WEBPASS .. This is a big deal, rather a declaration of WEBWARS 2.0!. BIG deal. Mike James, the retired KING anchor, has been writing about his new WEBPASS connection ,,, a $60/mo 1 gig data stream that replaces COMCAST. I finally got around to checking our Mike’s new system. Sadly it is not yet available to single family homes. BUT! This is not “JUST” a way to cut your cable. WEBPASS is part of a somewhat stealthy effort by Google to take over the data/web interface from cell phone to living room. In parallel with WEBPASS, Google is also offering Google Fi, for $20/month plus $10 for each additional line, Google Fi offers INTERNATIONAL cell phone service with unlimited voice and text. They do charge for data but the price is very low and free whenever your device can connect via WiFi … including WiFi coming over anyone’s WEBPASS connected to a WIFI router! To make the big deal bigger, This year the wireless world is switching to 5G … a connection that will stream data without any cable at high speeds. COMCAST is scurrying to compete. They now offer a so so sell phone plan but at very high prices and without the international features of GOOGLE. Watch for competition from Amazon and T-mobile! Personally, I think Comcast is in deep trouble.

The future is the Net

The money will be in the cloud and the access.

Where is China?

Remember WEBWARS I? That was the war over browsers … Microsoft tried to unseat Netscape, Google and other combatants created Firefox, Chrome and .. within the closed world of Apple’ SaFari. Google won, Chrome dominates a multilateral world with smaller combatants including Microsoft’s Internet Explorer now called Edge,

The new war front is the cloud and the data stream.

Google is already in net wars 2.0 with the other members of the big cloud .. Microsoft and Amazon. Anything you do on the web, if you live outside China, is dominated by the the big three of the cloud. Next step is controlling how everyone connects to the cloud.

Until now you got your data via a wire or a wireless. The vendors included phone companies, governments, cable companies, “internet service providers were as small as a local ma and pa or even Trump’s fat hacker sitting in front of a screen.

Now it is WEBWARS 2.0.

Google Fi has hit the big time. The Google-backed wireless service formerly known as Project Fi announced that it would expand . The new ISP is global, no longer bounded by borders or even border walls, Google Fi is global.

Google is pure data … the plan uses intelligent switching to give access via between T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular and (I guess) anyone else who does not want an antitrust suit. The rates are the lowest offered by any cell company and you can roam freely wherever you go outside the US.

Meanwhile, Comcast is trying to offer cell service too by leveraging off of a deal with Verizon. Comcast has nio choice because the new 5G networks will make the decisions to cut the cable pretty easy for most folks. A lot of people may want to look into solutions such as satellite internet now so that they can access the web from practically wherever they please. All of Fi’s network switching happens behind the scenes; I never know when my Pixel connects to T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular’s towers or any WiFi signal you are authorized to use including any of Google’s 2 million free public hotspots .

Google uses a simple $20 as a line-access fee and then $10 for each gigabyte of cellular data you use, plus taxes and fees. If you’re opting for coverage for the whole family, it costs $15 for each line after the first. The data fee is the magic number here. Google does rebate whatever you do not use bur thinking about a bill clicking while you make a Skype call ort watch CNN is not my idea od easy to do. Still, the clarion call is out.

The biggest question may be who else will enter the war? The one world data access is not easily separable from the idea of a one world data cloud. Amazon seems likely and Comcast is already sort of there. Comcast is limited by its market focus and lack of access to its own cloud. Microsoft’s fiasco with Windows phine seems to have convinced Satya Nadella to stay ot of the direct to consumer market for data, so the biggest challenges are likely to come from Europe and China. The EU is already unhappy about US dominance of big data but is in the midst of BREXIT as well as national franchises for telecommunications. China has gone further but is hobbled by the need for the Communist Party to dominate ALL data within the people it governs. Google has largely been expelled from China and Alibaba provides much of the sort of function that Amazon Web services does world wide.