Sigh. Last week, Sharon was using my computer and called me saying that it had hard-locked, made some weird popping noises (through the speakers) and then magically restarted itself. I figured it to not be a big deal, but, ever since, odin has been increasingly unstable to the point now where I can’t get it to boot into Windows successfully. It looks like another motherboard issue, which marks the second ASUS pos to short out on me. On top of their abhorrent customer (non-)service, I’m done with them. I’m buying a different, more stable motherboard for odin now. It’s going to be a pain in the ass, but giving ASUS more money for crap mobos would be worse. If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been online recently, now you know.
In other news, there’s an article in IBD from a couple days ago discussing how internet outfits might buy spectrum to do an end-run around AT&T and others who want to create a tiered internet by providing their own wireless service. Not surprisingly, Google is on the top of the short list of companies who would be able to pull this off. The theory is that big internet firms like Google, eBay, Amazon, and others would form a consortium to buy up the spectrum and create a broadband wireless network with it. It’s not exactly the most probable thing to happen, but it is certainly possible. The first auction will be in June when the FCC auctions off spectrum in the 1710-1755MHz and 2110-2155MHz bands. The next one will involve spectrum in the 700MHz region, but will only occur after television companies ditch that part of the spectrum for OTA HDTV. That may occur as late as 2008.
For those who think that an internet company consortium forming their own wireless broadband network is a far-out idea, there is some corroboration to be considered. Back in November, Robert X. Cringely wrote some articles about how Google is playing around with putting 5000-processor, 3.5-petabyte servers into 40-foot shipping crates for a worldwide Google network at a cost of around $3.5 billion. The idea of Google and/or others setting up their own network for public dissemination has been circulating in the rumor mills for years. And, unlike the GoogleOS rumors (which are spawned from the fact that Google runs a custom Linux kernel internally), it’s a rumor that has some legs. Between their shipping crate servers and purchase of dead fiber, the disappearance of network neutrality may be the spark needed to put the wheels in motion.
So now I will add my own future of Google theory to the melting pot. In my opinion, I think it’s a good bet that Google wants their own public network. Google is all about gathering information, but creating very little original information on their own. The ultimate in this is to control the network. With the information that comes from running a network, Google could further optimize their current businesses and services, including their profitable ones like AdSense. Partnering with Earthlink to provide municipal Wi-Fi to San Francisco could serve as a spring board. Google’s core isn’t running an ISP, so they provide the capital, set up the shipping crates, light up their dark fiber, and let Earthlink manage the ISP aspect of the network. That way, Google does what they always do, hands off what they don’t do to someone else, and now collects, disseminates, and exploits the wealth of new information they will receive. And if they decide to provide people with a set-top box or some other internet appliance, all the better for them.
In the end, Google wants to manage the world’s information. It’s their mantra, along with doing no evil. What better way to do so than to own the pipes that users’ information travels over? If they can do that while teaming up with others to flip the bird at AT&T, then the question isn’t if they’ll create their own network, but when.