alminde,
Was thinking that myself when I heard about the free WiMax for San Francisco. Google and GTE. Good match for the future of telecom.
And Google's situation with NASA that was just pointed out in the post following yours tightens the proximity of all three. Google, GTE, and NASA.
New alliances are part and parcel of the telecom consolidations and growth since day one. Let's see where we end up with a successfull Stratellite test. GLTA.
Hang tough, the Stratellite is a huge effort, being worked at day by day.