Google Building Alternative Internet

Google is working on its most ambitious project to date, the creation of a global data transfer network that could effectively serve as a private Internet. Since the introduction of AdWords three years ago, Google has become the world's largest media company and advertising vehicle. It has grown to rival Microsoft in scope and scale. The process has made it a fully globalized corporation. Google has an estimated $7billion in the bank and employs many of the brightest brains in IT. It also has a reputation for being one of the best tech firms in the world to work for and has been known to use that reputation to headhunt intellect from its rivals. It is focused on the burgeoning Chinese market and appears to be performing better there than its chief rival Microsoft is. Google has the obvious capital and intellectual resources to do just about anything it wants to. There are a number of reasons backing speculation that Google is building its own global digital communications network. Google has formally entered the telecom business with the release of a VOIP client known as Google Talk. VOIP is an acronym for Voice Over IP, which is a synonym for Internet telephone. In order to provide this service Google has had to acquire technical and physical resources that, along with other assets held by the company, point to the construction of an alternative Internet. As Microsoft has so ably demonstrated over the past twenty-five years, there are a number of profitable ventures found in a space monopolized by a single mega-corporation. If that is the path Google is taking, building the infrastructure to capitalize on it would be considered the crucial but difficult first step. Over the past ten months, Google has been purchasing a large quantity of redundant fiber-optic lines, (commonly referred to as dark-fiber), in cities around the world. This fiber was laid during the boom years of the late 1990's but left surplus after the dot-com crash in 2000. Speculation about Google building an alternative Internet has been circulating since early Light Reading today reported on some of Google's recent real estate acquisitions. Google is leasing large amounts of floor space in or near major telecom interconnection facilities such as the recent leasing of about 1/10 th of the rentable space at carrier hotels ) on the west coast, with the goal of linking Google's North American and Asian networks. In early 2005, Google began issuing RFP notices to relevant tech firms for the development of a DWDM fiber optics network. The RFP process ended earlier this month and Google is now reviewing bids from multiple tech vendors. Google is said to be planning to first establish a network in North America and then connect it with similar networks established in Europe and Asia . The construction of such a network could give Google the ability to deliver multiple branded media such as music, video, online telephone and other Internet services to every home in the United States . DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) is a technology that exponentially increases the carrying capacity of fiber optic cables. According to an article in yesterday's