Google is stepping into the telecom industry, as announced last month by the company’s Senior Vice President, Sundar Pichai.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Mountain View company could launch the Google Wireless Service in the U.S today, on April 22.
The report says that the Google Wireless Service will only require customers to pay for the date they use. If true, this move could attract thousands of subscribers, and draw the other telcos into a fierce competition.
Currently, wireless plans offered by the majority of telcos, are burdensome for the users. The plans require that customers pay a standard fee for wireless services, regardless of whether they actually consume the amount of data or not.
“Smartphone users typically waste $28 every month on unused data”, says a 2013 study by Validas, a mobile intelligence company that analyzes wireless bills.
However some carriers like Republic Wireless, Scratch Wireless and major players such as T-Mobile and AT&T offer usage based data plans (data rollover plans), which credit users the left over data.
WSJ’s sources say that the Google Wireless Service is said to run on Sprint and T-Mobile networks, and will be offered only for the Google Nexus 6, the company’s Android flagship phone of 2014. Users will be able to switch between the two networks, depending on the signal strength of the carrier. It will also use Wi-Fi networks for routing voice calls and data.
There is no word on the pricing of the new service yet.
