iPhone? You ain't seen nothin' yet...
Google has been putting together a massive cable network to provide customers around the world with telecommunications services ranging from broadband Internet to home and mobile phones.
Google has publicly denied plans to get into the lucrative business, valued at US$1.3-trillion globally, but industry experts say it is inevitable. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company already has its toes in it with offerings such as Google Talk and the hugely popular YouTube video service. A major splash is only a matter of time, and when Google -- with its mammoth US$163-billion market capitalization -- does dive in, phone company takeovers and Apple gizmos will look like quaint curiosities.
"It's not an if, it's a when," says California-based technology analyst Rob Enderle. Google has reportedly approached the Federal Communications Commission recently about obtaining wireless spectrum, the base upon which mobile phone networks are built, in the U.S. agency's next auction, expected in 2009. That could be the target date for Google to make a big splash with its full mobile phone, a la Apple, analysts say.
The company is estimated to have between 40 and 70 data centres filled to the brim with computing and storage power, with at least five new facilities under construction in the United States alone. By comparison, Canada's second-largest telephone company Telus Corp., has eight.
If Google moved all its traffic onto its own network, phone and cable firms would suddenly find the electronic equivalent of cobwebs and tumbleweeds blowing on their own networks. They would also find a gaping hole where big network usage revenue used to be and the roles could be reversed -- the phone and cable firms could become customers of Google, selling access to its network.
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