Google announces upcoming wireless service in the U.S.

At MWC, Google executive Sundar Pichai announced on Monday that Google will offer wireless service in parts of the U.S. However, the company's intent is to work on innovations and new features. It has no plan of competing in the space against the  four major U.S. carriers.

Still, this reveals that Google has ambitions in mobile beyond selling advertising and providing applications. Pichai said that Google will make a formal announcement sometime during the next three months.

Rumors that Google was going to become a mobile virtual network operator for T-Mobile and Sprint, have been circulating since January. Part of the rumor has Google offering its wireless customers discounted prices on Nexus devices. Also the service offered by Google is expected to cost less than competing carriers. Besides lowering the cost to the public, Google wants to improve how consumers interact with mobile carriers which has been a long standing issue.

Mr. Pichai confirmed that Google would go through T-Mobile and Sprint's cellular networks and hot spots, picking the best signals for routing calls, text and data. The goal is for seamless hand-offs from cellular to Wi-Fi and vice versa in order to prevent calls from dropping. The real question though, is whether this will create bad feelings between Google and Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T.

source - WSJ | TheInformation | TheNextWeb