Thursday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made public a patent application made by Google in March of 2007. The gist of the application is that rather than signing up for a mobile service package with one of the big companies (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint), Google would set up a service where your mobile device scans for available networks and those networks proffer a bid for how much you will pay for their services. Your decision would then be based on price, service, and bandwidth level, while at home, your wi-fi would be the preferred (and free) method of connection for your unlocked phone.

I’m sure the companies mentioned above are thrilled about this. Their raison d’etre is to get you locked into a contract and pay a set fee plus any overage charges. An AdWords-like auction system will likely not do wonders for their bottom lines.

However, with iPhones and other smart devices taking up more and more bandwidth every day, moving from a set unlimited data plan to a pay-as-you go could be beneficial to the mobile carriers. Of course, with more networks bidding for you, it may drive prices low enough to make up for the difference.

Google has made no secret of the fact that it is interested in getting its product in as many hands as possible, as much as possible, and as easy as possible. They make the lion’s share of their profits by serving ads, and the easier it is for people to get on their networks, the more ads they see and the more money Google makes. Often, there is a desirable side effect since what Google and the consumer want are often in accord.

I’m sure the CEOs of the major wireless companies were shooting milk out of their nose when they read this. But you have to admire Google. They think big, they seek openness, and they generally don’t kow-tow to the other big shots out there.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 1:38 pmand is filed under Search Engine Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.