Internet giant Google has officially announced the long-awaited launch of its wireless service. The service, named ‘Project Fi’, will be hosted on Sprint and T-Mobile US networks, and will only work on the company’s Nexus 6 phones, the company said in…
Internet giant Google has officially announced the long-awaited launch of its wireless service.
The service, named ‘Project Fi’, will be hosted on Sprint and T-Mobile US networks, and will only work on the company’s Nexus 6 phones, the company said in a statement.
The phones will connect automatically to the network with the strongest signal, or through free Wi-Fi hotspots.
The service will cost US$20 per month for talk, texts, Wi-Fi tethering and international roaming in 120+ countries, plus an additional US$10 a month for each gigabyte of data used. Google will credit consumers with any unused data each month.
“The announcement is not a big surprise, as details of Google’s MVNO launch have been discussed for months”, Wells Fargo senior analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said.
“Since the service will not be available on the iPhone or smaller Android devices, we expect the initial impact to be fairly limited. However, this will help drive incremental data traffic on Sprint and TMUS’s networks and the technology to switch between the fastest available networks has the potential for more widespread adoption,” she noted.
The official launch of Google’s MVNO service could strain the already complicated relationship between tech and telecoms companies.
Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month, Google SVP Sundar Pichai was quoted saying that the company aims to provide a “small-scale” offering that would integrate hardware, software, and connectivity.
Pichai said the company was not looking to threaten incumbent telecoms operators, but rather to encourage them to embrace innovation and accelerate the future adoption of new technologies.
The search engine is reportedly looking to launch the MVNO in its current Google Fiber markets (Kansas City, Austin and Provo), with plans to expand into Europe.
In early April, rumours emerged that the search engine was also negotiating a wholesale access agreement with Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa.
Google aims to create a global network that will cost the same to use for calls, texts and data regardless of where a customer is located.
Teaming up with Hutchinson, which owns and operates mobile networks in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Sweden and Denmark, would allow Google to provide cheap overseas calls across most of Europe.
Hutchison, which has been on an acquisitions spree in its existing European markets, already offers free roaming in 18 countries.
Earlier this month, the EU Parliament voted to ban mobile roaming charges from 15 December 2015. The proposal is subject to approval by the EU Council of Ministers.
