Google Throws Its Weight around the Wireless World

LAS VEGAS — As the top executive of AT&T's mobile division talked about new gadgets and strategies at the wireless industry show this week, he slipped in a surprise: the Android mobile software backed by Google Inc. likely has a future on some AT&T phones.

"I was concerned that maybe they were just going to focus on Google applications, but they're going to open it up and allow us to be able to customize" an Android device, said Ralph de la Vega, president AT&T Mobility. "I am more impressed than ever that I think that's going to be a good option."

Even though the Internet search and advertising giant isn't exactly in the wireless business, that hasn't stopped Google from spurring industry-wide change as it seeks to expand its reach to mobile devices.

"We'll continue pushing to help make the wireless world look much more like the open platform of the Internet," Google attorneys Richard Whitt and Joseph Faber said Thursday in a statement about a recent radio spectrum auction.

In that auction, Google put billions of dollars on the line to get the government to impose new wireless open-access rules. More recently, the company has pushed to turn vacant television channels into a new medium for Internet access. It's also reportedly a potential investor in a next-generation wireless network.

"They've had a tremendous impact," said Avi Greengart, mobile device research director for Current Analysis. "They view the wireless industry strategically as a platform that they have to play in. They look at the future of the Internet as moving mobile."

When it comes to targeting advertising, Google's core business, a mobile user is more valuable than a person sitting at a desk because he or she is more likely to immediately need and use information, Greengart said.

"Google's strategy basically is: 'Bet on every horse and add horses to the race as necessary,' " he said.

Google made a bet worth more than $4.6 billion during the auction of radio airwaves that will become available next year as TV stations switch to digital broadcasts.

Google had helped convince the Federal Communications Commission to require that the winner of a huge nationwide chunk of airwaves let subscribers use any wireless devices and software.

"They brilliantly played the FCC," Greengart said.

Verizon Wireless won those and other airwaves with bids worth $9.36 billion. The carrier said Friday it would use the airwaves for a next-generation high-speed data network using technology called Long Term Evolution, or LTE, which will be ideal for connecting electronics including phones, medical devices and gaming consoles.

"Verizon changed its whole philosophy" about open access in advance of the auction, said Tole Hart, an analyst with the Gartner research firm. U.S. carriers traditionally have tightly controlled the devices and applications allowed on their networks.

Google said it was prepared to win the licenses and often was the high bidder early on, raising its own bid multiple times. But Google said its priority was to bid enough to ensure the open-access rules went into effect.

"Partly as a result of our bidding, consumers soon should have new freedom to get the most out of their mobile phones and other wireless devices," Google's attorneys said. Until last week, federal rules prohibited auction participants from talking about it in detail.

"For three weeks at the end of January and early February, a small team of us holed up in double super-secret 'war rooms' in Mountain View, Calif., and Washington, D.C., to bid on Google's behalf," they said. "Bidding took place electronically, and literally billions of dollars were at stake with every mouse click."

The Internet search leader also is pushing the government to open up "white spaces," unused parts of the TV spectrum, so they can be used for mobile broadband. Other supporters of the white spaces effort include Microsoft Corp. and Dell Inc.

White spaces "offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide ubiquitous wireless broadband access to all Americans," Whitt, Google's telecom and media lawyer, said in a letter to the FCC last month.

He also said white spaces and Android devices, which are expected this year, would be an "excellent match," allowing for lower-cost broadband.

TV broadcasters, worried about radio interference, have opposed the white spaces proposals. Google said those problems can be avoided, and it will provide free technical support to make the plans reality.

Recent news reports also have named Google as a potential investor in a project led by Sprint Nextel Corp. that would deploy a nationwide network using WiMax, a high-speed and long-range wireless technology often called "Wi-Fi on steroids."

"What we've seen in the wireless industry over the last 20 years has been companies that have all followed the same path," said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst based in Atlanta. "Everybody has taken the same path except Google. Google comes in with an entirely new way of thinking."

On the Web:

Google: www.google.com

FCC: www.fcc.gov

White spaces alliance: wirelessinnovationalliance.com

Android alliance: www.openhandsetalliance.com