Google, Dish Held Talks to Launch Wireless Service
Google Inc. has held talks with satellite-TV provider Dish Network Corp. in recent weeks to partner on a new wireless service that would rival the networks of wireless carriers such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is at least Google's third run at the US wireless business, and the second time Dish Network has been the counterparty. In March 2007 VentureBeat reported Google was close to an advertising partnership with Dish, and that October Google was reportedly in talks with Verizon Wireless about carrying a Google phone — neither produced the service the reports implied. The WSJ's report that the two are now discussing a full wireless service that would sit alongside AT&T's and Verizon's networks is the most ambitious version yet.
The pickup breadth is itself a signal: eight outlets including Ars Technica, CNET and BGR ran the same sourcing within a day, despite both companies staying quiet and the relationship remaining unconfirmed. The timing matters because Verizon's CFO said just a week earlier that its LTE buildout would finish by mid-2013, six months ahead of schedule — the incumbent networks are getting harder to compete against, not easier.
First-order effects
- If the talks advance, Dish gains the partner it needs to convert its position into a consumer wireless offering rather than standing aside from the market, while Google gets a network foothold without building one.
- AT&T and Verizon Wireless gain a prospective fourth national competitor at a moment when Verizon is compressing its LTE timeline and pushing Share Everything data tiers like the $150 20GB plan.
Second-order effects
- An entrant without its own nationwide network would likely need wholesale or resale access from the very carriers it targets, forcing AT&T and Verizon to decide whether selling capacity to a Google-backed rival beats leaving that revenue unused.
- Dish's willingness to talk to Google rather than the carriers signals that spectrum-and-content owners see software and distribution partners, not traditional telecom M&A, as their route into mobile.
Third-order effects
- The recurring pattern — Google circling carriers in 2007, then returning via Dish in 2012 — points toward internet platforms entering wireless as tenants of others' networks rather than infrastructure builders, a structure that would pressure regulators and carriers alike to define wholesale-access terms.
- If a Google-Dish service materialized, it would establish the template other over-the-top players could follow, turning US wireless from a four-carrier oligopoly into a layered market of network owners and branded resellers.
The trend: Internet platforms are probing entry into US wireless through partnerships with spectrum-owning media companies rather than by building networks, with each round of talks raising the stakes for the incumbent carriers.