Google: Time for world domination?

... wireless software start-up, and was looking to hire a global infrastructure strategic negotiator to ink dark fibre contracts as part of a "global backbone network".

Offering Internet access gets more potential Google users online and gives the company another way to target consumers with ads, particularly location-based advertisements for wireless users.

Google, which tends to keep long-term plans under wraps, did not return an e-mail seeking comment for this story. (Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story.)

Some people speculate the company will use the dark fibre to build a massive US network that would rival those of some of the largest Internet backbone providers such as MCI and AT&T. As that theory goes, Google would use this network to shuttle traffic across the US between its data centres. Then it would use a wireless network to distribute the content locally to end users.

Voice, video
VoIP is also a likely target, analysts said.

"If the traffic is flowing across the Internet, you have no idea how many routers the traffic has gone through, which can impact the quality of the call," said Michael Howard, an analyst at Infonetics Research. "But if the traffic travels on your own network, you can control the quality. That could be reason enough to build a network."

Video is another possibility. Google hosts people's downloaded video for free and indexes and searches it.

"It's pretty evident that they will have some play in video distribution. How that's going to come out is still a mystery," said Vamsi Sistla, director of broadband and digital home/media at ABI Research.

Like many other large companies with high bandwidth needs, Google could be building its own network simply to be saving money.

"I would imagine that Google must be paying someone a lot of money to keep its data centres running and in sync," Howard said. "So it makes perfect sense for them to build a network themselves to connect their data centres."

Gartner analyst Allen Weiner, who predicts Google will eventually develop a Google phone, said becoming an application delivery platform would be "part of [Google's] intellectual property DNA ."

"If they built out a hosting platform for people to upload all kinds of content that could be searched by Google and monetised by Google, like video and podcasts... it takes money to do, and with the search capabilities as their strong suit it could be something they could do," Weiner said. "Google could say, 'We'll host it for you; you point to us.' That could be huge."

CNET News.com's Marguerite Reardon and Martin LaMonica contributed to this report.