While Apple ponders building a television, Google wants to become a cable provider. Google, of course, have lots of experience in the video sphere, so this isn’t all that surprising. Now that YouTube has big names producing exclusive content for it, the internet advertising search engine giant is taking the battle to our living room.
The technical details remain unclear for now, as the project is still in the planning stages. Google already offer a phone service in the US (and they own some infrastructure as well, having started building a fiber-optic network in Kansas), so it’s likely there would be some bundles available to consumers. I assume they will somehow mesh this with their existing Google TV as well.
The number one item on my wish list is true à-la-carte channels, something other cable providers have ferociously resisted so far. Why let people buy the one channel they want for $2.99 when you can gouge them with a bundle of garbage they’ll never watch (plus that one channel they do want) for $14.99? That would be Google’s ultimate trump card over Rogers, Bell and their brethren in the U.S. It also seems logical that, given Google’s background in streaming video, they’ll offer far more on-demand content than the competition. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and look forward to seeing Google vans on our streets.