Could Google be attempting to do what Republic Wireless[1] are doing? I always loved the idea of Republic, but they only ever had one (crappy) handset available, and I'm on a $30 a month plan with T-Mobile that largely fills my needs.
But it seems like an area that's ripe for a larger player to come in and do it better- I very much hope that Google intends to be that player. They've been frustrated by the existing players in wireless enough times (Google Voice, Verizon's treatment of the Galaxy Nexus)...
Republic is a subsidiary of Bandwidth.com which is where Google Voice gets their minutes from (along with Skype and most of the rest of the SIP world). There are a number of problems with Republic's plan, but the primary one is one that Google should have a much easier time solving.
When Republic was launching, the critical necessity for their launch was the receipt of their Cyanogen modded handsets. These devices are different in a couple ways:
1) They will always auto-hop onto WiFi
2) They will always try to route via SIP first
The practical problem is that SIP over GSM/3G is not very good sounding even when you use G.729 (when you're coming over the top). Google has a chance to beat this part as they can make a much tighter integration (one wonders what could be tighter than the built-in SIP stack, but I digress).
COULD google come in and have a grand time in the wireless market? Yes. Will they risk alienating their carrier partners (their top distribution channel)? Probably not.
To my mind, this is just another Google infrastructure play that makes sense for a whole variety of reasons, but I don't think it will serve as the basis for GoogleMobile. For one thing, this wifi network simply isn't large enough to support a carrier, imho.
But it seems like an area that's ripe for a larger player to come in and do it better- I very much hope that Google intends to be that player. They've been frustrated by the existing players in wireless enough times (Google Voice, Verizon's treatment of the Galaxy Nexus)...
[1] http://www.republicwireless.com/