José Ribamar Smolka Ramos
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WirelessBrasil
Fevereiro 2010 Índice Geral
13/02/10
• Estará o Google tornando-se o perfeito Bellhead?
de J. R. Smolka <smolka@terra.com.br>
para wirelessbr <wirelessbr@yahoogrupos.com.br>,
Celld-group <Celld-group@yahoogrupos.com.br>
data 13 de fevereiro de 2010 09:45
assunto [wireless.br] Estará o Google tornando-se o perfeito bellhead?
Ao ler a transcrição desta reportagem que vai abaixo talvez algumas pessoas
perguntem-se: "afinal, o que vem a ser esta história de netheads x bellheads?"
Esta é uma história já antiga (do século passado, na verdade :-) ).
Eu a citei neste artigo de 2006:
VoIP - Introdução
E o artigo original da Wired Magazine está transcrito mais abaixo. Vale uma
leitura e reflexão.
[ ]'s
J. R. Smolka
---------------------------
Building the
perfect Bellhead
February 12, 2010 — 12:56pm ET | By Dan O'Shea
No one is entirely sure what Google is up to with its announcement of trial
plans for a 1 Gbps fiber-based, open access broadband service. We could
speculate on how Google is trying to prove that open access works, or that
traditional network operators are keeping customers from reaching their full
speed potential, but there are plenty of other folks already debating those
issues. It might be more fun to consider what most people believe to be the
least likely scenario--that the big Nethead really wants to be a Bellhead.
Here's five reasons this outrageous line of thinking could be true:
1- Bellhead network technology: The broadband network bid caught many people
off-guard in a number of ways, and one of those was Google's focus on fiber
rather than wireless. But, the choice of fiber could prove that Google is trying
to beat the Bellheads at their own game in urban residential and business
settings. It's looking for speeds and consistency that wireless still isn't
capable of providing.
2- Wireless acquisition rumors: In the weeks since Germany's Deutsche Telekom
said it may look to sell T-Mobile USA, suggestions and speculation have been
building toward the possibility that Google could buy T-Mobile. It could all be
a bunch of blogger blather, but T-Mobile already has been a device partner to
Google, and acquiring a major U.S. wireless network would put Google on the same
playing field (though a bit closer to the sidelines) as AT&T and Verizon
Communications.
3- The transformation challenge might be easier than it looks: An unidentified
telecom industry executive reacting to the Google broadband news in The Wall
Street Journal suggested that it would be hard for Google to be a network
operator because of (I'm paraphrasing here) its inexperience with truck rolls,
billing processes and other customer service issues.
Really? If that's all that's keeping Google out of the game, transforming into a
network operator shouldn't be all that hard, and maybe Google has figured that
out. After installation, it may have a strategy to keep expensive and
inconvenient (for the consumer) truck rolls to a minimum by fully exploiting
remote management and monitoring techniques. As for billing, what's a bill?
These days, it's an e-mail reminder.
4- Google's supposed past mis-steps: Google Voice, the Nexus One phone and
Google's early municipal WiFi strategy in partnership with EarthLink have been
seen as the company's public mistakes to one degree or another. Delays and
transition issues haunted the voice service, customer service problems tripped
up the Nexus One just out of the gate, and the WiFi trial balloon fell to earth
along with the initial business model shortcomings of the muni-WiFi sector as a
whole.
But, Google probably learned important lessons from all three mis-steps about
how to properly roll out a telecom service (with Google Voice), how to respond
to customer problems (with Nexus One) and how to get a buy-in from potential
customers (consumers of WiFi) and customer-partners (municipalities want to
provide WiFi). In the first two cases, Google still offers the product that
suffered early problems, and in the third case, it can blame failure on
EarthLink or market forces.
5- Competitive advantages: In a Google broadband service scenario, a
Google-owned fiber could lead into a household where a consumer uses an
Internet-connected TV to search via Google for Internet-based videos, some of
which they might even find at Google-owned YouTube. No Bellhead can match that.
Meanwhile, telecom stalwarts may suggest Google has no relationship with the
average broadband service customer, but as it reminded us in an
actually-sorta-sweet Super Bowl TV commercial, Google actually has a pretty
strong bond with consumers everywhere.
There are probably more than five reasons to believe that Google's broadband
trial plan is nothing more than a regulatory play similar to its one-time plan
to buy 700 Mhz licenses. The cost of building and providing a 1 Gbps fiber
broadband service would be one giant reason for Google to not want to be in the
Bellhead business. Indeed, you need an awful lot of money to build broadband
networks. You'd have to be some kind on Internet colossus or something. Oh, wait...