Google has made plenty of moves which suggest it might want to build its own networks and bypass carriers, not least with its fiber build-out in parts of the US. But in wireless, the company’s real vision is to create a platform in which spectrum and network capacity can be more flexibly shared among all kinds of service providers ‘ a vision which will be best achieved if mobile operators partner with the search giant rather than battling it.
This is seen in many areas where Google, for all its fine rhetoric, actually works closely to deliver its web services over licensed networks. And even in one of its more far-out initiatives, Project Loon, it has decided to tap into those existing networks and operators, rather than acquiring its own spectrum.
Project Loon will rely on balloons or low-flying ‘stratellites’ to backhaul mobile services for remote regions and underserved communities, as part of Google’s bid to bring internet access ‘ and its own services, of course ‘ to the entire world. The firm’s Astro Teller told the TechCrunch Disrupt conference this week that it had seriously considered acquiring spectrum and creating the world’s biggest mobile operator using the balloons, along with other tools such as Wi-Fi.
But CEO Larry Page did not like the idea, said Teller (who rejoices in the job title of Captain of Moonshots). Instead, Project Loon will lease its capacity to carriers and ISPs as its balloons pass overhead. As each balloon passes over a national border, its capacity will be passed from carrier to carrier, and it will retune itself to transmit over the relevant operator’s frequencies. This could just be a backhaul play, at lower cost than satellite, but it could also point to a future where a spectrum owner can avoid building out infrastructure, just using that of Google’s balloons in the sky above.