Google secretly testing super-mobile network on its campus

Google’s dream plan to build their own cellular network just took one massive step closer to becoming a reality. How? The company is quietly building and testing a secret wireless LTE network on its campus in Mountain View, California, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Speculation surrounding Google’s new wireless network started last week when the company asked the Federal Communications Commission for an experimental license for an “experimental radio service.” It requested the FCC to keep the details of the radio service, which covers a two-mile radius, secret.

Here’re the details so far: the service will utilize frequencies from 2524 to 2625 megahertz, which will be directed through 50 base stations — both indoors and out — and will connect up to 200 devices. The network, according to its application for an experimental license, will use both directional and non-directional antennas and, as wireless engineer Steven Crowley writes on his blog, “could have very high capacity for carrying data.”

The frequency spectrum Google will be using is currently controlled by Clear wire Corp., a corporation which provides wireless broadband in a “licensed spectrum,” according to the WSJ. The spectrum has the potential of being more reliable than modern Wi-Fi signals. That reliability is also why Dish Network offered to buy Clearwire for $5.15 billion and is also why Google is negotiating with Dish to get a slice of that spectrum pie. Clearwire, however, is currently owned by Sprint, which isn’t too excited about the offer.

Regardless of spectrum politics, Crowley suspects that the only reason to use these frequencies is to test or provide a mobile service. Another source tells the journal that Google may be trying to push a wireless service on its Google Fiber customers.

But not just anyone run over to Google’s campus and pick up on its new network. The frequencies being used, according to the WSJ, aren’t compatible with any phone out on the open market today.