14 DAY TRIAL // Google’s efforts to make Internet connections speedier is taking another turn. After Google Fiber, the company is looking to test new technologies that may provide the foundation for a wireless version of its already highly-praised Fiber project.
Reuters reports that Google has applied with the Federal Communications Commission earlier this week, asking for permission to run some tests in California, across different wireless spectrums, including a millimeter-wave frequency that rarely gets used but that is capable of transmitting large amounts of data.
The file is heavily redacted, so the details are scarce about what Google has in plan, but one thing is pretty clear – Google has pretty big plans to get more involved in the Internet providing business. The company wants to test a technology that could become the foundation of a wireless connection that can be broadcast to homes.
This would make for a really interesting step into how Internet is provided across the United States and the world since the entire process would no longer rely on physical infrastructure that much since it wouldn’t require an actual cable or fiber connection.
This would free up the market in the United States, where competition between ISPs is pretty much nonexistent, which also explains the extremely high prices that people have to pay for lousy connection speeds.
High speeds, easier to build networks
By being able to wirelessly deliver high speed Internet services straight into the homes of people Google would take on the likes of Comcast and Verizon, companies that rely heavily on cable-based networks. These companies have more or less split cities between them, with one being available in a town where the other had set shop. Even in those cities where there were two or more providers, they’re most often than not unavailable for people living in certain buildings or neighborhoods.
“From a radio standpoint it’s the closes thing to fiber there is. You could look at it as a possible wireless extension of their Google Fiber wireless network, as a way to more economically serve homes. Put up a pole in a neighborhood, instead of having to run fiber to each home,” said Stephen Crowley, a wireless engineer and consultant who monitors FCC filings.
He notes that the millimeter frequencies can transmit data over short distances at speeds of several gigabits per second, which would be extremely useful for such a type of network.
The good and the bad
The fact that Google wants to get involved into this particular market has its good and its bad sides. The bad side is the fact that people are already weary of Google and its control over the Internet, whether it is its monopoly of the search engine market, its extremely used web browser or the Android mobile operating system that is the most widespread in the world.
On the other hand, the fact that Google wants to become a more serious Internet service providers has some definitive perks. On one hand, it means that it brings a lot of competition to the market.
Its gigabit Internet service has no rival in the US, both when it comes to the cost of the service and the speeds they offer. Google’s presence in a few cities in the US has already whipped competitors into motion, pushing them to lower the price and to speed up the Internet connections for its users.
Google has already “scared” Comcast, who has used Google’s presence in the ISP market as a reason to justify its desire to acquire Time Warner Cable.