It makes a lot of sense to partner with local telcos to serve customers, but it makes it less likely that Google would be able to leverage providing this infras

It makes a lot of sense to partner with local telcos to serve customers, but it makes it less likely that Google would be able to leverage providing this infrastructure into broader commercial advantage. I wonder how much control Google can have over balloon routes? In the limiting case, if they had none, they would have little negotiating power, since they have the infrastructure over a country one way or another and have to deal with that country's carriers. If they have more control, they can choose how to route the balloons so they don't pay to launch balloons over countries they haven't done deals with.