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Google Businesses Networking Wireless Networking

Google Plans Major Play In Wireless Partnering With Sprint and T-Mobile 101

Posted by samzenpus from the here-comes-the-google dept.
MojoKid writes There's a new report suggesting Google is partnering with select wireless carriers to sell its own branded wireless voice and data plans directly to consumers. According to sources and the "three people with knowledge of the plans," Google will tap into networks belonging to Sprint and T-Mobile for its new service, buying wholesale access to mobile voice and data in order to make itself a virtual network operator. That might sound disappointing on the surface. Had Google struck a deal with Verizon and AT&T, or even just Verizon, the deal could potentially have more critical mass, with great coverage backed by a company like Google and its services. The former might be a winning combination but at least this is a start. The project will be known as "Nova," which is reportedly being led by Google's Nick Fox, a longtime executive with the company. Apparently Fox has been overseeing this for some time now, and it seems likely a launch will take place this year.
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Google Plans Major Play In Wireless Partnering With Sprint and T-Mobile More

Google Plans Major Play In Wireless Partnering With Sprint and T-Mobile

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  • Would any wireless company enter into an agreement like this?

    As a consumer I'd love to see google kill one of those fuckers off but why would they put themselves in that position?

    • Re:why the fuck (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BarbaraHudson ( 3785311 ) <barbara.jane.hud ... minus physicist> on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @10:27PM (#48872195) Journal
      Look for a trade - Google finances the expansion of their networks (both in terms of coverage and capacity) in return for a good deal on wireless services.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dbc ( 135354 )

        Exactly. All that infrastructure build-out costs lots of money. You need subscribers to pay the rent on the cell site, you need coverage (cell sites) to get customers. It takes a lot of cash to bootstrap that. Coverage pulls in customers -- I'm a past T-Mobile customer -- their plans are much more subscriber friendly that the other guys, but darn I need coverage in a couple of their holes. I'm just one data point, but I'm sure others make the same decision.

        • Re:why the fuck (Score:4, Interesting)

          by DuckDodgers ( 541817 ) <(moc.oohay) (ta) (flow_eht_fo_repeek)> on Thursday January 22, 2015 @09:19AM (#48874627)
          I have the exact same problem. I can get good prices from Sprint or T-Mobile and great prices from MVNOs that operate on the Sprint or T-Mobile networks, but in my particularly corner of American suburb hell the reception sucks on either carrier. So I'm stuck paying Verizon or AT&T more than twice as much money for the same data phone plan I could get from Ting.com (shameless plug) because Verizon and AT&T know they offer a better product.

          I'm really hoping Google's investment in T-Mobile and Sprint narrows the wireless service gap, because having four more or less equal choices for wireless quality would probably send prices way down.

    • no choice (Score:4, Interesting)

      by crow ( 16139 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @10:32PM (#48872217) Homepage Journal

      They may be afraid of being made irrelevant by a deal like this, but they're much more afraid of being made irrelevant by a deal with their competitors. Imagine how different the market would be today if the original exclusive iPhone contract had been with someone other than AT&T.

      Besides, one likely end scenario if this goes huge is that Google buys their partners.

    • Re:why the fuck (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @10:48PM (#48872319)

      It's Sprint and T-Mobile working with them: the distant third and fourth place competitors in a four-horse market. Any disruption in the market will hit the bigger two competitors—AT&T and Verizon—significantly harder, and with this deal, the bottom two have positioned themselves to gain from AT&T and Verizon's loss, even if that gain isn't as significant as it would be if they outright won those customers directly. Even the simple act of getting those customers away from AT&T and Verizon is a big win, since it means AT&T and Verizon would have lost the incumbent's advantage when those customers' contracts are up and they're looking around at their options.

      • T-Mobile's already been doing this though. They're nipping at the heels of the top two enough to make at least AT&T panic.
      • It also means that AT&T and Verizon have to start competing on actual service factors, rather than merely existing.

      • Any disruption in the market will hit the bigger two competitors—AT&T and Verizon—significantly harder

        How do you figure? I would think ATT has a larger buffer of customers to lose before it goes into the red. Tmo and Sprint are struggling for customers as it is.

        • I was speaking purely numerically. Assuming that a customer from AT&T is just as likely to jump ship for Google as a customer from Sprint is, AT&T would lose significantly more customers simply because they're significantly larger. For any losses it takes, Sprint would gain far more by providing Google's coverage for the customers AT&T loses.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sootman ( 158191 )

        ... the distant third and fourth place competitors in a four-horse market.

        1 - Verizon Wireless - 125.3M subscribers
        2 - AT&T Mobility - 118.7M subscribers
        3 - Sprint Corporation - 54.8M subscribers
        4 - T-Mobile US - 52.9M subscribers

        The upper two are about 2x larger than the smaller two. Significant, but I wouldn't call it "distant". Distant to me would be something like a 10x difference. The market is about 1/3, 1/3, 1/6, 1/6.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]

        http://www.fiercewireless.com/... [fiercewireless.com]

      • People will buy "Airtime By Google" more then "Airtime By Sprint" because Google doesn't (yet) have a legacy of toxic customer disservice.

        Any Virtual Mobile Network Operator (there are quite a number, I'm on Republic Wireless) has to pay the marketing to acquire customers and take financial risks on payment terms.

        The difference is that Google could help Sprint & TM with technical capabilities, backend networking, and organizing

        Also Google will gain direct understanding about the performance and capabili

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pepty ( 1976012 )

      Would any wireless company enter into an agreement like this?

      Because Deutsche Telekom has been trying to sell T-mobile for years, and Google can afford to buy Sprint from SoftBank too?

    • I don't see this as any different than any other MVNO deal. All four major carriers already have a number of deals with fifth-party carriers (e.g. TracFone, Cricket, StraightTalk, Republic Wireless, etc). and if Google wants to get into the MVNO business, then it makes perfect sense to sell to them. Why? Because if they don't buy from you, then they'll just buy from someone else.

      MVNO deals produce less revenue per minute or megabyte than retail sales, it is true, but they also take a slice of the risk of

      • Google owns a lot of fiber. something they might be able to provide to Sprint and TMobile that other MVNO's don't is some additional backbone internet bandwidth. if they ink the deal right, this could end up benefiting all 3 companies. Sprint and TMobile could get cheaper bandwidth and Google gets a last mile connection to more devices.

    • Would any wireless company enter into an agreement like this?

      As a consumer I'd love to see google kill one of those fuckers off but why would they put themselves in that position?

      MVNO agreements are very lucrative for the operators, and every US operator does them already. They capitalize on an existing resource (And de-prioritize the traffic accordingly) and don't have any overhead of managing payments or tech support. It's exactly like "store brand" foods at the grocery. Price-sensitive consumers flock to MVNOs and the carriers make just as much profit per person (because they still control the actual resource) while expanding their user count and not devaluing their original p

    • Because they have the spectrum, and Google can afford to prepay for them to throw up a zillion towers. So those coverage maps will look really different soon. So that's good. Also, Google becomes a customer of theirs.

      Bottom line, your question resolves to "Why would any company want to sell a bazillion units, albeit at much lower margins, to Google." And the answer is, a bazillion * small number = large number.

  • Those are the 5 questions any article is supposed to answer.

    And it does not say why?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      HTTPS ensures the advertizing connection is direct and secure. Users can then select to share even more unique data about location, apps, usage.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pax681 ( 1002592 )

      Those are the 5 questions any article is supposed to answer. And it does not say why?

      the why is SIMPLE... to make money initially by being a tax deductible and also as an investment.. if the investment fails.. there's a tax write off for you

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Finally. A Google plan I can get behind (Score:5, Interesting)

    by scottbomb ( 1290580 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @10:29PM (#48872205) Journal

    Maybe. The devil is in the details, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it. But Google has a shitload of money and they blow way too much on useless crap that no one wants like Google Glass and autonomous cars. They're launching fiber now here in Austin, giving Time Warner and AT&T some much-needed competition. Backing underdogs like Spring and T-Mobile makes me think Google may end up owning both. One thing Google does well is networking.

    However, there is one caveat: will Google be sniffing all the traffic it sees on these newly-acquired traffic just to harvest it and sell to advertisers. THAT's where I draw the line. My ISP has only ONE JOB: connect me to the web without getting in the way. That's what I pay for and that's what I currently get.

    • One thing Google has continuously failed miserably at is customer service. Unless they are going to invest some time/money/energy in improving their track record in this regard their wireless plans had better be dirt cheap/free. You already have Republic Wireless [republicwireless.com] and FreedomPop [freedompop.com] sitting at that level. And I switched to Ting [ting.com] two years ago despite them being on the Sprint network because they have great rates for all but the most voracious data consumers and the best customer service of any company I have ever

      • Re:Finally. A Google plan I can get behind (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 22, 2015 @12:00AM (#48872655)

        As an actual Google fiber customer, that has encountered their customer service recently, you have no idea what you are talking about. 24/7 "HUMAN" customer support, phone rings maybe 3 times, they answer, then they ask useful questions and provide useful support. I called on a Saturday around 1930, the extremely nice lady on the phone took all of my information, ask if I had any other issues and put in a ticket for me. Within 20 minutes a representative from their contracted service technicians called me back, then my issue was resolved first thing Sunday morning.

        I have T-Mobile and hope this come to pass as my service is spotty in many areas near my house. Would love to get a T-mobile signal booster and plug it into the fiber jack.

        All said, I am extremely happy with all aspects of the service I have received from Google Fiber, even if they look through very bit of data. I am also a Comcast customer, and if I believed in Hell I'd wish for every aspect of that company to burn for eternity.

        My 2 cents.

        • I've had google fiber for about a year now, and I must say that I have never had to contact customer service. The service they've provided me has been incredibly reliable.

        • Well, you have to understand that Google provides many other services, and their customer support isn't necessarily that good for those services. If you bought a phone from Google Play, for instance, it was a pain to fix things. No humans. You had to send an email and hope for the best.

    • Re:Finally. A Google plan I can get behind (Score:4, Informative)

      by tobiasly ( 524456 ) on Thursday January 22, 2015 @12:05AM (#48872677) Homepage

      Backing underdogs like Sprint and T-Mobile makes me think Google may end up owning both.

      That would be perfectly fine with me.. a combined Sprint + TMo may be the only way to break up the Verizon + AT&T duopoly.

      However, there is one caveat: will Google be sniffing all the traffic it sees on these newly-acquired traffic just to harvest it and sell to advertisers.

      I seriously doubt they'd do anything that stupid. I'm guessing it's probably even illegal. At the very least they'd have to spell it out in their privacy guidelines.

      IANAL but the Google Fiber Privacy Policy [google.com] seems to explicitly state they won't do this.

    • My ISP has only ONE JOB: connect me to the web without getting in the way.

      Assuming that they use lasers for communication to Sprint and T-Mobile: all it takes are a few half-silvered mirrors somewhere as a R/O tap and SpGoogle(TM) is ready for your business! Use the web as much as you want and they'll make sure your data goes exactly where it's supposed to.

      But I just don't know where they are going to place the sharks that are attached to all of those lasers. Guarding the Google Barge, perhaps?

      Oh, that's been moved or depreciated, you say? That's just what they WANT you

    • Google already gets your traffic through other means, they don't need to do something as crude as sniff the network directly. More likely this is a mechanism to try to sell more people on the non-search Google ecosystem, like TV, movies, etc.
    • Some bad news.

      It's highly likely your http traffic is going through some sort of mechanism within your ISP that allows it to do deep packet inspection for the purpose of targeted advertising. They see how much $$$ Google rakes in and they want a piece of that pie too.

      A recent experience of my own:

      Recently I upgraded my home router to a beefier Cisco flavor. After getting the configuration in place, I threw NMAP at it before I put the router into a live environment. Results were pretty much as expected.

  • Nothing new here (Score:4, Informative)

    by fdhealy4 ( 3977233 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @10:47PM (#48872311)
    There is a company called Ting and they already do this same thing with the same carriers.

    • Republic and Black Wireless to name a couple more. I switched from Verizon to Republic three months ago because I got tired of Verizon's bloatware phones and their high prices. Today I pay $25 per month and get service that is plenty good enough for me. My phone has a minimum of bloatware and works better than any Verizon phone I ever had.

      Anything that offers alternatives to AT&T and Verizon with decent coverage is a good thing. Go get em Google.

    • Re:Nothing new here (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Thursday January 22, 2015 @12:13AM (#48872705) Homepage

      Ting's à la carte pricing is fine for light users, but the average smartphone addicted millennial, it's a certified ripoff. But yeah, Google is entering a crowded marketplace. Just by themselves, Sprint and T-Mobile have quite a few of their own virtual carriers. Sprint has Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile. T-Mobile has MetroPCS, GoSmart Mobile, and they've also partnered with Walmart for Family Mobile and Target for BrightSpot Mobile.

      Then you've got the big daddy of MVNOs, América Móvil. They already resell competitively priced wireless service from all 4 national carriers. You might be more familiar with them as Tracfone, Safelink, Net10, Simple Mobile, Page Plus Cellular, Telcel América and Straight Talk.

      Until Google actually starts building their own network, don't expect a huge industry shake-up. In the cellular industry, the networks are gold and you know the golden rule...

      • I have plenty of 20 somethings that switched and cut there bills by 2/3's or more. If you want unlimited everything for a single phone republic wireless tends to be the better choice.

        Google can afford to buy a network or two if they wanted, that would position them to data mine all those 20 somethings constant phone use.

  • Perhaps Google wants to go after the Xiamoi/Kindle model where most money is made on selling apps and value-add services, rather than phones or typical telephony.

  • Layers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday January 22, 2015 @01:00AM (#48872887)
    Right now the cellular phone industry (at least in the U.S.) is highly vertically integrated. A single company owns the service, owns the towers, owns the POTS connections, and sells the phones. This has resulted in people begrudgingly subscribing with a provider not because they like their phone selection or service plans, but because they have the best network. Or subscribing with another provider because they have an exclusive on a phone. etc.

    IMHO this vertical integration is a tremendous impediment to market forces trying to improve price and quality, and needs to be split up. You should be able to buy the phone from anyone. Get your service subscription from anyone. They should be able to contract with individual tower owners to create a network. And connect to the POTS independent of everything else I've just listed. This would make competition orthogonal within each of these layers. The best phones would sell the most independent of other factors. The company with the best plans and prices would get the most subscribers independent of phone selection or tower buildout. Tower networks providing the best coverage would be available to all service providers willing to pay. And POTS interconnects would, like it has for VoIP, be driven down to the cheapest cost for reasonable quality.

    The MVNOs were one step in this direction. They partially decouple the service provider and tower networks. I've often wondered why an MVNO doesn't contract with multiple tower owners, which is what Google is doing if it's in talks with both Sprint and T-Mobile (most newer CDMA phones work on both CDMA and GSM networks). The Google Nexus phones (and to a lesser extent the iPhones) are another step in this direction - the same Nexus phone works on all carriers. It's not locked to a specific carrier if you don't buy it from the carrier.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      If you think about it, the cellular networks are really pretty inefficient.

      Every carrier requires their own towers (to the extent that colocation of antennas on a tower doesn't fit their network footprint), radio frequencies and extensive backhaul networks. Carriers leverage this to create anti-competitive incompatibilities and lock-in that makes switching carriers hard to impossible and raises the costs to handset makers through extensive handset model splits to support their differing frequencies or inte

      • While not forcing them to converge Google looks to be leveraging the carrierlessness of the nexus line, where it can connect to CDMA and GSM networks simultaiously. Ting and others have already announced this feature. And it looks like more phones will support this after Google forced the carriers to allow it lest the nexus line not work on them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by swb ( 14022 )

          For some reason I seem to recall Apple also looking to build some kind of MVNO operation.

          Build a phone capable of operating on all major networks and then you just pay Apple for "service" while the phone just seeks out the best signal/connectivity depending on your location.

          But it makes me wonder what motivation carriers would have to support this. I guess I see Sprint and T-Mobile going along with this, but AT&T and VZW never participating because it ultimately turns them into low-margin wholesalers.

          E

          • You do not need all the carriers just 2 to get roaming to all of them, Sprint and T-Mobile gets you everything.

            Apple and Google seem to be coming from entirely separate directions, Apple did a deal to make it a fashion accessory and hype via the AT&T exclusive. Hell the MVNO have to fight to get apple products allowed for their use. Google fought to get one phone to rule er work with them all and undercut the carriers pricing. Sure it seems like they want your data to mine. Apple sells trendy hardwar

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by swb ( 14022 )

              Do MVNOs automatically get roaming on compatible carriers other than those they get wholesale agreements with? I have no idea how roaming works on the back end, but I would think that it would be something that AT&T could block if it wanted to (at least technically).

              Even if it "just worked" from a handset usage perspective, there's still the question of the billing side of a roaming agreement. I think inside the US nobody thinks about roaming anymore because all the carriers have roaming agreements.

              • It's baked into the MVNO's, to my knowledge none of the MVNO's upcharge for domestic roaming.

                The economics are thus Sprint etc have huge expensive retail outlets that pay layers of commission. T-Mobile is sitting about a gross profit margin of 50% Sprint a little less. Ting is reselling Sprint and soon t-Mobile and making a profit and I doubt that Sprint is selling to them at a loss.

                If it takes off I can see them trying to reign back the MVNO's but that gets more complicated if the phones work with all ca

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by swb ( 14022 )

                  And that's the problem I think I mentioned earlier. If MVNOs rank carriers economically where more than one is available, you're sure to be connected to the shittiest one with the slower and less reliable network.

    • While many carriers own their own towers, there are many independent companies that actually own the towers themselves. They rent the space on the tower, as well as on the ground to the individual carriers. I have worked this industry in the past - and have been at sites that have multiple carriers all at one location.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swb ( 14022 )

        But this seems more about a third party just dealing with real estate and physical infrastructure upkeep. I think when talking about cell "towers" most people aren't just talking about a steel skeleton rising from a concrete pad with a blockhouse at the bottom and a fence around it.

        They're talking about both the physical structure AND the telecommunications infrastructure, from backhaul to site electronics.

        It would be another thing altogether if a third party could build the structure AND provide all the e

  • Had Google struck a deal with Verizon and AT&T,

    ...they would be fucking dead to me. Seriously, AT&T is one of the worst companies that there is. And I've never been a Verizon customer, and I sure hope I never will have to be, because everyone's Verizon stories sound just like my AT&T stories

  • Easy answer.

    AT&T and Verizon represent the two top carriers. They're not about to share any of that marketplace with Google, whom they view as a threat / competitor. Sprint and T-Mobile really have nothing to lose here, so they'll take business in whatever form it presents itself.

    I'm waiting to see what happens if / when metros are able to roll out their own citywide wifi networks.

    Couple that with wifi voip capable phones and, all of a sudden, the need for cellular services within those areas goes rig
  • I would argue it's just Google's way of getting into the wireless market by pouring money (of which they have an inordinate amount) into "weak sisters" in the cellphone business.

    The reason I say that is that the lowest penetration of wireless is in rural areas, and the lowest penetration of non-dial-up Internet access is in rural areas (irrespective of speed). So, the biggest need for Internet access is in the very areas where the "weak sisters" have virtually no presence. I believe that puts the lie to
  • The company I worked for had a product they called Nova. The Spanish speakers immediately associated it with No Go which is the Spanish translation of Nova.

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