Google recently announced that they plan to start building an experimental, high-speed fiber network. It’s not clear yet whether they are going to just build the network, or if they will also manage it (as a traditional ISP would), but this decision might be looked at from two sides of the same coin.
First, this might violate traditional conceptions of a vertical monopoly. If Google owns the wires, apps, servers, and content that most people browse on the Internet their business model starts to look a bit too powerful. Despite their promise not to “be evil” and to keep the networks “neutral,” if they were to manage these networks it would undeniably give them the potential to exert a great deal of control.
Yet, at the same time this appears to be a direct response to other ISPs who are sitting on their profits hands when it comes to broadband development. As recently explained in a story on Broadband on NPR,
“They aren’t leading, they aren’t following, and they won’t get out of the way,” says Craig Settles, author of Fighting The Next Good Fight, a book about broadband business strategy. He says the nation’s biggest telecom companies have generally decided not to apply for federal stimulus money.
The traditional ISPs are not developing their networks, fighting efforts of local broadband development as well as neutrality regulation, and are not applying for federal broadband stimulus money.
Perhaps that’s the catch 22: it appears to be corporate interests that are hindering our broadband development, but also Google’s corporate interest that might push this competition forward.