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Google, Sprint, Others to Build Wireless Data Network
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri May 09, 2008 04:29 PM
from the fast-buildout dept.
from the fast-buildout dept.
Nerdposeur writes "Google has announced that it will partner with several other companies to build a high-speed mobile data network. In a separate but related deal, Google will also become the default search provider for Sprint, including having one-click search access and Google Maps pre-installed on some Sprint phones. 'The consortium includes a disparate group of partners: Sprint Nextel, Google, Intel, Comcast, Time Warner and Clearwire. The partners have put the value of the deal at $14.5 billion, a figure that includes radio spectrum and equipment provided by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, and $3.2 billion from the others involved. They expect the network, which will provide the next generation of high-speed Internet access for cellphone users, to be built in as little as two years, but there is no timetable on when it will be available to users and the price is not determined. The partners are seeking to beat Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless to the market.'"
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The better deal (Score:5, Insightful)
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Use SSH, VPH, and other encrypted protocols to landline sites and bounce off proxies to anonymizer networks.
Geez. This is WIRELESS. NSA, FBI, SVR, MSS, Mosssad, Mafia, RIAA, etc. don't NEED splices - they can tap it from satellites or stations on the ground. (The only thing the "sealed room" option does is make it cheaper, easier, and guarantee full coverage.)
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This is spy stuff. You don't know. You just do the best you can with the technology available to you.
In this case you use the best encryption methods and protocols available in the public literature and hope that the open technologies' ability to obscure is keeping enough ahead of the investigative, intelligence, and criminal organizations' ability to crack. (Or at least slowing them down and raising the cost enough tha
Re:The better deal (Score:5, Insightful)
The NSA has an interest in strong security too. If there is ANY loophole in the encryption (even one that the tin-foil hat crowd thinks they put there) it would be exploitable by the enemy as well.
HOnestly, if the NSA wants to sniff your communications, it would be a lot easier for them to just break into your house and install a sniffer inline between your keyboard and your puter. No I am not talking about the hardware keyloggers you see online for $50.
Parent
I'm in, pending plan pricing... (Score:2)
If Sprint and Google can whizbang something together that whiffs of open construction and come up with a mini PCIe card that'll fit in my Asus EEE's spare slot, and price it reasonably with similar coverage, I'd happily sign away a two-year fraction of my monthl
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What is their masterplan? (Score:4, Interesting)
They seem to be moving into telecommunications, as well as data warehousing, on-line information storage, retrieval, and personal communications...
Does it make anyone else wonder whether we heading towards a future where there's only one communications company?
Re:What is their masterplan? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google will do what any publically held company does. They will grow and grow and take over as much as they can until something or someone stops them. That's not as alarmist as it might sound, it's just how things work.
One company owning all of our data scares me a LOT more than one company providing all of our software.
Parent
Re:What is their masterplan? (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, the most expensive (and pretty much the most crap) technical manual I ever had to buy was a £100 ($200 today) book from M$ in the same sort of epoch, so maybe £300/$600 today.
No, M$ was never ever as highly regarded as G still generally is, tin-foil-hat wearers et al aside. And G sets out to do good whereas M$ never gave a rat's arse if the alternative was more $$$.
A perfectly legitimate way to behave for a company, but G is trying not to be in that mold IMHO. They do have duties to shareholders of course, and other than Google.org, they're not a philanthropy.
Partial disclaimer: I use Google (and Microsoft) products, and know people at Google.
Rgds
Damon
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Funny? Insightful?
You decide.
Have to make the market - lot of risk. (Score:4, Interesting)
The tightening credit market has not helped either.
You have to spend money to make money. There are already a lot of last-mile data solutions out there, so someone has to spend a lot of money get the ball rolling. Have to make the market in this case.
Rats... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Rats... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Rats... (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. If I had to chose one specific strategic reason for this I'd say it's to keep things open for Google.
Microsoft has MSN which they like to try to push (quietly so as not to upset the DOJ). If AT&T, Comcast, Verison, Sprint, T-Mobile, or others decided to start giving preference to their own search (this includes site-finder like stuff) or net neutrality falters (so Google services are reduced unless someone pays extra) then Google could be in for a world of hurt. By the time the mandatory court case got far (at least far enough for an injunction) this could have become quite bad for Google.
Should the court not grant such an injunction, take a long time to grant it, or the ISPs did it sneakily enough Google could suffer some real harm by the time things got "fixed".
Google wants more people on the 'net. There is no question about that. This also serves branding ("I get my internet from Google", "Google lowered my broadband prices"). But it promises Google that even if net neutrality is denied by the supreme court, they have a possibly big partner that they can try to prevent from pushing stuff like that on them.
This is at minimum (and skeptically) a preventative measure. In the short term I think the other benefits will be better, but this is a safe play for Google.
Parent
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Nothing of the sort.
T-Mo has publicly said they want to be the first out with Android. That fits in with their usual strategy - first with Windows Mobile 6, first with new Blackberry models & OS's, first with new HTC models, etc.
Android is still half-baked - witness the software you can download and install already. So there's no platform yet to ship, and won't be for a few more months. No platform no train to board.
Furthermore it'll be years before any WiMax deployment can match any of the Big-4 (Ver
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unless it gets banned on a massive scale due to lost telco profits.
I know this might not be a popular opinion around here, but if the telcos want to be jackasses about their network....isn't it sortof their right to be (assuming the own it)? Granted some of the networks have been built with taxpayer money, but the routers all belong to the telco. I don't like the fact that they do things like throttle bittorrent or try to kill off streaming Video, but it is (at least in theory) a free market.
This is also poised against Apple & Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple, who doesn't have any one in particular for GPS and mapping, and their 'business partner' AT&T.
Microsoft, whose strategy is clear as mud, and can't seem to get mobile working very well at all.
T-Mobile/DT, who doesn't partner and eschews WiMax altogether.
Verizon, who is more proprietary than any of the aforementioned, in my personal experience.
Nice move Sprint. Too bad WiMax has proven so difficult and expensive to deploy.
Sprint's Network (Score:5, Interesting)
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Sprint/Nextel use CDMA, just like Verizon, Alltel, and a few smaller companies do.
CDMA actually allows for a considerably larger cell size, whereas GSM is restricted to a "hard limit" of 35km. This is often touted as the reason why CDMA saw successful adoption in rural areas in the US, while GSM took a while to catch up, while densely-populated, developed areas stuck to GSM.
Nextel/Sprint may have placed their towers closer together for some other reason, although they actually
Seriously? (Score:2)
I give the probability of fair pricing to the consumer coming out at 2%.
I give the probability of anything actually getting built beyond a pilot in the next 10 years at 5%.
I give the probability that these jokers can actually work together at 2%.
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I'd say you're being awfully generous with those numbers. This just sounds like one big clusterfuck to me. At some point along the line, one or more of these companies is going to decide that some part of the plan works against their own business interests
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