back to article Google wants to gobble up Nokia's airborne broadband biz – reports

Google looks set to expand its horizon according to reports that claim the ad giant is in talks to buy Nokia's airplane broadband biz. Nokia's tech could provide Google with a faster alternative to existing in-flight Wi-Fi. The LTE A2G cellular-based system is intended to forge a direct link between the aircraft and the ground …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doesn't matter where your are Google will steal your private data

    I hoped we would have more of the good type of toilets in planes.

  2. steelpillow Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Why?

    Sounds like Nokia must be short of money again.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why?

      Sounds like Nokia must be short of money again.

      I doubt it. After they offloaded phones they realised that selling stuff for a profitable price was actually quite good, and all they are doing here is selling a technology they've developed to somebody who is both able and likely to pay them a handsome price in cash, and who thinks they can make more money from it than Nokia expect to make themselves. The value to Google is always slurping the data, and that's a continuous value stream - for Nokia, as a manufacturer the value they could realise was only ever in hardware sales and any hardware support.

      Hopefully Google will then turn their attention to (for example) UK trains, where the on-train wifi can always be placed on an overlapping Venn chart of three three categories "not fitted", "broken", "nominally working but utterly crap. It's on South West Trains that they'd manage to have a crap system that wasn't fitted but yet was still broken.

      1. steelpillow Silver badge

        Re: Why?

        I can understand Google liking the idea of a comms standard with their own backdoor baked in, but I cannot really understand Nokia throwing away the chance to be the go-to supplier.

      2. Mage Silver badge

        Re: selling stuff for a profitable price was actually quite good

        Especially stuff they didn't want.

        They missed out on that with paper, welly boots, set-boxes, TVs etc.

        Personally I'd not buy anything Nokia is selling. I bet not only are "batteries not included" but IP and brands aren't either (except as licences!).

        1. Kernel

          Re: selling stuff for a profitable price was actually quite good

          "Personally I'd not buy anything Nokia is selling. I bet not only are "batteries not included" but IP and brands aren't either (except as licences!)." (sic)

          I believe that's called a 'continuing revenue stream".

          It seems to me that if you can sell the results of your research to someone else who is prepared to take on the risks of manufacture, deployment, support and marketing while you continue to get a return on the research effort that you paid for up front, then that's a very good thing.

  3. Sanctimonious Prick

    Nokia

    As a company, they have been around for a long time, and I'm pretty certain they know what they're doing.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Just when....

    ...you thought Google couldn't track everything you do you at 9,000m.

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