Google Fiber To Acquire Webpass Internet Services
- by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, June 23, 2016
Google Fiber has entered into an agreement to acquire San Francisco-based Webpass in an effort to create faster Internet connectivity in the U.S. It also will allow
Google to deliver a combination of fiber and wireless services.
The acquisition -- the first publicly announced by the Alphabet subsidiary -- will give Google Fiber a boost in dense, urban areas, rather than having to build everything from scratch.
Google Fiber announced the acquisition in a Twitter Tweet. The transaction is expected to close in summer 2016, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
"By joining forces, we can accelerate the deployment of superfast Internet connections for customers across the U.S.," wrote Charles Barr, president of Webpass, in a blog post. "Webpass will remain focused on rapid deployment of high speed Internet connections for residential and commercial buildings, primarily using point to point wireless."
Webpass runs its own Ethernet network, removing the dependence on phone and cable companies.
Barr, who founded the company 13 years ago, boasts that Webpass has tens of thousands of customers across five major U.S. markets such as San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago, and Boston, adding to Google Fiber’s growing list of operational cities.
The company supports business Internet connections from 10 Mbps to 1,000 Mbps and residential Internet connections from 100 Mbps to 1 Gig.
Google offers Fiber in Provo, Austin, Kansas City, Nashville, and Atlanta, with plans to offer service in Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Antonio, Huntsville, Charlotte, Raleigh Durham, and others.
In an open question, is it time for Google to be broken up into smaller companies?
What seems a lifetime ago, the Bell Telephone Company(s), was broken up by the courts. They grew to be too big and too powerful. They strangled competition and mostly no competition was allowed.
When the so call happen, massive changes in the market place happened. There were new telephone companies, more and different types of electronic equipment, we gain many more telephone books and more advertisement. We also started down the path of new and creative electronic ideas like pagers. This open competition helped lead to bring cell phones and smart phones to the market. The point being, this was competition that spurred advancement to the consumer and the economy.
I was an employee for one of the Ma Bell break off companies, AT&T. ATT was on a path to die from where I sat because they lack the understanding what being competitive meant. To their credit, the divestiture was what actually saved the company.
Today, we have the same stranglehold on competition by Google. Google is the dominate player in online advertisement, search, internet and have their hands in many other industries, both online and offline.
Is it time for the Feds to breakup Google into different companies now? I say yes because this would be the best thing that could happen for all publishers, ad agencies and the advertising as a whole.