Google Wants To Be a Wireless Carrier 151
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."
Technical Question (Score:4, Interesting)
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:I think it's a mistake (Score:4, Interesting)
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:Technical Question (Score:4, Interesting)
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:Shut up and take my money (Score:5, Interesting)
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
The Wireless Networks are setup wrong! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.