Google has been preparing its own wireless service for smartphones, an United States launch is expected as early as Wednesday.
The wireless service, that would start competing with regular wireless providers like AT&T and Verizon, will let customers pay only for the data they access on the network. The step means that users will only pay when they listen to music, make calls, or use apps, while common wireless service agreements charge a rate for a specific amount of data.
What Google means to do is quite new. The company wants to offer two types of services that are complementary. When users are using the Wi-Fi, their phone calls and other data would make use of that connection. When not on Wi-Fi, the users would rely on common cellular radio signals, which are more expensive.
Google is not developing its own wireless network, but, instead, the Internet company has announced it made a deal with US carriers T-Mobile and Sprint to use their networks. This project will first be available on Google’s Nexus 6 smartphone.
A Google spokesperson declined to comment. Google’s wireless service underlines its ambitions in the wireless industry. The company started its efforts in 2005, when it bought Android mobile phone software and gave it away to smartphones producers such as Samsung, Lenovo and LG. Android is behind almost 80 percent of the world’s smartphones and has a huge influence in the wireless industry.
The next push for the online search giant is to build up the cellular and wireless connections themselves. For wireless companies, Google’s decision to enter the market is worrying. Google, with its huge resources and great influence, has the power to revolutionize the entire industry.
When Google product chief Sundar Pichai announced the wireless service in February, he searched to offer reassurance to the carriers. Pichai said Google’s wireless service was intended to be a small scale experiment. Google said it is trying to innovate new practices and pricing model, but also to get the wireless industry to follow suit on a greater scale.
Wireless service is not the only industry Google is hoping to enter. The company began discussing with home-and-business Internet service providers back in 2010, when it set up Google Fiber. The service gives out Internet connections to homes in towns like Kansas City and Austin for a smaller price than rivals like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon.
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