Google Plans to Be a Wireless Carrier, but at Small Scale

Google confirmed it plans to start offering its own brand of wireless service later in 2015, but said it will do so only at a small scale to show carriers new possibilities. “We don’t intend to be network operator at scale,” Google’s Sundar Pichai said in a speech at Mobile World Congress. Rather, Pichai likened what Google is doing as akin to its Nexus hardware program, where it also dabbles but leaves the mass market to the larger players.

Google has also taken a similar approach in home broadband, where it offers ultra-high-speed Google Fiber service, but only in a handful of cities. To offer wireless service, Google will need to lease capacity from one or more existing carriers, with Google acting as what is known as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator, or MVNO. Pichai said that the company has already reached out to several.