Google is a few cities away from becoming your next and best internet provider

Recently, Google announced that it would be launching Google Fiber in multiple new cities throughout the south and southeast. Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham are officially next on the list for high-speed Internet access. Google is still evaluating other cities — Portland, San Antonio, Phoenix, San Jose, and Salt Lake City are all potential sites, with a decision expected on these cities later in the year.

The next step for the rollout in these cities is to survey them, create a detailed map of fiber locations and deployments, and work with each municipality to create a rollout plan. If previous outcomes are any indication, existing cable and telco customers in these areas can look forward to significant service improvements and/or rate cuts from companies like AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon.

When Google Fiber comes to town

All evidence points in the same direction — when Google announces that it’ll bring service to a new location, the existing companies slash their prices and dramatically improve service tiers. Consider:

• Existing ISPs improved their average performance in Kansas by 86% after Google announced it would bring gigabit fiber to Kansas City (as measured by Akamai). Performance in Wyoming increased by 51%.
• Google’s Austin expansion prompted Comcast to boost its minimum service tier to 5Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream, from 1.5Mbit down / 384Kbit up.
• Time Warner boosted its minimum Austin, TX plan to 2Mbps plan to 3Mbps and its $65 “Ultimate” service from 50Mbps to 300Mbps down. Upload speeds for Ultimate also increased, from 5Mbps to 20Mbps.
• Also in Austin, AT&T began offering customers upgrades from 20Mbps connections to 300Mbps, while simultaneously slashing prices from $208 to $120 per month.

This partly explains why Comcast and its ilk have doubled down on passing laws that would restrict or prevent municipalities from partnering with Google in building networks — the specter of having to provide service at reasonable prices is undoubtedly terrifying.

Google mulling wireless service?

The other rumor making the rounds is that Google might establish itself as an MVNO, or mobile virtual network operator. An MVNO is a company that leases spectrum or line space from a major carrier like AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon at wholesale rates, but resells that capacity to consumers at a profitable rate. Prominent US MVNOs include Boost Mobile, Cricket, MetroPCS, Republic Wireless, Straight Talk, TracFone, and Virgin Mobile USA.

Unlike these carriers, which typically license spectrum from a single company, Google is reportedly mulling a plan that would give it access to multiple networks simultaneously and allow it to pick the best provider out of a range of options (WiFi, T-Mobile, and Sprint if rumors are true). Compatible devices would switch between networks on-the-fly to provide best overall service, with seamless integration between the three.

Qualcomm partnered with Airvana for this combined demo

This kind of approach is given credence by some activity on Qualcomm’s side of the fence. Each generation of the company’s modems has integrated more flexible baseband radio. The latest Qualcomm demonstrations have shown how it’s possible to pair an LTE modem and WiFi modem simultaneously, switching back and forth between options depending on congestion or using them both together for maximum performance.

I’m dubious of any proposed MVNO from Google for two principle reasons. First, it’s hard to imagine Google committing to the in-depth, long-term support and service contracts that are part and parcel of offering wireless service. Carriers commit to multi-year support on dozens of devices, with significant fixed costs and operating expenses. Google, in contrast, prefers to move quickly and transition rapidly from device to device or plan to plan. Google Glass went from Next Big Thing to moribund in a few short years. Google’s Nexus device strategies have shifted from offering incredible value to chasing some of the premium market. It bought, then disposed of, Motorola in fairly short order as well. If you want your wireless provider to be staid, boring, and dependable — and on a fundamental level, plenty of people do want that — then Google doesn’t fit the mold very well.

The second reason I’d be wary of a Google-backed smartphone network is privacy-related. It’s hard to imagine that Google wouldn’t be sorely tempted by Verizon’s undeletable cookies or the ad networks that take advantage of them. The ability to track users regardless of personal device settings is an absolute gold mine for a company that derives much of its revenue from search.

At a minimum, Google would have to offer a great many privacy guarantees and reassurances before I’d personally feel comfortable going this route — but if it did so, I’d be sorely tempted. Watching Google do to wireless what it’s currently doing to the gigabit fiber network would be deeply, deeply satisfying.