Google does not need a carrier partner

A recent story in PC World got me mad.

It involved speculation of Google making a bid for 700 MHz spectrum, and included interviews with telecom "analysts" claiming Google "must" have a "carrier partner" to succeed.

Nonsense. No "carrier" knows anything about a competitive market. Verizon knows nothing about it. Comcast knows nothing about it. God knows AT&T knows nothing about it.

But the Internet is, by its nature, a competitive market. For the Internet to properly function, and deliver the benefits of Moore's Law, it must be a competitive market.

Without competition, as we've seen, the benefits of Moore's Law are hoarded, by the carriers, leading to monopoly profits and slower progress on all fronts.

Instead of seeking a carrier partner, what Google needs are supplier partners. Companies like Intel and Cisco, which understand Moore's Law and Internet networking, are much better fits for Google than any carrier.

This, in fact, has been Google's big mistake in San Francisco. In that case it chose a "carrier" partner, Earthlink. It chose to get involved with a government which was interested in granting "concessions" to favored companies.

That's not the way the Internet works. The Internet offers a set of standards which any network can use, and which any client can access by meeting.

It's a network of networks, not a network. You follow the specs, you tie in, you're in.

In the case of wireless we have standards, in WiFi and WiMax, which have linked to the Internet for nearly a decade. Offer the required gear to all comers, deliver taps to Google's dark fiber for all traffic, and it's done.

Any neighborhood which can't "afford" the equipment can get a subsidy from someone to buy it. Any entrepreneur who wants to serve any area should be able to do so, as should any other entrepreneur who wants to compete with them.

Don't build. Enable.