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blue bits. red rocks.
Tuesday 31 July 2007

Google is spreading its bets, and sees global potential in WiMAX. The standard may not be fully baked, but if it worked you could have a clear alternative to the existing locked-up wireless world in the U.S. So Google may be throwing its weight behind cable companies and Sprint rather than dealing directly with AT&T and Verizon. It’s obvious that Google isn’t conditioning its collaboration with Sprint on complete openness. The Sprint network won’t be sold wholesale - something that Google is clamoring for in the 700 MHz auction. The Sprint network may not (we can’t tell yet) allow any device to use it. Sprint is saying that it will provide open standard APIs (application programming interfaces) to people who want to create customized products for browsable devices, so that may open up the application world - right now application developers have to pay 40-50% of their revenue to a carrier in order to have their application be usable on phones that are locked to that carrier’s network. Susan Crawford

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