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Google is teaming up w/ carriers to offer its own wireless service in the coming months

Sundar Pichai

During an interview at Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona today, Google’s Android chief Sundar Pichai made a few interesting announcements, including confirming the company will launch its own wireless service as an MVNO in the coming months.

The news follows several reports in recent months claiming Google was planning to launch its own wireless network. Back in January, we discussed why a Google MNVO is exactly what the US wireless industry needs.

Google becoming an MVNO, or a mobile virtual network operator, would mean it will likely team up with one of the other carriers to run its own wireless service using one or more networks. Although Google does have several of its own projects for delivering internet access, such as its Project Loon initiative, Pichai confirmed Google is working with other carriers on the roll out of its wireless service. Previous reports suggested that Google’s wireless service would be capable of automatically switching between T-Mobile and Sprint connectivity based on which network offered the best service at any given location.

Pichai didn’t provide many other details, but he did hint that the project would at least initially launch on the scale of its Nexus devices, which could be a hint that the service might first be paired with its own Android devices.

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Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s weekly Logic Pros series and makes music as one half of Toronto-based Makamachine.