Google’s ‘instant bid’ patent puts new weight behind an old idea

Almost every month sees Google raising a storm of interest by investing in a new technology that could push its open mobile internet goals forward. The latest excitement surrounds a patent application for a technique that allows mobile products automatically to detect the best network in range, and area that has mainly been addressed to date by cognitive radio developments at Intel and other companies.

Carriers, even in the US, are being pushed grudgingly towards the principle of open access, as championed by the PC/internet community for years. Increasingly users will be able to attach their device to any compatible network rather than being tied to a single provider, and if their handset has multiple radios (such as Wi-Fi and 3G), they may have a choice of technologies too. The next logical step is for the device itself to decide, based on the users’ parameters, which available connection is the best (cheapest, fastest, best optimized for video, and so on).

Chip companies have been working on adaptive and cognitive radios to achieve this goal for years, and now Google - with its talent for casting the spotlight on technologies that will promote its open mobile internet goals - has fuelled the fire with its patent.

This is entitled ‘Flexible Communication Systems and Methods’, and covers a technique that Google calls Instant Bid. The coverage it has attracted is more indicative of Google’s talents for spin than any real technical breakthrough - highlighting the way the search giant has become a self-appointed bellwether for the mobile web industry, with every patent or minor investment it makes seen as a turning point for the sector. So while the concept of devices whose software gives them the ‘intelligence’ to select the best connection based on a range of criteria is hardly new - and indeed Intel showed off an Adaptive Radio back in 2004 - Google’s patent was greeted with comments like “game changer” and ” changing the telecoms world as we know it”.

While the technology could conceivably be incorporated in some future iteration of the Android platform, even Google admitted it “could turn into something, or not”. So the patent indicates Google’s willingness to pull a potentially important technology out of the shadows and the risk of obscurity, increasing its participation, expertise and influence in key areas of development like cognitive radios and their associated software platforms. This is valuable because it boosts interest and confidence in a new approach and accelerates the momentum behind it - not because Google has reinvented the wireless world.

Undoubtedly, adaptive devices will be an important element of the already ongoing trend towards open access and the breaking of the ties between operator and device. And that will change the telecoms landscape, but it won’t be any particular Google system that will tip the balance. Google has recently shown a tendency to want to get directly involved in technologies that will help achieve its goals of an true open internet model on all networks and devices, not just the PC - in turn enlarging its own revenue base dramatically. It has invested in disruptive operators, femtocells, new backhaul platforms, ’stratellites’, even built its own metro area networks. All these activities have brough profile, funds and valuable contacts to the often start-up supporters of a range of approaches, some of which may well prove important in reshaping the wireless world. Arguably Google should not go too far into technologies beyond its field of expertise - some of the missteps of early Android enhance these fears - but should content itself with lending support, not morphing into an operator or chip designer, or trying to control the whole show single-handed. A dose of megalomania aside though, Google is generally more circumspect in reality than the headlines about its activities suggest. Yes it built metro mesh networks, but the only one it really owned was in its own home city of Mountain View, and when the model proved to be flawed, it quickly retreated from commercial risk, investigated other routes to getting open wireless to the mass population (hence the investment in Clearwire and the recent involvement in low cost satellite for rural communities), and remains perfectly happy to work with the ‘bad old cellcos’ if they are prepared to push Google services.

So this new patent indicates Google’s willingness to pull a potentially important technology out of the shadows and the risk of obscurity, increasing its participation, expertise and influence in key areas of development like cognitive radios and their associated software platforms. This is valuable because it boosts interest and confidence in a new approach and accelerates the momentum behind it - not because Google has reinvented the wireless world.

Google’s real aim will be to ensure it has a pole position in the various elements of the open wireless internet jigsaw as that is assembled. So it is looking for the most likely operators that will offer a genuinely open web business model and kickstart the market - the ‘new Clearwire’ is a high hope to act as this groundbreaker in the US, and so Google has made an investment, and will ensure that it has a strong hold on all the main featuers that differentiate Clearwire and should help make it successful - open access (an all-IP initially driven by notebooks and USB); a new breed of devices featuring Android (Google and Sprint were working on apps and interfaces before Android was heard of); all this showcasing and boosting uptake of Google services, and making all-day, everyday usage of mobile web apps and data easy and cost effective.

Of course, Clearwire will still have to play to many classic operator rules. If the user really has an adaptive ‘instant bid’ device, it will only pick the Clearwire connection if this really is the cheapest/fastest/ supports the best user experience. This will mean a constant battle to match rivals on price and features, a battle that can be won or lost on a daily basis, not just when a contract ends. The open model does away with subsidies, something Sprint in particular, and cellcos in general, have been calling for, but in fact, subsidies of popular devices are the main way carriers attract users in the first place and keep them loyal. In a fully open access network, users will have to invest more upfront in owning a device capable of supporting good web services, and that will not necessarily be popular with the consumer base. In reality, the subsidies/tied network model is likely to survive, alongside growing openness, for many years to come and may have to be accommodated by Clearwire too in order to speed early adoption.