The Googlization of Wireless

Move over, Apple, there’s a new cowpoke riding into the wireless frontier. Sure, the iPhone might be the first easily accessible handheld platform for enabling the true Internet, but it very well may be the involvement of Google-the-Kid that really will show how the wireless West — er, Web — will be won.

The rise of wireless data, whether it’s taking pictures, listening to music, e-mail or social networking, is well documented. But it’s the availability of the real Internet — not the anemic, watered down, graphics-lacking version of it available via a carrier’s walled garden — that is the Holy Grail for many users (be they corporate or residential). The iPhone provides a version that looks a lot like the Internet available on the PC, complete with Flash, Java, real pictures and the ability to view Web pages as their makers intended them to be — only without the ability to write third-party applications, or to associate any device other than the iPhone with that mobile Web. It’s also, of course, tethered to AT&T Inc. and costs $399 plus monthly service charges to use. Call it True Mobile Internet 1.0.

Version 2.0, in Google Inc.’s view, will be the availability of a truly open mobile Internet, one that supports a wealth of third-party applications that open up new revenue streams, business models and consumer devices that build on the idea of the ultra-mobile PC — a fully loaded handheld tailored to take advantage of the open mobile Web. The keys to this vision are the availability of an open mobile operating system, and open-access, high-speed mobile networks. In both cases, Google is putting its money where its mouth is.

“The goal is, what is going to make the Internet most available to the broadest number of people at the lowest price possible?” Chris Sacca, Google’s head of special initiatives, says.

Google is officially mum on its plans. But in 2005, Google acquired Android, a software company that developed a Linux-based mobile device operating system, and industry leaks point to the impending launch of a Linux-based platform, dubbed gPhone, with a programming code for mobile developers easily to create applications that will be usable on the platform regardless of the device or carrier the user happens to have. To boot, the search giant, by all accounts, soon will debut a cheap handset (read: around $100), preloaded with Google apps and the API tools.

Google also is working with Sprint to design a mobile Web portal for the service provider’s planned WiMAX network. The carrier says it will provide open-standard APIs for the Internet developer community to create customized, personalized and interactive services. It also expects the launch of a new class of non-carrier-specific WiMAX embedded devices, such as personal media players, gaming devices, tablet PCs, cameras and other gadgets.

“Google and Sprint will optimize the Internet experience for the digital lifestyle,” says Barry West, president of 4G Mobile Broadband for Sprint.

On the network front, Google will participate in January’s 700MHz spectrum auction, for which it lobbied the FCC long and hard to create an open-access requirement for those airwaves, making the walled garden a thing of the past. The company has promised to pony up $4.6 billion to buy wireless spectrum because the FCC adopted its recommendations for an open-applications and open-device requirement for part of the blocks on offer. Traditional cellcos are not happy; Verizon Wireless has filed a suit against the FCC protesting the open-access rules.

And so, the stage may be set for an entirely different sort of mobile Web, a radical game changer if Google can bring its wireline market clout to bear. Will the town be big enough for both cellcos and new entrants?

“Well, the model is changing and Internet companies will impact the model even more,” says industry analyst Andrew Seybold.

Closing the Bells-and-Whistles Gap

As the mobile device becomes more and more oriented toward the Internet, IP-based applications are hitting the market with higher profi les. One of the best-known is visual voice mail, which made a splash with the launch of the iPhone. Now service providers outside of Apple partner AT&T Inc. can provide customers the ability to manage voice mail in a graphical way.

Messaging company Acision has launched a visual voice mail offering for service providers, developed in partnership with on-device portal provider Action Engine. Operators can offer simplifi ed and enhanced viewing, playback and management of messages. Consumers can play the message on a phone’s built-in media player and make use of a visual interface that includes the date and time of the call, urgency and caller information as available. It also includes full voice mail management, including message archiving and deletion, and one-click return calling.

“Acision’s Visual Voice mail will enable customers to see at a quick glance who has called — with full access to all the voice mail information and content without having to make a phone call,” explains Action Engine President and CEO Scott Silk.

Then there’s SimulScribe, which takes it a step further and allows users to read, rather than listen to, voice mail. The company had completed interoperability with all major carriers in the United States for voice mail-to-text and visual voice mail services as of September. Users sign up online to add the functionality to mobile, home or work phones, so users can unify all phone lines into one voice mail box regardless of carrier. Customers also can add e-mail.

Visual voice mail is just one example; the face of the mobile Web will become very interesting indeed as more third-party apps are deployed, most industry watchers say.