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.

After all the hype and waiting the new Google phone, the G1 from T-Mobile has been introduced in the US, and chances are it will hit the UK by Christmas. On first sight, it is not a remarkable device as smartphones go, sharing most of its visible features with rivals like the iPhone, HTC Windows phones and many Samsung models - and falling into a lower specification category than superphones like the Nokia N96 or Samsung innov8. However, the G1 was never about feature comparisons.

Its launch gained attention not seen since the original iPhone was unveiled for three reasons - it is the first chance to see a real world handset powered by Google Android, and so has been propelled into the limelight by the massively effective Google publicity machine; it is, largely because of Google’s support, the first really serious contender as a mainstream Linux phone, and as such deserves competitive analysis in terms of US operators and the smartphone OS market as a whole, with implications for Symbian and Microsoft; and like the iPhone, it is an innovative device that gives the US, smarting from the decline of Motorola, a chance still to influence the 3G sector and beyond, even if it will do this via software this time.

The G1 may carry the weight of analysis of Android’s overall chances in the smartphone market, but it is also an important device for T-Mobile USA, which is fighting to catch up with AT&T in its 3G activities and needs stand-out handsets to support its creative mobile internet strategies, and to take on the AT&T iPhone. As such, the Google-driven hype around the G1 will do T-Mobile no harm, and the device should attract uptake as well as interest, providing a reasonable, if not remarkable, price/features combination, and the lure, for mobile web enthusiasts, of the new software platform.

The handset combines a touchscreen control similar to the iPhone’s with a full Qwerty keyboard underneath. T-Mobile will be offering the device for $179 with a two-year voice and data agreement, and will start delivering it to customers on October 22. It comes with 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi, multimedia messaging and a three megapixel camera, and naturally a browser that can view full web pages and promises ‘one-click access’ to the internet. It boasts plenty of Google applications topped off with a special version of Google Maps, with its impressive ’street view’ so users can ‘walk’ along with a 3D photorealistic image of the city and street they are in. It also has access to Gmail (well any web browser would give you that), YouTube (ditto), Calendar (you’d expect it) and Google Talk instant messaging, as well as drag and drop reconfigurability.

But perhaps the biggest surprise is a bundled music player with a direct link to the Amazon MP3 store. Again, anyone with a browser could talk to the store - the idea is that a preconfigured icon takes you straight there, you buy what you want through the 3G network, and download it over Wi-Fi when next in reach of a hotspot or your home or work access point. The G1 comes with a 1Gb memory card to store music, photos and other files. This ability to purchase through the network is supposed to give the G1 an edge over Apple’s iPhone which only sideloads from iTunes.

Google also announced the release of the Android 1.0 Software Development Kit (SDK), pointing out that 1,700 applications have been written with it, and can be acquired through the Android Market, the Google equivalent of the Apple App Store.

Now they can see the G1 in the cold light of day US analysts reckon it will give the iPhone a run for its money, and outsell it in the early ramp-up. Europe and east Asia will be more unpredictable, but will also see a wider choice and more rapid roll-out of new Android-based launches from many vendors, from late in Q1 2009, once the Google team hits its stride in terms of getting new products certified for individual networks.

Meanwhile, the UK is set to be the second country to get its hands on the first Android handset, the HTC Dream, aka T-Mobile G1. The German-owned cellco said it will transport the device across the Atlantic in early November, but hitting the UK first, rather than its home territory. It sees the UK as a more advanced market for web-optimized smartphones and a strong bellwether for the rest of the region - and it will not have the same conflict of interest that its German operation will have to address, given that T-Mobile Deutschland is the partner for the iPhone.

However, T-Mobile does pledge to bring the G1 to all its European territories during the first quarter of next year, by which time there will be other Android handsets on the market, if Google and its partners can stick to their schedules for creating handsets tailored for various carrier networks round the world. China Mobile is expected to get the second Android phone, in the early part of the new year, and most likely from a local vendor.

Like the iPhone itself, the battle to win over European consumers will be tougher than in the US, where the webphone market is less developed and the new interfaces pioneered by Apple and Google stand out more distinctively in the 2G crowd. And as the iPhone’s checkered fortunes in Japan have shown, that market will be even harder to impress when the first Android device reaches operators there.

In a statement, Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of software group mobile email/middleware group Synchronica, spoke for many when he said the G1 would cause a stir among users influenced by brand and ‘the next big thing’, but would not affect smartphone fortunes significantly, at least in the short term. “There’s a common misconception that every time a major vendor jumps into the market, we will see smartphone sales surging. This does not reflect the reality. My prediction is that the Gphone will have very little impact on the mass market, which is dominated by feature phones”, he said.

RIM has held on remarkably well to its mobile email base, despite attacks from all the larger smartphone makers, but it still has to make the difficult transition to a broader business and particularly the mobile web model. Devices like the Pearl have given it some traction in the consumer market, and reduced its reliance on corporate email server deals, but now the Canadian firm is making its biggest push yet to lure new users and expand in Europe. In particular, it is seeking to apply its experience in integrated, push-based applications, gained in email, to consumer web 2.0 services, in order to provide a hub for all the consumer’s ‘four screens’. This sounds ambitious, but in his keynote address at last week’s CTIA show in California, co-CEO Jim Balsillie focused heavily on the convergence of the four screens - the home phone, cellphone, PC/internet and TV. As consumers increasingly want their activities unified at the presentation layer, RIM is looking to achieve this through new apps for its Blackberry line of devices. It claims its experience with push email puts it in an ideal position to deliver more consumer-focused, web 2.0 services that rely on personalization and are driven by events or location, rather than browser-based. Talking of social networking, Balsillie said: “It is remarkable when this is in a push, connected, event-driven basis. When you change your access to information, you change your relationship to it - not incrementally but on a quantum basis. These changes are tremendously exciting.”

As for handsets, RIM is launching a highly varied line-up this fall to support its consumer and mobile web strategies. It showed its awareness of the need to expand further outside north America by launching its high profile 3G smartphone, the Bold, in the UK - the bellwether market for western Europe - first (along with its home country of Canada and Singapore). Other European countries and the US will follow later this month. The Bold is undergoing testing at AT&T prior to its US launch, but RIM claims the indicators are good despite competition from the 3G iPhone and others, even in the 3G heartland of Europe. “The sales of the Bold in all of these other countries we’ve launched in have been good,” the company said, referring to the UK and Canada. Meanwhile, the vendor is promising its first ever flip-phone, the Pearl Flip 8220, in October. It was shown off at the CTIA show in San Francisco last week, and will ship in the US, via T-Mobile, first, with UK availability expected in late October or early November. Pricing is not available yet, but is expected to be around $200 with contract. The phone will feature a ’sure-type’ Qwerty keyboard similar to the one on the original Pearl, and a large 240 x 320 color LCD display. Initially, though, it will only support GSM/EDGE, not 3G like the Bold, RIM’s first 3G handset, but is expected to support HSDPA early next year. Balsillie told CTIA listeners that his company will be the “first to crack the code” of combining the smartphone and flip-phone (70% of US consumers prefer a flip format). Also slated for the pre-Christmas period, though possibly not until the end of November, are the RIM Thunder touchscreen handset and the Javelin, a low end model designed to push into the midrange market and possibly developing economies. And the company unveiled the first push to talk phone with Wi-Fi, for Sprint’s iDEN network. Perhaps more important than individual handset designs is RIM’s move into integrated applications. Of course it has a strong track record in this area, with its email apps, but is now trying to appeal more broadly to consumers and ride the mobile internet wave alongside Apple. So the new deals are focused on “lifestyle” rather than enterprise services, and build on last fall’s deal with Facebook - RIM says the integrated Facebook for BlackBerry application has been downloaded 2.5m times in the past year. “It’s been the fastest take-up of any application that we’ve ever had,” Balsillie said. The new customized apps include deals with Facebook competitor MySpace in the popular mobile social networking market; with Microsoft for integrated search; with TicketMaster for buying event tickets without going through the browser; and with internet radio platform Slacker to provide a music library, though this hardly matches up to iTunes or other such services for real music lovers. Interestingly, RIM has also signed up with TiVo, the popular digital video system in the US, to allow the handset to act as a remote scheduler and browser for a DVR, an agreement that could be replicated with broadcasters elsewhere, and would provide a genuine differentiator, and a logical incentive for video operators to offer RIM handsets. In the Microsoft deal, RIM has integrated the Live Search engine into the BlackBerry Browser, making this the default search engine for its devices. The mobile search platform will let BlackBerry users get contextual, location-based search results or look for nearby points of interest, such as restaurants or movie theaters, from inside BlackBerry Maps. This is despite Google’s announcement last week of Google Mobile App for BlackBerry, a free download that offers faster search and a range of Google services for RIM devices. RIM also added native support for AOL, to add to existing backing for GChat, Yahoo IM and Windows Live Messenger.

The carrier portal market has gone through many phases in its short life. Portals like Vodafone Live! started out as the closest thing users could get to a real mobile web experience, as well as a refinement of the old walled garden, designed to allow the consumer some web roaming capabilities, but to keep them within the operator’s environment by making the internet experience usable and content-rich. This strategy has recently been weakening for the major operators as the unfettered mobile web becomes more accessible and usable, and as the headlines have been dominated by vendor-driven front ends, portals and stores like Nokia Ovi. Now Vodafone, learning many lessons from Japan’s majors, is looking to reinvent its Live! portal and set a new benchmark for operator offerings, that could see the balance of power shifting back somewhat to the carriers again.

The world’s largest cellco by revenue aims to integrate its mobile and fixed line web interfaces and sites, as it finally casts off its mobile-only heritage and looks to become a converged operator, buying up or partnering with fixed broadband providers in many of its core, but saturating, cellular territories. It promises to launch a new portal that will make the “current experience of Vodafone Live! pale into insignificance against what we have planned and we’ll replicate that online,” according to the company’s consumer business director, Ian Shepherd.

He said in a recent interview: “We’re developing the mobile internet fast and online in parallel with that. We want the web site to be a place that’s meaningful and useful so that customers bookmark it and come back to it regularly.” Although details are currently sketchy, and the product will not be seen in public until early next year, some techniques will include expanded exclusive and non-exclusive content and web services deals - to add to existing alliances like those with the BBC, Facebook and others; plus a new range of online tools, providing the ability to manage contacts and media, where several recent acquisitions, such as that of the Zyb social networking tool, will come into play.

If successful, the new Live! could achieve several important objectives. It would strengthen Vodafone’s brand and reputation as a converged service provider and pave the way for future developments like integrated mobile televsision and IPTV, or a full quad play. It would help the cellco catch up with other European rivals that have stolen a march in the mobile web experience, notably Orange and T-Mobile, which have gone beyond the basic store and content springboard pioneered in Europe by Live! and are providing full sets of web services integrating such facilities as social networking, location and presence awareness, and unified messaging. It would also help Vodafone create a web platform that would attract and retain users within its now-unwalled garden, and make its own portal - and therefore its network and branded handsets - the users’s default rather than one from Nokia, Google or Microsoft. All that would increase Vodafone’s power in the mobile internet value chain, and improve its strength in negotiating its share of the revenue split.

Operators were slow to recognize, or admit to, the need to offer unrestricted web browsing, but now they have woken up to the new era as laptop dongles and high end webphones stimulate mobile internet usage. Some seem prepared to accept the role of bit pipe, notably 3 with its very open and advanced service in partnership with established web brands. Others want to gain the pivotal role in the complex mobile internet spider’s web, and Vodafone will be fighting for that honor with majors from the cellphone and PC internet worlds.

Those operators that adopt the Vodafone approach are driving a renaissance in mobile portal investment and development, and are also seeking greater differentiation as the characteristics and functionality of the mobile web interface and applications become as important to brand position as the choice of handsets (a shift accelerated by Apple). Orange, therefore, is focusing on strong content, much of it for high value niches; T-Mobile on personalization and social networking; Vodafone on allowing the customer to define his or her experience very flexibly.

Current Analysis comments: “Whereas Orange has actively chosen to spin out separate mobile portal and on-device portal offerings for distinct user groups or interest groups, other operators have chosen to stick with the one-size-fits-all model, providing users with features to reconfigure their own content positioning and even pull applications straight to the home page, if required. The treatment of location-based technology is also creating some major differentiation between the competitors’ portal offerings, both at a functionality level and at a services level.”

Of course, for real success, the issue of tariffs needs to be addressed. Despite the rise of all-you-can-eat packages and unfettered web access, there are still some on-portal deals that may suit some users, but the various options are usually confusing and poorly presented. In the end, however functional and attractive the new Live! may be, if it is not well priced it will see consumers preferring to negotiate the minefield of mobile browsing by themselves.