Sometimes once an acquisition occurs, there’s a celebration of new technology and the new partnership. This is quite the opposite as Google has quietly acquired technology startup Alpental Technologies. While there isn’t much information, it seems that they were a privately held company with about ten employees. Michael Hart and Peter Gelbman, who now list their employer as Google, founded the company in 2012.
According to GeekWire, Alpental Technologies was working on projects in relation to 5G. 5G is a wireless network technology that will become the successor to 4G / LTE, which other nations are also scrambling to develop and introduce standards for the global market. Although it is uncertain how close Alpental was to introducing the technology, Japan and other countries have been striving to launch 5G by 2020. 5G mobile networks have immense capabilities with data transmission rates of ten gigabits a second.
GeekWire hints that this new acquisition could be a play to try and link Google Fiber to more homes. Currently, Google offers its Google Fiber Internet and TV service to a limited number of people in the United States. Fiber offers Gigabit upload and download speeds, which is a huge advantage over local cable and DSL providers.
Source: GeekWire | Image via Alpental Technologies