Amazon Weighing its Own Mobile Network?

Speculation about whether leading application providers will ever want to become Internet access providers in their own right is not new. In fact, as Google has formally become an Internet service provider (Google Fiber, Starbucks Wi-Fi and other smaller tests) and has owned mobile spectrum, plus been a bidder on new spectrum, at least one app provider already has made the leap.

Now Amazon is said to have conducted testing of mobile or wireless network performance, using spectrum controlled by satellite communications company Globalstar. To be sure, companies test all sorts of things from time to time. 

So the move does not necessarily mean Amazon has decided to become more active in the ISP business. One might simply note that Amazon is indirectly involved already. It buys capacity from mobile service providers to deliver content to Kindle devices. 

As T-Mobile US and SoftBank-owned Sprint make assaults on the existing structure of the mobile market, many would argue an equally big disruption could come from the entry of a major application provider such as Amazon into the mobile or untethered ISP business. 

Some say Amazon is testing a new untethered protocol, not Long Term Evolution.