Google Wants to Make Wireless Airwaves Less Exclusive, Cheaper

Google wants to make the wireless industry less exclusive by facilitating the use of cheap airwaves to lower the barriers to entry, said Google executive Milo Medin. Google is pursuing at least two separate routes to expand wireless service. One is the conventional wireless offering it is planning to detail in the coming months. The company said the service will be on a small scale and represent an effort to demonstrate new technologies.

The other project that Medin discussed on March 2 is separate. He’s backing the Federal Communication Commission’s proposed Citizens Broadband Radio Service, which would free up a large swath of inexpensive airwaves that anyone could use. Medin said Google wants to build a database and act as traffic cop to help such users as schools, hospitals and local governments exploit some of those airwaves. “Anybody now could be an LTE operator,” he said, referring to the faster wireless broadband service touted by the big carriers.