Taking on the incompetently managed gangster-like phone companies (they are in collusion) is hardly akin to trying to take over the world. I'm sure enough people would have read the article anyway.

We should hope they are successful. The incumbent phone companies have no interest in satisfied customers. Wireless voice quality is horrible. Internet connection speeds are pitiful. Prices for service are outrageous. they tap your conversations , email, and web surfing, and provide that information to the government, no questions asked. What other utility in the U.S. requires a 2-yr contract, besides wireless phone service (even if you don't buy a subsidized phone, they still want a 1-yr contract for some services)?

Most wireless phone calls are made inside a building (well, probably more than half, if not 75% of them). A lot of those buildings have wi-fi in them. If google specs out a phone that can make VoIP phone calls, it can offer a wi-fi based phone service. They have lots of fiber bandwidth, they know how to use computers, and they have lots of capital. Plus, they are infinitely smarter than the phone companies. The only disadvantage they have is that they don't seem to be as willing to bribe congressmen yet. While a wi-fi based service won't be enough to take over the wireless phone business, it will put a dent in the carrier's revenue. And given how little they understand technology, it will be a while before they realize it, and will then have to make a deal for access to their network. Since t-mobile is already offering free phone calls over wifi (if you have their standard wireless service), this may not be such a stretch.

Why is this CheckMarked? On what basis do you assert that prices for service are outragoeous? ATT costs 12-15 cents/minute, while infrastructure costs run roughly 5-7 cents/minute. Sure that's an 80% ROI - but that's AFTER having had make the upfront infrastructure investments.

As for cell phone quality - I take it you are fairly new to using cellphones. You don't remember that quality was so bad that McCaw Cellular used to give you free credit for dropped calls.

And if you don't like CellPhone quality, why on god's green earth would you even being to suggest VoIP? Have you used VoIP? My company makes us use it for International calling - and since I manage a multi-continent team, I have a lot of experience with it. VoIP SUCKS!!! Its about on par with the original Analogue Cell Phones.

C'mon Slate, just because someone writes a rant that is somewhat aligned with your author's article doesn't mean it deserves a check,

seriously, I work on this stuff, talking on the phone over wifi will drain your battery way faster than the average consumer finds acceptable.  And that's just the talking part.  Leaving your phone connected over wifi so that you can receive calls through that will be even worse.  Plus, there's absolutely no reason a carrier would want to help google do that by somehow sending the call over their network in some way which told the phone to connect to wifi or something.  So google will have to just buy their own part of the spectrum, which they want to do anyway, and then there would be no benefit for them to do wifi calling either.

Good point about WiFi sucking the battery.

And its true that Google has entered some spectrum auctions. But one analysis I read pointed out that unless Google is ready to focus primarily on Telco (ATT's market cap is about 1/2 of Google's), this is more of a crossing of swords with ATT and Verizon.

IOW Google is telling ATT and Verizon:

You have two choices:

• Let the GPhone run on your network
• Have us start pouring money into spectrum bids and offering it for free, just to drive you out of the market.

And apparently Google has structured its bids in a manner that essentially lets them withdraw at almost any time. Thus they go forwards with the shot across ATT and Verizon's bows, but if ATT and Verizon cooperate, then Google share's ad revenue with them and withdraw's its bids.

Essentially Google is telling ATT and Verizon - OK you've had your high profit margin time period, now you get to go back and become commodity common carriers.