Google, the world's single largest distributor of ads to consumers and businesses, wants everyone, everywhere to be able to access its search engine and its other online services so they can view its ads. It's no surprise then that Google has signed up to become the primary search engine for the WiMAX network that Sprint Nextel is building.
Google will makes its Web search, interactive communications and social networking services available on devices that connect to Sprint's WiMAX network.
Sprint and Clearwire last week said they had split the country up with each building an interconnected WiMAX network that either company's subscribers could access. They said that the network will cover 100 million people, about one-third of the US population, by the end of 2008. WiMAX-equipped devices will be able to connect while stationary and on the move. Sprint, the third-largest US mobile operator, expects to complete WiMAX networks in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington by year-end.
Google will be the default search engine for Sprint and will appear on the services home page. Google's GTalk Internet telephony and its instant messenger will be integrated into the Sprint service. Its digital mapping technologies will be used to track people's locations and provide location specific ads.
"If you think of the Internet, you automatically think of Google," said Barry West, chief of the WiMAX project at Sprint. "They have such a strong position in search and some other services. We're leveraging that capability."
No announcement was made as to whether Clearwire will also offer the Google services.
When Sprint originally announced it would build the WiMAX network, it estimated the cost at about $3 billion. It's expected that the cellco will provide a new estimate of the costs now that Clearwire has agreed to build a substantial portion of the network.
There's a movement in the States that wants to make sure Sprint's WiMAX network can be built with spectrum that will be auctioned off next year and will be open and available to any and all Web services. For example, iPhone users are blocked from making Internet telephony calls over either the AT & T cellular network or when connected to the Net with iPhone's Wi-Fi capability.
Addressing the issue, West said Sprint does not intend to block any services on its network, including Web calling such as Skype that other mobile phone services, including Sprint itself, have blocked. "We intend to operate an open Internet business model," he said. However, video and voice services that use a lot of bandwidth will likely have to pay a premium to guarantee they can deliver high-quality services, West said. That means Sprint could arbitrarily price the quality guarantee so high as to make the "non-blocking" policy meaningless.
Concerning the "net neutrality" issue, West said Sprint would not make an exclusive deal with any Web service that would prohibit competitive services from using the network. "All providers will be treated equally," West said. That's a long, tall promise that West made. If Sprint keeps West's promises--no blocking, no exclusive deals with Web services, then its WiMAX network will offer consumers the kind of unfettered Internet access they have become accustomed to at home. And that, Sprint is hoping, will give it a major advantage over the now more popular AT & T and Verizon Wireless closed cellular networks.
Sprint now needs two more things to go its way: an avalanche of innovative portable devices that come with WiMAX embedded and to bring into the WiMAX initiative Sprint's Pivot venture with the cablecos who have enormous marketing muscle through their daily visual contact with their customers.
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