't happen, ATT and Apple will probably manage to argue to some rube with the ironic title of Senator that allowing this will put the security of the nation at stake

in countries where people do pay upfront for hardware I can see this working really well