In a BussinessWeek article concerning Google being posed to take over the air waves, it seems that the search engine giant may be positioning itself to leverage its clout in seeking air wave dominance. The FCC will be auctioning off some $10 billion dollars worth of wireless air waves, and Google it seems wants to grab some of the air space to compete against the mega air wave giants like ATT and Comcast.

Which brings up some interesting points, especially when it comes to ATT and their latest acquisitions of buying out baby bells and more. The originally purpose of breaking up ATT in the first place some 20 odd years ago or so, was because ATT seemed to own the entire US telephone system. The break up was going to allow anyone with enough bucks to enter into the lucrative telecommunication market. Though some entrants eventually did fail, ATT has slowing begun backing back the baby bells it originally had to sell off. Which would make one guess that ATT is once again going to be in a position to own everything once more.

On the surface it would than appear that Google making a play for air wave space should be a good thing. The hope naturally would be that this would increase competition but also may just provide some of us with the possibility of free internet access. Both Mountain View and San Francisco, CA. are offering or will be offering city wide free wireless access that will be paid for by Google ads. Google has partnered with Earthlink to bring this concept to reality which could be used in other US cities to provide a similar type service.

The FCC is in the process of establishing rules for the air wave sales which may be finalized in June of this year.

So what do you think? Would it benefit us consumers if Google became a wireless provider and offered free Internet access for the masses or would this give Google to much power?

Comments welcome.

Full BusinessWeek article here.

[tags]google, fcc, air waves, internet, wireless, att, earthlink, comcast, [/tags]