Verizon Might Deliver Google Phone

MrCrassic writes "There are talks floating around surrounding Google's possible talks with Verizon and possibly T-Mobile to establish an agreement for the carrier to deliver phones carrying Google's speculated mobile operating system. According to the article, one of the main hurdles slowing down the product are concerns about user privacy and advertising, one of Google's well-renowned strengths. With over 6 million customers potentially at their disposal, could this be "the deal" that establishes Google's hegemony in the internet sphere?"

Mobile phones + do no evil?

[jargon82 (996613)]

Are these two concepts even remotely compatible?
In any event, I look forward to seeing this mobile OS from google, and I do hope they don't get too tightly wrapped in all that is evil about mobile phones.

Re:Mobile phones + do no evil?

[WPIDalamar (122110)]

Maybe Google will make them never ring in public places and inform the user when they're talking too loudly :)

Re:Mobile phones + do no evil?

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

So it'll hang up on you if you say "Can you hear me now?" Verizon won't be too happy about that...

Re:

[tompaulco (629533)]

My hope is Google will not allow the parent companies to work with third party scam companies that blind text kids with messages which if they reply to it automatically sign them up for monthly subscription plans to lame jokes and crap like that.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, see my journal.

Re:Mobile phones + do no evil?

[EveryNickIsTaken (1054794)]

I'm more concerned about the potential collision of Verizon + Do No Evil... A paradoxical combination like this could rip a hole in the space-time continuum.

Re:Mobile phones + do no evil? Only IF....

[xzvf (924443)]

It won't be evil if they sell phones like they sell computers. I should be able to put any software I want on the phone. I should be able to contract a service provider to connect me to the cell/phone/internet network using unencumbered protocols.

Re:Mobile phones + do no evil?

[hey! (33014)]

This is one reason I'm skeptical of getting fios service.

The phone companies really should be in the business of selling commodity bandwidth. No, I don't want your friggen' music video service, I want to access the video service I choose. The problem is that you don't make larger than normal profits selling commodities.

So instead, the phone companies do everything they can to make comparing their prices and service impossible. Their bills are full of portentous sounding charges, and they bury things anybody would really want to know, like whether your phone has the Bluetooth profiles it needs to connection your laptop to the Internet, under piles of crap services nobody in their right mind would buy. I'm convinced those services don't have to make money, they just have to make the decision of which carrier to choose more confusing.

Then there is simply the practice of making "mistakes" on how the bill is calculated, counting on the fact that the bill is structured to be confusing to help them get away with it. I just added a second line to my wife's Verizon mobile service, which involved upgrading to a more expensive plan. They "pro-rated" her service for the month by crediting out the cheaper service, and back dating the more expensive service to the start of the month. For good measure they added a couple of completely unexplained gobbledygook charges that doubled the bill. I'm going to have to spend hours dealing with this, hours of my life I have much better use for and which I'll never get back.

That's why I'm chary of getting fios, even though it looks better on paper. I don't want Verizon to be my content vendor in any case, and they've been underhanded as a bandwidth vendor. As bad as Comcast is, my experiences with Verizon have been worse. If I'd never dealt with them before, I'd have jumped with fios, that looks cheaper and faster on paper. For now it looks better to let my bandwidth hog neighbors jump into long term fios contracts and stay put at least until the DOCSIS 3 stuff is rolled out.

If Google jumps into bed with Verizon, it's an interesting choice; I'm not sure whether any of the vendors are better or worse with respect to being evil, but Verizon is making a major push to become a content vendor. Evil or not, this is not an outfit that is interested in letting net neutrality survive; but Google has up until now built a business around net neutrality. Google is everything AOL was supposed to be to the consumer, except that it's all about access to the universe of other peoples' content. We should look very carefully at whatever deal Google cuts with the carriers, because a shift away from philosophy could be a step towards leveraging their search monopoly into a content distribution monopoly.

Re:Mobile phones + do no evil?

[geeknado (1117395)]

Like many providers, your experience with different vendors is going to vary by locality. Here, Comcast is totally disfunctional as a conseqeunce of multiple ownership changes to the local cable franchise...It's been, over the course of the last 10 years, Comcast, Cox, AT&T, and now Comcast again. The surrounding counties followed a similar, but disparate pattern. As a consequence, their systems aren't even integrated properly from a customer service perspective, and the maintenance of the infrastructure is not what it should be.

All this leads to Verizon being a better choice here than it might be in some areas. Also, and again, this may be a local thing, but the FIOS service division is totally distinct from the 'normal' Verizon service structure you usually encounter. Different techs, at any rate-- they're much better trained, and reports are that the service is extremely reliable. It's only just become available in my neighborhood, though, so I can't speak firsthand...Although it's being installed tomorrow, so we'll see.

I dunno, neither Comcast nor Verizon has its hands clean as far as most of the 'evil' sorts of issues the Slashdot "we" care about. Comcast throttles services, Verizon complies with the gov't on domestic wiretaps...You're pretty much boned either way.

Re:

[jargon82 (996613)]

The video that summary ultimately links to has been removed. Apparently for a terms of use violation... I wonder exactly what it violated?

Re:

[smilindog2000 (907665)]

I think Bill is effectively retired, enjoying his money, and doing charity work for the good of the world. If he weren't, he'd have already done some of the things Google could do for cell phones.

I have to say, I can hardly wait! A open linux based dev platform for phones with the backing and vision of Google could be huge. For example, I want to be able to say "Find a Chinese restaurant" to the phone, and have Google maps show me the nearest three. I want to the touch one of them with my finger, and ha

Re:

[sm62704 (957197)]

Evil billing? That's AT&T.

I'm conflicted. There was a slashdot article about some evil or another Verizon was doing, and I'm looking for a new cell phone provider (AT&T's takeover of Cingular caused me far more problems than I wish to get into here).

I asked slashdotters for suggestions, and Verizon seemed to not be very well liked. But now they;re teaming up with Google.

Plus, my tenant and her boyfriend were over the other night, and he has a really cool phone, It's a small clamshell that will fit i

Re:

[tchuladdiass (174342)]

A lot of people are satisfied with t-mobile. What you do is get one of the "free" phones from them, then go and get whatever unlocked GSM phone you want -- I picked up a moto a780 for less than 200, and it works great with my t-mobile sim.

So far they seem to have the most responsive customer service i've dealt with (was on nextel before). Only thing that bugs me is they don't have any way of blocking SMS spam (unless it is sent to your t-mobile email account, then you can put filters on that one). Of cou

Get a Move On

[jlf278 (1022347)]

What's taking so long? Google and Verizon please hurry up and introduce a sleek new phone to compete with the iPhone so my wife will stop nagging me to pay the early termination fee on her verizon contract. It's in all our best interests a true win/win/win.

Re:

[The MAZZTer (911996)]

I'm not an expert on cell phone tech, but can't you just get an iPhone and unlock it to run on whatever network carrier you use?

Re:Get a Move On

[paintballer1087 (910920)]

Verizon is a CDMA network, whereas AT&T/Cingular is a GSM Network, the phones are incompatible with each other. The iPhone can only be unlocked on GSM networks. Here's an article that explaines the difference in the two types of networks: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-gsm-and-cdma.htm [wisegeek.com]

Re:Get a Move On

[Pascoea (968200)]

I think you missed the point of his post. I would assume (hopefully correctly) that the majority of the people here know the difference between CDMA and GSM. If you don't already know the difference, maybe this article could be of some use. How to jump from a moving car [wikihow.com] [wikihow.com]

Re:

[grogdamighty (884570)]

They're incompatible: Verizon uses the CDMA protocol (analogue) while most other American carriers use GSM (digital).

I think... I'm not an expert either!

Re:

[ksattic (803397)]

Both are digital.

Re:Get a Move On

[krazytekn0 (1069802)]

My contention is that Google is simply incompatible with Verizon, protocols aside, verizon wireless has a long history of imposing ultimatums onto phone manufacturers and software publishers. Motorola is a great example, a verizon Razr only has about half the features as one that you buy from Motorola. Google maps mobile doesn't work on CDMA phones because none of the carriers (Verizon specifically) will let anyone make any kind of navigation software for a phone that the user doesn't have to pay a premium membership for. The list goes on and on, can't put Java on a verizon phone because *gasp* the user may be able to play games for free on their own piece of hardware! Or worse yet, write some piece of software specifically for themselves.

Re:

[LWATCDR (28044)]

They are both Digital.
Cingular/AT&T and TMobil use GSM.
Verison, Sprint, and I think Alltel use CDMA.
So it is a pretty even split between CDMA and GSM in the US so no most other US carriers don't use GSM.
And both or digital.
As to which is better I vote for CDMA. The new high speed version of GSM is moving to a more CDMA like system but for the the big reason I like CDMA better is whenever anyone in my office uses a GSM phone I can hear interference on my PC speakers!

Actually, 3 US Networks

[VengefulCynic (824720)]

Reading the article, all accounts have it that Google has been in talks with T-Mobile for some time and now is in talks with both Verizon and Sprint. If it can net all three carriers to leverage phones with the Google OS, that would be far more than 6 million customers.

Re:

[necro81 (917438)]

Indeed, much more than 6 million. If it were 6 million, out of a few hundred million cellphones in the U.S., that would hardly represent a hegemony. On the other hand, if ever cellphone in the U.S. from Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile were to move to the google platform, that would represent a serious force. It would still probably not be a hegemony, not without Cingular (sorry, AT&T), but a serious force nonetheless.

This is hypothetical, of course, since it is unrealistic to think that ever phone

First, maybe, but not THE

[Chairboy (88841)]

Based on Google's public stance on information, I would guess that Verizon might be the first, but not the _only_ cell provider that provides Google-centered telephony. If you watch their lectures and listen to what their spokesmen say, you'll see that Google's interests are in having ubiquitous access to the 'cloud' (their term), meaning that the lines between being online and offline blur to invisibility.

Locking in w/ one carrier doesn't match that goal, especially when you consider their interest in the 700mhz band.

My guess is that if Google makes their break for ubiquity, it will be viral. They'll release a 'Killer setup' on, say, a Verizon phone. Then a few months later, it'll be on a GSM phone, and a few months later, maybe on Some New Thing that hasn't been revealed yet. It'll be a useful set of apps/tools that's "just too useful" for the cell providers to ignore, while so cheap that they can't rationalize building competitive software.

Verizon?

[LWATCDR (28044)]

I can't imagine that Verizon would carry the Google phone. They cripple every phone they sell and put their won nasty UI on them.
TMoble and Sprint tend to not cripple their phones and Sprint is pretty open with theirs. The problem is that Sprint is CDMA and TMobel is GSM!
So they are two very different networks.
I really hope Sprint does get the Google phone it is all that and a bag of chips.

Re:

[spyder913 (448266)]

Verizon doesn't 'allow' you to use a SIM card because they use CDMA phones, which don't use SIM cards.

A dream...

[f00Dave (251755)]

I hope there's a stack of OSs (or at least microkernels) in the OS ... one for the radio, one for the display, one to manage data, one for voice, one to drive the (add-on) FPGA-ish hardware that lets this be more than "just" a phone, etcetera. I mean, I know it's asking for a lot (and it's pretty vague, at that!), but if we're going to speculate on a "perfect handheld computer/phone", why not go all the way down to our architectural assumptions? :-D

Isn't single carrier iPhone's "problem"?

[magarity (164372)]

I don't get it - isn't the killer phone one that's sufficiently cool like ye olde iPhone yet goes with any carrier? Wouldn't a go-anywhere phone be a better move? I won't get any fancy phone that leaves me stuck with one carrier. It's enough that my freebie phone only works with who gave it to me but if I were to pay for one, I'd want it to go anywhere. Bad car analogy: My Honda isn't restricted to only Honda gas or only Honda streets. Whereas all the people who bought locomotives can only go where B&O lays tracks.

Re:

[lymond01 (314120)]

A single-carrier for a phone is a problem for people who want the phone but aren't on that carrier. Apple has cut such a sweet deal by allowing only AT&T to carry the iPhone, that it's not a problem for them. I imagine if they made the phone available to any network, they wouldn't get the per phone fees they do from AT&T.

Re:

[Jackie_Chan_Fan (730745)]

those sweet per phone fees are passed onto the consumer... so apple is screwing iphone wanting folks twice by limiting it to AT&T, and by at&t passing on that cost to the costumer.

Re:

[MBGMorden (803437)]

Perhaps if they sold twice what they currently have? Just because their sales pass expectations doesn't mean they chose the optimal path, just one that generated better than expected sales. IE, if I predict that selling whoozits only in Florida will yield 8 million sold (which would be a good profit for me), then if 10 million sell, I'm still an idiot if selling all over the world would have yielded 150 million sales.

Verizon? That would be bizarre.

[RobertB-DC (622190)]

I finally broke with Verizon and switched to T-Mobile, partly because the Verizon phones are impossible to hack without breaking through the wall of Get It Now [howardforums.com]. Verizon's entire business model would seem to be antithetical to Google's stated desire (with $billions behind it) to open up the wireless spectrum to any device, and to put the device owner in control.

In fact, it's not surprising that the article notes that "Google had already made significant progress in recent months with" T-Mobile. While not perfect (my daughter's phone won't let her use anything but $2 downloads for ringtones), T-Mobile is at least based on a more open technology (from what I understand). The surprise is that Verizon would even talk to Google at all. Maybe they aren't -- the article is based on "people familiar with the matter". Those "people" could be from Google, trying to kick-start talks with Verizon by putting the news on the CEO's front porch via the WSJ.

And Sprint

[jav1231 (539129)]

Yahoo! reports it's down to Verizon and Sprint. I'm hoping Sprint! :)

Re:

[jav1231 (539129)]

Well my reasons are just as selfish. I use their service and work for them. Perhaps full disclosure was in order. hehe Since we didn't get the iPhone, it'd be nice to get a good relationship like this!

Verizon wireless =/= good data traffic

[AsnFkr (545033)]

Holy carp, I hope not. Verizon's data service to their cell phones at the moment is so far behind the times it's painful. Locked down phones with horrible proprietary browsers may be able to be resolved by Google's phone, but the absurd price scheme they use for data packages and constant disconnects from the wireless data network can't be fixed with just a new phone. Even when I am in a large city I cant get my Verizon based phone to stay connected with their crappy AIM client for more than 15 or 20 minute

Re:

[p0tat03 (985078)]

Just curious, what are American rates for data? Up here in Canada-land, we pay $217 USD for 500MB of data. Hard to imagine getting worse than that, but I'm curious.

Hegemony

[whisper_jeff (680366)]

"...could this be "the deal" that establishes Google's hegemony in the internet sphere."

Ok, maybe I'm missing something, but haven't they already established their leadership roll on the internet? Really, is there a company out there more influential than Google when it comes to the internet?

Re:

[westlake (615356)]

Really, is there a company out there more influential than Google when it comes to the internet?

To most users, Google remains a search engine and nothing more.

Hmmm

[rotide (1015173)]

Frankly, I'm not sure what to think about this.

First, I was under the impression that Google would make a physical iPhone competitor as well as its own OS/Software. This OS/Software would also be open to 3rd Parties to create apps/additional tools for it.

Second, I was hoping it would be open to any carrier. Obviously, some tools might only be usable on some networks as maybe not all carriers support a particular technology. Perhaps you would have to search for the carrier that best suited your wishes

Re:

[Mr. Sketch (111112)]

Just a side comment about Verizon, but we have a full T1 through Verizon and we have had good service from them. Only once has our T1 went down and we had a tech here within an hour working on it and we were up and running shortly thereafter (some sort of battery or something needed to be replaced). Granted, Qwest provides our local line and the dispatched tech was a Qwest tech, so I'm not sure if it speaks to Verizon's response or Qwest's response.

Re:

[tchuladdiass (174342)]

The only way I know of to get a phone to work with any carrier is to produce a phone without a radio, and use a radio plugin from the carrier. This can be accomplished by the phone having a CF slot, since nearly all the carriers have a CF data card which can be used for voice also.

Just producing a multi-band phone won't work, since many carriers (such a Verizon and Sprint) won't activate a phone that didn't come from them. But they can't controll where you use the CF card you get from them though.

OS discussion

[steffens (1050246)]

I would tend to believe that verizon can find a large correlation between the users who utilize their higher end services (data, web, extremely high minutes usage) and the front end on those phones. I have a feeling that this is not the normal "I use this phone because it was the free" type user, but rather the users who spring for the higher end phones (Q, Q9, Treo etc.. all of which aren't crippled by the standard verizon OS). It seems like for awhile verizon has gotten away with their crippled front en

Most phones with a 'real' web experience are $$$$$

[gelfling (6534)]

Almost every cell phone has some rudimentary web ability but the phones that affect a real computer browser web experience are EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE and all rebated according to the size of the DATA plan you buy not the phone plan. An iPhone, Nokia N95, HTC Active or Mogul, a Cingular 8225 - these are all $400-500-600 devices.

So either Google figures those customers are price insensitive or, they figure that the phone companies will do this for free to cannibalize their own incredibly profitable network services. I mean why offer picture mail at those inflated prices when anyone can post up something in Picasa?

No I think this will be ANOTHER service cost addr to the service you get. Which I guess is ok for some people. But I already bleed enough money to the phone company.

And oh - GSM means no Sprint.

I'm sure the unwashed will like it but...

[Benanov (583592)]

I won't.

Verizon and Google--unstoppable force meets immovable object. I think Google will lose here, simply because Verizon locks their phones down too tightly. (A lot of Verizon RAZR owners flash with AllTel firmware just to get their phone in an "unbrokeass" state.)

Kudos to Google for trying to force open the tight walled gardens that the US Mobile Carriers have built, but they will most likely fail.

I think I'll stick with the OpenMoko on a regional carrier, or maybe Helios or T-Mobile--that seems to be

Vaporware?

[DerekLyons (302214)]

Google is possibly in talks regarding phones using an OS speculated to exist?
 
Does Google need this kind of slashvertisement, or is it just a slow news day?

Yay! A one-stop shop for privacy violations.

[Bill_the_Engineer (772575)]

Great. Now Google will not only know what I search for but also who I talk to on the phone....

The weird and scary part about this is the number of slashdotters who can't wait for this to happen.

So let me get this straight. AT&T as a communication monopoly is bad. Microsoft as a operating systems monopoly is bad. Google as a monopoly on all things data is good? Let me clarify: Google as an all knowing overseer of all things being communicated is good??

We worry about the government tracking us, but not a corporation that derives it's income from targeted ads??

Where can I get some of this google kool-aid?

Verizon wireless != /= Verizon

[wiredlogic (135348)]

Different companies.

LOL USA

[fluor2 (242824)]

I find it very funny that a release of a piece hardware is licensed to a broadband and telecommunications company. It should be free and not locked to just one provider.

Re:

[jargon82 (996613)]

Couple good points there. Google has alot of technical know-how, but sometimes it seems the business sense of actually delivering a solid, working solution is not there. Google groups are a good example. There was a google group name I was interested in getting hold of, which had been registered but never used. I have as yet found no mechanism for requesting this group name, leading me to believe that someone could essentially grab every possible name and lock everyone else out, like domain names all over

Re:Are google shipping a phone or only an OS?

[smilindog2000 (907665)]

Consensus on the net seems to be that Google will provide software to cell-phone vendors, and will not make a phone themselves. Computers have changed the world partly because we geeks everywhere can program them. Cell phone companies have, through their evil-genius, restricted application development on phones, holding back the inevitable mobile computing revolution. Microsoft has done such a poor job of Windows CE for so many years, that they kind of killed the demand for mobile computing. The OS-es provided by the cell phone vendors are even worse. I personally suspect that Google has sensed this weakness in Microsoft, and hope to own the mobile OS market. Not that I'm gunning for the downfall of Microsoft, but I can hardly wait to get hold of the software Google could be writing. I just hope they display their legendary vision and get it right.

Re:

[Tony Hoyle (11698)]

I can't see that working - Nokia and Motorola aren't about to give up on Symbian which is already pretty much in a monopoly position on mobiles. They're also fighting Windows Mobile, and Linux is appearing on phones now. Developing a new phone OS from scratch is damned hard.. ask Apple who've been totally bitten by this (iphone is pretty but has major failings as a phone due to its immature software).