Perhaps Google is going to force the hand of America's existing telcoms to provide more reasonable broadband services. Right now, they're sitting fat, dumb, an

Perhaps Google is going to force the hand of America's existing telcoms to provide more reasonable broadband services. Right now, they're sitting fat, dumb, and happy as oligopolists with no significant incentive to provide faster service -- as long as their competitors don't move first. These "tests" are strategically similar to the Chrome browser. It's not that Google cares that it provides a fast, standards-compliant browser to the world. Instead, Google simply cares that nobody else can limit progress by sandbagging, as Microsoft did with IE6 for years. So, even if Chrome's market share is relatively low, its existence forces Microsoft to compete. And, when Microsoft does, Google wins because its net-based services are a good user experience. Phone companies don't want the expense of upgrading their infrastructure to support fast Internet. And, cable companies are surely terrified of gigabit-to-the home. Why would MTV bother with the cable companies when it could just stream its shows on demand via Akamai (or whomever) and sell highly-targeted advertising? This strategy also reminds me of Google's $4+B bid on the 700mhz spectrum. They didn't actually want to own it, but they wanted to be sure the US government sold it with the open access rules attached which would ultimately benefit themselves. Five years from now, I think The Street will look back on this move as brilliant.