Google edges toward telco territory.

"If anything, even the notion of a Ma Google proves the telephone industry is changed now forever. To be a local phone operator once meant having to build a network of wires connecting every customer, something so astronomically expensive nowadays it's likely no single phone company could build a nationwide network, as AT&T did... But nowadays, you no longer need to invest untold billions building a network. As Google is showing, you can sow the seeds with a minimum investment to dole out broadband."