Could Google Be Getting Into The Wireless Business?

While Google is busy laying expansion plans for its Google Fiber Internet and TV service a new report claims the company is investigating the possibility of offering wireless data to consumers.

According to a pay-walled report on The Information [via The Verge], Google is looking to possibly offer wireless service to customers in areas where it’s already begun offering Fiber service.

Rather than trying to build another new network, Google is reportedly talking to the big wireless providers about buying chunks of access wholesale that it can then resell to its customers, much like the deals that many prepaid wireless providers have made with the larger networks.

While Google, in theory, could use this to sell phone service to customers, that seems like an odd decision, given how small a footprint the company has right now; Fiber is only currently active in the Kansas City and Provo, UT, areas, and even its big expansion plans will only bring fiber to a total of around a dozen markets.

Google could offer service that uses WiFi access when a customer is in a Fiber-connected city and then uses wireless when outside of that system. But the company would have to dangle incredibly low prices or lightning-fast data in order to get customers to bite. While that would help to encourage competition in the wireless market, we don’t see the Verizons and AT&Ts of the world being too eager to sell Google a tool that could be used against them in the long-run.

Of course, Google did recently agree to unload its Motorola device subsidiary on Lenovo, meaning that the Internet giant could get into the wireless business without having to worry about concerns that it would be both a service provider and a handset manufacturer.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist