Google has plans to be a wireless carrier, selling mobile phone plans directly to customers,reports The Information. The company is looking at ways to change itself from its core businesses.
The new service is said to run on Sprint and T-Mobile’s networks. Google is expected to reach deals to buy wholesale access to those carriers’ mobile voice and data networks, making it a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, according to the publication’s sources.
The company could presumably offer the wireless network to customers buying its Nexus phones and tablets, which work on T-Mobile as it’s unlocked anyways. It’s not clear if other smartphones could use the networks through a “Google SIM-card”.
Google had previously been testing a wireless network at its Mountain View headquarters as early as 2013. Some of the details on this wireless network come from an application the Google submitted to the FCC asking for an experimental license to create what the application called an “experimental radio service.” The application asked for approval to operate a network with a two-mile radius covering its headquarters.
According to the The Information, it sounds like Google’s mobile phone network won’t be using its own hardware, rather rely on hardware and cell phone towers of Sprint and T-Mobile.
There wasn’t a timetable reported as to when Google plans to officially announced the deal. It’s worth noting The Information has had a very solid track record reporting on Google.
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