My oh my has this been a busy GoogNexus-One-250x269le Phone weekend! Google, if reports are to be believed, is rumored to launch the GSM unlocked phone known as the “Nexus One” with the help of a familiar friend-T-Mobile USA.  According to Peter Kafka of All Things Digital, Google intends to sell the phone in a way that customers who buy the handset are provided a list that lets them pick a carrier in a menu-style set up.  Kafka reports that Google has approached multiple carriers about supporting its new phone, but only T-Mobile has agreed to actively help push the device.

I should also note that it has been rumored that the only reason Google decided to manufacture the “Nexus One” as a GSM device in the first place is because  Verizon Wireless declined to help Google push the phone on the open market.  Did Verizon feel betrayed? Did T-Mobile pull of the heist of the century?  Only time will tell.

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12 COMMENTS

  2. oh man i hope i can use tmobiles payment plan to get this phone …unless its like 100 bucks …but i doubt thats happening

  3. It would be a big slap in the face if Verizon got this phone anyway. Tmobile helped make Android what it is. How quickly people forget that a month or two ago, Tmobile was the ONLY US carrier to have Android offerings. I dont believe this phone was ever going to be on Verizons network. I knew when Verizon got the Droid that was something bigger in the works for Tmobile.

  4. I think the most likely reason is that GSM is more widely supported around the world, whereas CDMA (like Verizon's network) isn't used all that much and has been declining in use. Google wants to sell to more people worldwide, so they make sure it uses technology so it can be used worldwide.

  5. Google is moving down in the stack to challenge B2C opponents with an open architecture and new sets of standards. In creating a post-revenue business model, Google can only manage success if consumers accept a co-branding and outsourced manufactured device … NQ Logic recommends reading about the rest of the new Google’s mobile strategy at http://www.nqlogic.com

  6. The timing of all of this is curious, though. Droid just launched, and both Verizon and Motorola have made a pretty significant bet on Android.

    To have the Google phone drop smack in the middle of Christmas buying season, certainly risks customers holding off on Droid, and waiting to see what Google will come out with for Verizon. Needless to say, the risk of that scenario playing out can't make either Verizon or Motorola too happy right now.

    More to the point, when you position yourself as a platform for handset makers and carriers, and then turn tail and compete with them so early in the ecosystem seeding process, that has to be a wake up call that maybe the enemy of my enemy (Apple) is not my friend after all.

    The reasoning that Google may feel that they need to put destiny into their own hands RIGHT NOW is something that I blogged about in:

    Android’s ‘Inevitability’ and the Missing Leg
    http://bit.ly/87URNI

    Check it out, if interested.

    Mark

  7. Curious, but kind of odd.

    For one, who's this for, if they're selling it without a contract? The FCC filing shows they support HSPA on the 850MHz, 1700MHz, and 1900MHz bands, but not at 2100MHz. So that's fine for AT&T, but only covers some locales of T-Mobile's already sketchy 3G, and it's also weak for Europe. Some places do 3G on 850MHz in Europe, but most European 3G cells use 2100MHz, as does T-Mobile in many locales… about half of their 3G coverage.

  8. The explanation is very simple. Google originally sold Dream Developer phones, and still does. The Android hardware has evolved and the Nexus One is a Dev Phone hardware refresh. Nice, simple, and clean.

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