Google to offer internet phone services?

In Google gears up for a free-phone challenge to BT Elizabeth Judge at the Times speculates that Google could be building up a communications infrastructure that at some point could be opened up to launch a free internet telephone service.

The ideas arise primarily from a job advertisment for the company for a ?gstrategic negotiator?h to help the company to provide a ?gglobal backbone network?h- in other words, a high-capacity international infrastructure.

There is already a lot of unused telecommunications cabling around the world, after speculative construction outstripped demand. The suggestion is that Google could be looking into buying up large quantities of this redundant network, in order to ensure good quality global telecommunications.

ADDENDUM: In Why Google Is Not Doing VoIP, respected commentator Om Malik suggests that initial speculation goes too far, and that Google are simply trying to ensure proper connectivity on their existing server networks.

However, what the speculation does highlight is that Google are in a position to use their influence to apply their resources to a whole range of internet applications.

As Nick Bradbury once pointed out in Ramblings on Google and the Internet OS
, while Microsoft sought to become the lead operating system for the PC market, Google are trying to position themselves as the operating system of the internet.

Whether Google utilises Voip for users in the future remains speculation only. And although Om Malik points out that there is currently no business model in free internet telephony, he should be plainly aware that - once upon a time, before the advent of Google as a $40 billion corporation - people said the same about search. :)