Today’s Wall Street Journal has an excellent article pontificating on Google’s plan for the Wireless spectrum auction in the United States. I highly recommend the article if you are a WSJ subscriber.
In readin the article, I’ve lost all respect for ABI Research’s Nadine Manjaro. The last paragraph of the article states,
ABI Research senior analyst Nadine Manjaro believes it’s more likely that Google would form a partnership with an existing wireless network operator than try to build one on its own. “They have no experience in running a network, and it’s not something simple to do,” she says. Ms. Manjaro estimates the cost of building a national network on the spectrum available at $3 billion or more.
Really?? Hello… this is Google. They run the largest network of parallel processing compute clusters in the world. They interconnect these clusters with vast networks of dark fibre which they light up and manage themselves. I think they know a thing or two about networking.
Yes, wired and wireless networks are quite different. While hundreds of thousands of companies manage wired networks of different sizes and shapes – only a handful of companies manage wireless mobile networks. However, contrary to Nadine’s opinion – this is not due to technical challenges. The wireless market is closed. It costs billions to invest in the spectrum – there only a handful of people can participate. If Google bids and wins, this will completely turn the mobile business on its head – in approximately the same way Napster turned the music industry’s business upside down.
Nadine – I’d start looking for a new job. Stating that Google doesn’t understand networking on a Wall Street Journal page one story can’t be good for your career.
Finding Nilay 