Google Inc. and Dish Networks reportedly are talking about offering their own wireless service.
Such a partnership would prove disruptive to the legacy telecom industry -- Dish is a satellite TV provider and Google is an Internet company.
However, there is more to each brand than their original business models. Dish now owns $4 billion worth of wireless spectrum. And Google is the developer of the Android OS and it owns Motorola's handset business. Plus, it holds $45 billion in cash. Pairing Dish and Google would create a new kind of player in the mobile service provider space.
How AT&T, Verizon and Sprint would fare amid such competition is unknown. For its part, Dish may need more than one partner to carry out a mobile venture, Well Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker noted this past summer. AT&T or another operator could be one of those entities. Either way, Ryvicker wrote in a Nov. 19 memo to clients, 2013 should be "Dish's Year."
