Google Sr. VP of Products Sundar Pichai confirmed the company's plans to offer its own mobile service at Mobile World Congress yesterday. Credit: Washington Post
Good morning. It's Tuesday, March 3rd.
Here's what you should know today:
It's official: Google will begin offering its own mobile service later this year. The company will work with existing wireless carriers to reinvigorate innovation in the industry.
Good morning friends and readers. Google just confirmed their plans to become its own mobile service provider — much like AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon — later this year. Here’s what you should know.
On stage at Mobile World Congress yesterday, Google's Senior Vice President of Products Sundar Pichai addressed speculation that the Search company is in talks with wireless carriers about offering a service of their own.
“I think we're at the stage where we need to think of hardware, software, and connectivity together,” Pichai said, adding that we will learn more about their plan “to break down the barriers on how connectivity works” in the next few months.
Google, which relies on wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon to support most of its Android devices in the US, made it clear that it isn’t looking to steal customers away from existing networks. Instead, they see this move as an opportunity to explore what’s possible with mobile networks, and share their learnings with other carriers.
"We're trying to show innovations, like calls automatically reconnecting if someone drops on one end," said Pichai. "Those are the kinds of ideas we're pursuing with this project.”
The Search company is also full speed ahead with Project Loon, a “moonshot project” Google announced two years ago that aims to bring wireless connectivity to remote regions of the world with WiFi-enabled balloons. Pichai said the Project Loon team is making good progress and is now testing drones as well.
It’s all part of a larger plan to bring faster and more reliable Internet access to all of us. As the world’s largest Search company, and the maker of the world’s largest mobile operating system, Google has a lot to gain from expanding Internet access.
After the event at Mobile World Congress, a Google spokesperson confirmed the company will share more details about its mobile service in the next few months. Stay tuned.
