Thursday, February 11, 2010

Google to Offer Superfast Net Service - NYTimes.com

Apparently Google’s proclamations are now actually subject to scrutiny

“This is mainly a P.R. stunt,” said Scott Cleland, chairman of Netcompetition.org, an organization that represents many telecommunications companies and their industry associations and opposes new regulations on the Internet. “With one hand Google is urging regulations that stifle broadband deployment, and with the other hand, they are saying that telecom companies should spend hundreds of billions” to give ultrafast service to all Americans, Mr. Cleland said.

Google has challenged the business models of established telecommunications companies before. In 2008, it bid more than $4 billion in a government auction of wireless spectrum merely to loosen the control that carriers would have over the use of the airwaves.

“Google, indeed, appears to be playing a chess game,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “If they can create an even mildly credible commitment to offer superfast broadband to the home, it could strike fear in the hearts of cable and telcos, stimulating an arms race of investment — just as they did in the auction for spectrum a few years ago.”

Google to Offer Superfast Net Service - NYTimes.com

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