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."
Shut up and take my money (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Shut up and take my money (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as it forces the other carriers to have a look at their rates, it's good. It probably won't affect me anytime soon seeing as I live in the UK (besides, my phone is a company phone anyway), but I'd like to see what kind of rates Google considers to be reasonable.
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Taking into account the prices they have set for their broadband rollout trial, I'm guessing pretty darn good.
I really hope their wireless is a data only thing, giving users the choice of what voip provider to choose for their voice/text. Google talk would be an obvious choice, but skype integrates nicely with my old droid x as well.
Plus, if they don't go the "subsidized phone via 2 year slave contract" route it would help bring down handset prices to sane levels.
Re:Shut up and take my money (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shut up and take my money (Score:4, Insightful)
If they follow their general model we'll probably be looking at ...
If they follow their general model we'll probably be looking at Google tracking anything and everything your phone sends and receives, and then they'll send you ads. So, in the middle of texting back and forth to pick a time and place for dinner you'll get a Google sponsored text message telling you about a great restaurant in your area and they happen to take Google Wallet as a payment method.
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So... my phone will know when I bang a porn star and then tell all my friends about it?
VINDICATION! BRAGGING RIGHTS! HELL YES!
Oh, wait, I have to manage to get a porn star first? Stupid details.
Re:Shut up and take my money (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, banging a porn star is easy, all it takes is money. Many of them have side jobs as escorts in Las Vegas.
You DO realize porn stars are essentially prostitutes with a camera crew, don't you?
Of course, they charge more than the $20 crack-hos you're used to so you'll need to have some serious income first. Stupid details.
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*sigh*
It was a joke. You've heard of them, right?
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Cheaper than banging a known porn star is making your own porn. Check craigslist for the "porn star experience" which is a hooker and a video camera. (You keep the video afterwards.)
I've long wondered about the legality of this. IANAL, but it seems like a very strong legal case could be made that it's legal.
Re:Shut up and take my money (Score:4, Insightful)
We'll the government does that tracking anyhow. So why not? That one thing that makes Google successful as their ads are less intrusive and therefore more effective. I would trust them more with my data than let's say any other third party.
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Because intrusiveness is what Google is famous for! It's what made them out-compete search engines such as Excite and Lycos!
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And for a cheap rate, I would gladly give over that information as long as it doesn't require work on my part.
You act like many people wouldn't be willing to sell information about themselves if they could easily do it in exchange for a product they want.
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If they follow their general model we'll probably be looking at ...
If they follow their general model we'll probably be looking at Google tracking anything and everything your phone sends and receives, and then they'll send you ads. So, in the middle of texting back and forth to pick a time and place for dinner you'll get a Google sponsored text message telling you about a great restaurant in your area and they happen to take Google Wallet as a payment method.
Sounds good to me. But SMS is getting dated, they'll likely use something different.
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and how will ad supported and roaming work?? you pay roaming fees for the ad data???
YEOW! MY PANTALOONS ARE AFLAME! (Score:3)
Android phones for everybody and their dog. literally.
Re:Shut up and take my money (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, if they follow their general model, then we're looking at something data-mining supported. Google products may have ads, but don't forget how many non-google sites carry google ads.
As for how it'll affect the industry as a whole: there won't be lawsuits. Rather, AT&T and Verizon will have to follow suit to stay competitive, and then data mining your unencrypted mobile data will become both legal and the norm. Yay for privacy errosion!
Re:Shut up and take my money (Score:4, Insightful)
AT&T and Verizon already do a lot of this.
I know Verizon had an opt out page I had to go to recently to end some of it.
http://www22.verizon.com/about/privacy/ [verizon.com]
You will note that the document about how much they share your data is called privacy. Talk about double plus ungood.
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Talk about double plus ungood.
Is that the plan that comes with rollover ungood? Free ungood nights and weekends?
Re:Shut up and take my money (Score:4, Insightful)
If Google follow their general model, they're not doing this to make money directly, but to pave the way for their main product when unacknowledged monopolies and soft cartels threaten their advance.
See also: Android.
If the telecoms have any sense, the mere threat of competition ought to scare them in line. But don't count on it.
Re:Shut up and take my money (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, this has been their strategy for years. Warren Buffet Called it building their "moat" around the "castle" of the search business. Datamining helps with targeting and increases the value of an advertisement. But the primary purpose here is to make sure no one can throw up a toll bridge between them and the consumer. Their original and still current goal was/is to "be the interface to information."
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Why do you say T-Mobile is better suited? The other carriers have phones, plans, and stores that could work just as well. Sprint is even more tightly integrated with Google Voice than any other carrier.
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If you have a smart phone simply don't use sms use xmpp and a chat client and it is encrypted if I remember correctly
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One thing I wish someone could make would be an app that uses the OpenPGP format that could piggyback on top of SMS using multiple messages, or even MMS.
As another alternative would be a key negotation and using a session key, changing it out every so often via a Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Of course, one would have to make sure of the veracity of the public key, but that can be done with fingerprints, or even using a PGP WoT.
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Isn't that already done? Carrier IQ was something that was a subject of more than a few Slashdot discussions.
Given a choice between data mined and charged reasonable fees versus data mined and charged obnoxious fees, I'll take the former.
Similar with Google's ads. At least the chance of getting malware through their system of text ads is extremely low compared to other ad networks which may have stuff to exploit browser add-ons.
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Yeah, but for some reason, if Google were the one to pull something like Carrier IQ, they would've done it more intelligently in a way that wouldn't result in widespread criticism (or maybe only criticism in EU courts).
As for malware, text ads only protect again drive-by downloads. There are plenty of malicious phishing ads on google ads. I've had to help fix a few. Just because I'm not succeptible to them doesn't mean I am not negatively affected by them.
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Seriously... they can't be any worse.
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
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Why would it have to be developed outside the USA?
Our best forms of encryption seem to come with help from the NSA. They would rather no one be able to spy on us, than they and everyone else.
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Voice: RedPhone. SMS: TextSecure. Data: SSL. (Both RedPhone and TextSecure were developed and are distributed within the US, by the way.)
Strong encryption isn't hard. But it requires both endpoints of the communication to agree to use the same system for encryption and it requires them to share information ahead of time (or to both have shared information, like a PKI infrastructure).
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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.
You say that like the existing mobile carriers aren't already doing that kind of bullshit. Remember Carrier IQ? Verizon/AT&T complicit in warrantless wiretapping?
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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.
You don't think at&t is already doing this?
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A couple points, I wonder if this is the magic factor Microsoft has been banking on to drive wireless carriers into selling more Windows Phones (as opposed to pushing Android). ?
Has anyone trademarked Paranoid-Droid yet ? I think I see a future Android/Linux fork possibility. I'm not sure how much more data Google would really gain by directly providing the service vs. what everyone is already willing to give away.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
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Unless google recognizes that their content is going across ATT in that area and starts delaying the release of those packets.
That would mean that Google Search would be fast for their own network...but slower (in that area) for ATT.
Don't you love NetNeutrality?
It seems very unlikely Google would intentionally make their main product perform poorly on purpose, as it would just encourage people to use competitor's products instead (e.g., Bing).
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Google is already the focus of antitrust investigations in both the US and Europe. I doubt they would do something like this (which can be found with just some basic latency testing.)
I think it's a mistake (Score:3)
If Google were ever going to get nailed up for antitrust, it would be because they provided network, cell network, phone, software, and content.
If it goes through I'll consider it a sign that they're considered usable
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
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Actually, vertical integration is one of the definitions of a monopoly, and you could be a monopoly even if your market share in every segment was virtually non existent. Since Google will be vertically integrated(or fairly close to anyway), and have massive market share in some of those segments, they'd be pretty much a text book monopoly.
Of course Google is the poster child for American innovation so no matter how much they don't innovate or how much they distort the market or break the law, nothing of an
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You're correct, vertical integration doth a monopoly make. But that's a legal monopoly. If not, the oil companies would be illegal and Apple would only make the software while Apple Software made the software. Practicing such as vertical integration become illegal when they completely control the marketplace (so if, in the case in point, Google were to cause AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile to leave the marketplace, there would be a solid case for vertical integration).
If this gets in front of an
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If suddenly Google services worked better on Google networks, they would be in monopoly trouble. But I hope (and believe) that Google want the networks to stay "dumb pipes", to better serve their core business
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what if Google Services worked better on Google Networks simply because Google Networks work better than the alternatives? My 3G experience has dramatically shifted towards "sucks" immediately following 4G LTE network upgrade in my city. I can be sitting still, and my Cell bars fluctuate between 1 and 4 bars and back to 1 constantly. This never used to happen.
The issue is if Google tunes its services to work better on its networks (and worse on competitors), not just having a better network.
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Horizontal integration is a monopoly not vertical. I thought everyone knew that.
Damn, too early in the morning to tell even a half decent joke.
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I had this strange distopian vision that in the future the only carriers were Google, Apple, and Microsoft*. I shuddered.
(*Not that MS is going to pull of a phone someone wants any time soon.)
Re:I think it's a mistake (Score:4, Funny)
There will be one more itty bitty carrier, run by a ragtag band of Linux and BSD geeks, with connections to Tor and the EFF. They will use cool, cutting edge tech paired with some ancient, unscaleable techs and almost everyone who is willing to use the carrier in their limited markets are only separated by 2 or 3 degrees by PGP keys. A connection will require line-of-sight to a tower, even by hovertrain, you only see them once every 5 minutes, but a connection is so fast that most users carry a cache of 95% of the web with them if they need it on-the-go. Their motto will be "More free than beer" (or some recursive acronym), but they will be nameless, but people will still whisper among each other about the ones who managed to find their way to "a truly open connection."
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Actually it does. Google (irony there) "vertical monopoly". However being a monopoly is not illegal, only abusing your monopoly is.
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Having a monopoly is not illegal. Using a monopoly in one area to unfairly distort the market in other areas is illegal. Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop (in the past, don't start with me about right now) was legal. Using that monopoly to give away a product and drive Netscape out of business was not. Google's monopoly on search is legal. Google does not have a monopoly on phone software.
With all that said, if Google gives away wireless, the way they make money back would be interesting. It might be lega
Finally. (Score:2, Insightful)
A carrier that wants you to spend as much time as possible using its service.
oh yes. game on. (Score:1)
affordable cel here we come.
and the carriers only have themselves to blame.
i worked for some of them and i can tell you all three were dinosaurs.
well, mr dinosaur, here comes the asteroid.
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: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.
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Were texts originally sent over a pager network? Wasn't that different than cellular?
Re:Technical Question (Score:4, Informative)
No, SMS came from a GSM feature that sent data in tiny packets in the control channel phones used all the time for presense and syncronization. The bandwidth was always in constant use, so packing data into it didn't really cost anything. CDMA probably implements a similar feature that uses squat bandwidth.
Now, the weird thing is, carriers charge the same for SMS as MMS, at least in my experience, where MMS uses 3G to send potentially a lot of data.
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SMS messages USED to be sent across this channel, but since the advent of 3G data, most phones use DATA network to send SMS, and not the back channel. My question is, with the exception of Apple, that sends SMS via 3G for iPhone to iPhone communication, why nobody has come up with a universal way of doing this, bypassing the SMS charges by Cell Companies.
But since the big three have gone to "unlimited" talk and text, it doesn't matter any more. I don't use txt at all, preferring email and chat (GTALK, Cel.l
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I don't either, but I understand a bit of what's going on. Essentially it's sort of complicated.
Part of why data is so expensive is because the phone companies have to keep investing in new infrastructure to deliver the speeds that people expect from their phones in this day and age and the phone companies have to make their money back(and ideally earn a profit). Part of it has to do with the fact that while voice is technically data, the way voice traffic is transmitted, even in a cell network isn't really
Re:Technical Question (Score:5, Informative)
Short messages (SMS, or text) piggy back over the signaling protocol.
With GSM and WCDMA 3G (3GPP standards), voice and data share the same radio network. But on the network side there are separate core networks for voice (CS domain, for Circuit Switched) and data (PS domain, for Packet Switched). In the CDMA world there are actually separate radio networks for voice (CDMA 1x) and data (EVDO). This is why you can't do both voice and data at the same time on most CDMA phones: it would require 2 radios, which adds cost and complexity. Whereas with 2G/3G, both goes over the same radio network so both can operate concurrently with a single radio.
Starting with 4G, or LTE in practice, there is still a single radio network as before but now the core (EPC, Evolved Packet Core) is also unified and built over IP. Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is not common yet but it's basically VoIP built on IMS. All is unified, but voice is of course prioritized over best effort data using QoS both in the RAN (radio access network) and EPC.
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A lot of backhaul is now packet switched.
Circuit switched stuff is going the way of the dodo.
VoLTE will bring an end to there even being a difference at the end point.
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I thought that LTE would bring about the complete integration of voice and data because both went over one protocol. However, on US CDMA networks, even an LTE phone has to drop network connectivity if a person wants to deal with a voice call. Hopefully LTE Advanced will take care of this.
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Yeah Ideally we could buy X MB/GB at Y priority and select what traffic gets it. For most only Voip would need a good QOS, the rest could be unsorted.
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Why not just buy someone? (Score:3)
Why wouldn't they just buy a network?
They won't buy CDMA (Score:1)
Sprint is CDMA. CDMA is a pain in the ass to work with (hence why Nexus phones straight from Google are not CDMA). They'll be competing with AT&T/TMobile as they want their phones to be able to work globally. I imagine AT&T is not worth buying. TMobile would be an interesting choice, though.
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I've wished for a long time that Google would buy T-Mobile. I'm wondering if they'll take a major stake in them once they go public as a separate entity as a result of their merger with MetroPCS. Here's hoping...
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From what I know, it would be a major gain for Google, but there are FCC regs in place that prevent a company that owns a telco from making their own phones, so Google would have to either spin Moto Mobility off, or do a stock swap and keep T-Mo as an independant entity.
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CDMA is technologically superior to GSM. GSM uses TDMA for voice. TDMA has long since fallen out of use in modern systems as a modulation method for the same reason that token ring has fallen out of use in networking. TDMA is a massive waste of available spectrum and has a very short range compared to CDMA.
This is why for 3G, the GSM standard has adopted CDMA over TDMA, but still uses TDMA for voice for backwards compatibility.
If anything, I imagine google would go straight to LTE and simply use VoLTE, whic
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In Sprint's defense, during the earthquake that shook DC last year, theirs was the only network still functioning right afterwards.
Every other one was so flooded no one could connect to make a call. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile were totally DoSed. The one guy I knew who had a Sprint phone had no issues.
Being unpopular sometimes has some advantages.
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CDMA had more to do with that. Its a far FAR more robust technology than GSM.
GSM is actually garbage, its just been adopted as the standard .... well I don't know why.
CDMA had better building penetration, better range, and the equipment itself is less delicate.
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Verizon is CDMA and had the same problems.
It had nothing to do with building penetration or better range. After the earthquake everyone was outside and downtown DC has lots of close cell towers. It was pure DoS.
As for "...well, i don't know why" much of your answer lies in (not any particular order):
1. Qualcomm patents on CDMA and the way they were enforced.
2. GSM is older than CDMA and got a head start.
3. GSM 3G not only allows the simultaneous transmission of voice and data it is part of the required impl
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So thats why Rogers doesn't suck for coverage anymore. Its all CDMA now. That makes a whole lot of sense.
Thanks.
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GSM only facilitates simultaneous voice/data since it uses two separate radios: One for TDMA modulation, and another for WCDMA modulation. CDMA2000 can do simultaneous voice/data with a single radio using SVDO, but most carriers and handset OEM's are too lazy to implement it.
Sprint WiMAX phones can do simultaneous voice/data, if you live in an area with that. Same for their LTE phones, and same for Verizon LTE. Basically the same reason GSM can do simultaneous voice/data; an additional radio to support a ne
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This can be argued. CDMA has its good points. Towers cover a larger area is one of the main things.
However, here in the US where carriers don't use R/UIM cards, there is no such thing as phone portability. I can use a GSM phone from Europe on a US network without issue. It may end up at EDGE speeds, but it still is usable. As far as I know, both Sprint and Verizon will not allow any devices on their network that they did not sell. Then, there is the SIM card item. I switch SIM cards, (perhaps using a
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If you buy a network you have to deal with the problems of the current system and employees.
If you roll your own you get to dictate its development and management style from the ground up.
Google obviously sees the problem as systemic, and they're right.
Sprint *MAY* be a good fit but you're taking an awful chance buying them for 18b and then potentially having to gut a lot of the experienced staff.
Verizon and AT&T aren't options. Market caps are too high for Google to legitimately finance buying them. Th
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Vertical integration. You keep using those words. What do you mean with it, exactly, in this context?
Yea cause I wanna give a company that sells (Score:1)
Yea cause I wanna give a company that sells my info for billions and billions my actual raw internet traffic... Gag. I guess there is always crypto...
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Other companies that sell your info already have access, either via ad servers and cross-domain persistant tracking mechanisms, or tracking the order your fonts are in (which is different on every machine.)
As for raw traffic, most sites (Slashdot is in this) use, or have the option to use SSL for all traffic. This doesn't prevent all attacks, but it ups the ante, and prevents someone from just casually building up a data mine by passive packet sniffing.
Bring it! (Score:2)
So why talk to Dish? (Score:2)
(Couldn't resist - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ5X721ABs4 [youtube.com])
.
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Dish has spectrum and is having trouble scaring up customers because they don't offer internet service (and even if they did, internet via geosynchronous satellite is REALLY laggy. Speed of light gets in the way). Pay TV is on the way out and companies that offer only pay TV are taking it in the teeth. The cable company can leverage its internet service into bundling their precious "Triple Play". Dish has no such option. This is more about Dish trying to find a buyer for themselves than it is Google tr
Just Wonder'n (Score:1)
I wonder if they would listen into your call or only let you speak after you had listened to an advertisement.
Not news since Android introduction! (Score:2)
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Probably not, but maintaining a smartphone OS doesn't mean you want to be a carrier. For instance
Microsoft
Apple
Nokia
Samsung
Palm/HP
All produce (or produced...) smartphone operating systems. None are (or were) carriers. This would be an off-pattern move.
How does this even make sense? (Score:2)
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Dish owns spectrum and can provide remote backhaul.
And the Google love should stop there (Score:3)
Google may be a great beneficiary and contributor to the internet with its use of open source and open technologies and history of giving back to the community. The exchange for this is that people use their services from which they collect lots and lots of data to be used for lots and lots of things. (Sales/advertising data primarily, but also providing information to governmet and law enforcement in particular)
On one hand, I can see Google lowering the cost of mobile/wireless telephony and causing all sorts of competitive horrors for the few major telecom companies out there raking in their reportedly 6452% markup profits (that's actually the Canadian telecom data from a previous slashdot story but it's fair to presume we're in the same ballpark where US carriers are concerned). On the other hand, there needs to be some limits on what and how Google can collect as far as user data goes. But now that I think about it, there's probably not much limitation on that in place now with the traditional set of carriers' services. But I know this: Data collection and sales of that data is the #1 source of income for Google. I am not sure I can say the same about the carriers.
This news makes me uncomfortable though I can't say precisely why other than the fact that I generally distrust data collectors and sellers.
Hurry up, then, Google. (Score:2)
1) America would be the last place I tried to muscle into the cellular networks. There's lots of small European countries etc. that you could just buy the entire rights to and not have the hassle, and work as a small-scale test of their capability and services.
2) If Google come to the UK and set up a data plan with a realistic cost (i.e. I can't measure it in GBP / Mb without hitting tiny fractions) then I'd buy it - paranoid privacy worries or not.
What mobile telephony needs is an outside player willing t
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1) Yeah, but if Google's previous practices are any indication, they tend to only sporadically remember there are markets outside the US. They're not IBM, different cultures tend to confuse them.
2) Agreed. I may be worried about Google's increased competence in mining my data, but when it comes to willingness (and eagerness to sell it/cooperate with government) I can't think of any telecom I trust more - quite the opposite.
New network -- skip legacy (Score:2)
One cool thing about starting a new network is that they can skip all the legacy G2/G3 stuff and create a pure LTE-only network. That should reduce the amount of spectrum required. Getting the spectrum is the tricky part. We all remember when they lost the 700MHz bid, but fortunately got the open access provisions included. What is available for them?
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.
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I would love to see your pitch if you can share.
If not I will post some of my thoughts and perhaps you can help vet them...
The objective is to provide a wireless data ecosystem that will optimize private and public spectrum usage through supply and demand based competition.
First I wanted to identify the players:
Wired Provider - brings data over a physical line to the wireless tower, sells data to the carrier.
Carrier - leases spectrum, controls wireless tower, sells data to card se
False flag rumor (Score:2)
Please!!! (Score:2)
Re:And so it begins... (Score:4, Funny)
You forgot "3. Profit!"
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Probably, what I cold see happening is Google putting micro-cells up in places with their fiber. Higher density of cells, with better data connection means faster data on their phone service with better coverage and less network congestion. I could see google then adding in via google voice a routing of your cellphone through land line/Internet and wifi to your smart phone when you are at home so as to keep traffic low for the cellular network. this is Google trying to show telecoms how they should run by e