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?"

First, maybe, but not THE

[Chairboy]

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.

Smells of...

[Anonymous Coward]

..."Damn, we missed out on the iPhone because we were stupid. Let's get on the Google bandwagon instead!" Whether a *good* product will get delivered or not is anyone's guess. Personally, I'm not holding my breath given Google's relatively poor performance in the market as of late.

I'm also wondering how Verizon's not unlimited [slashdot.org] data plan will affect this. Their already going to be streaming a boat-load of ads to your phone. Will there be integration with Google Youtube? (Violation of service.) Songs to download? (Violation of service.) Radio to listen to? (Violation of service.) Just about any real access to the internet? (Probably a violation of service.)

Meh. Love 'em or hate 'em, I'll stick with AT&T for now.

Re:Mobile phones + do no evil?

[smilindog2000]

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 have my phone turn into a GPS to route me there. That's just one dumb idea... the possibilities are enormous, as is the potential add revenue for Google. Imagine when you can buy location-based Google words... for example "Chinese restaurant", but only within 15 miles. Or how about sorting searches by distance as well as relevance? Google could own the world.

Hmmm

[rotide]

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 for your phone functionality.

Verizon... Unfortunately, I had the displeasure of working for a particular customer that had a lot of Fractional T1's that were supported by Verizon, at least at the LEC level. Now, I don't know what the rest of you know, but working with them on a Business to Business level was absolutely HORRIBLE.

Here is a particular scenario that would play out ALL the time (This is a little Off Topic, but I just want to color the picture as to why I hate Verizon).

One of my Frac T1's would go down. ATT would determine that there was a problem in the LEC network, maybe a bad Demarc, something in their C.O., etc. AT&T would load a ticket to them for Dispatch to troubleshoot. Verizon would reply with "Pending Tech Pickup" (basically meaning they were waiting for a tech to answer the page to accept the job). The ticket would get stuck in this state all day until end of business. At this point, Verizon would push the ticket back to AT&T as "This will have to go out 1st AM as it is now End-of-Business". The next day the process would repeat. Sometimes for 2 to 3 days in a row.

Now I remind you this was how they treated BUSINESS service.

I've also heard that customer service, end users, non-business users, actually LIKE them and find them friendly and helpful. But I don't know why this is? Seperate business units with seperate management? They just hate other businesses? I'm not sure. But I simply can't STAND Verizon after banging my head against the wall trying to get them to fix a damn fractional T1 for a business.

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

[smilindog2000]

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.

OS discussion

[steffens]

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 end because they placed it on a trendy form factor, namely the razor and all of it's iterations. I would assume they have realized for awhile that the market has been saturated with stylish form factor phones and they going to have to step up their front end soon if they want to keep the users satisfied enough to not migrate to one of the other companies.

If my gross assumptions are on the mark, I bet the people at verizon think it would be a pretty sweet deal to get a company that is inherently trusted by the average consumer to do the redesign that they so desperately need.

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

[gelfling]

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.

Re:Mobile phones + do no evil?

[geeknado]

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.