I may be risking FierceTelecom's future page views and search results when I say this, but here goes: Google, will you please just go away?
Google, dear pop culture icon and money machine, Google, it is not that I don't fully appreciate you. Day in and day out, hour after hour, search after search, I turn to you for advice, hints on breaking news, obscure information I can use to make myself feel superior to my friends, and even, yes, a little injection of self-esteem (and, no, I didn't mean "Dan O'Shea FranceTelecom," but thanks for asking).
But, Google, I'm concerned about your telecom obsession. The telecom industry keeps discouraging you, but you keep coming back anyway. Your insistence may influence radical changes in an industry that so many of us in telecom have come to adore for just being what it is and never changing too much or too fast.
You changed the course of the wireless industry and the 700 Mhz auction just by pretending you were going to bid on spectrum. The big winners were no surprise, mind you, but this open network trend you kept pressing on looks like it will take flight.
Elsewhere, Google, you got involved in the Unity trans-Pacific undersea cable venture, which gives you a piece of of this burgeoning sector while also allowing you access to much better deals for international bandwidth. You also have tackled another hot telecom trend with your unified communications venture.
More recently, you revived the truly ancient chatter about white space bandwidth and its potential uses for broadband. Now, you want the Federal Communication Commission to auction that off, too, which will give Android an even bigger market opportunity.
You've done so much, yet there are reports that you may top it all off by investing in a WiMAX joint venture. It's the one involving Sprint Nextel and Clearwire that died last fall, but with some interest from cable TV companies, is starting to look like it might happen again--and of course, you want a piece of that deal, too.
Enough is enough, Google. If telecom continues to take your lead, we may not recognize our cuddly, old industry in the future. That's all, Google. Now, will you please go away? - Dan