This tread was renamed Cell Phone Wars when NYCablevision and FreedomPOP put their name into the hat as a wifi only cell phone plan provider. With Google and NYCablevision slugging it out over the same metro real estate, it becomes a war worth following. Google has disrupted the status quo with fast laser/optical delivery of internet service in major city areas all over the USA.
They did it again rurally with the LOON balloon based systems .....
They did it to truckers with the driverless delivery vehicles .....
Now Google now says to Verizon, "We want to become an MVNO and rent time on all your cell towers across the USA and sell cell phone service for a quarter of what you sell it for".
Verizon says "Hell NO !!!" in an emphatic fashion --- but the committees inside the company begin meeting to combat the Google threat.
Ditto for AT&T, not interested -- go away and play in somebody else's back yard. But the frantic meetings begin immediately because GOOGLE IS COMING !!!!
Sprint and T-Mobile -- completely different answer. "Let's talk about it, and bring your superspeed networking capability and your LOON long range Wifi information when you come to talk to us as we are interested in that as we don't have enough towers to do the western states very well."
T-Mobile and Sprint have already figured out how to half the cost of cell service vs AT&T and Verizon (but their networks lack coverage in rural areas). Google owns and speaks long range frequencies and long range transmission from their LOON project, wifi technology that T-Mobile also speaks but T-Mobile lacks the long range transmission part of that equation. Sprint is still stuck on the CDMA losing side of the GMA/CDMA short range transmission divide, so they really really need something so they can roll forward with it into the future. Sprint is hurting, so a new technology wave could be their saving grace.
Why is Google so feared and desired in this situation? Hell, Google controls Android, the operating system that 90% of the phones run upon. Google can implement a new breakthrough technology right up from the OS through the Oriental builders to the local carrier seamlessly and fairly rapidly. They could push out an upgrade app into the Play Store to drop the new trick right into the existing phone base as almost all current phones have wifi built into them nowadays.
Google could jest go do it ....
Breakthrough technology changes are
greatly feared by AT&T and Verizon because they are the most heavily invested in the old local tower methodology, the old technology that would be getting replaced by the new stuff. And they should be afraid, they are tremendously over-priced right now and everybody knows it.
Rest easy, none of this is going to happen overnight. But, within a year or so it can happen.
Hey Google, tether a solar panel equipped LOON balloon on a thin, very light carbon nanotube cord so it stays put over a given rural area and sell the ground receivers for $50 each (with each ground receiver station becoming an open Boingo style wifi hot spot as part of the contract). You could cover some area that way very price effectively.