Google's killer app

The blogosphere is abuzz about Google's plans for a WiFi network. There's a lot of talk going around about datamining and selling ads based on what's on your hard drive and stuff like that. But here's my take on what Google is after - it's something I've wanted for a long time: A VOIP cellphone.

If there's one thing everyone agrees on, it's that the cell phone companies are awful. Proprietary networks, $2 ringtones, basically everything they can do to monopolize and monetize absolutely everything their customers can do with their phones. The companies even have their own private networks, that no one but themselves can use. As a consumer, none of this is any good to me. I'm usually in range of a WiFi network - why can't I use my cellphone to make cheaper, easier VOIP calls when I'm in range?

If I'm Google, I'm looking at that and saying, wow, what a golden opportunity. What would we have to do to take on the cellphones? Let's see:

• We'd need global wireless access.
• We'd need a ton of wire to transmit all that data.
• We'd need secure traffic.
• We'd need our own voice application.
• We'd need a way to determine the user's location for 911 calls.

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Icerocket tags:

Cellphone

Google

WiFi