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With an unlimited network bandwidth what would you build?

  • Related to Product Strategy
  • For Growth PM
  Google
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Answers (2)

Clarify

 

  • What is meant by unlimited bandwidth, unlimited latency on both provider and subscriber? Both

  • Who are we : Google

  • Goal: Revenue

  • Timeline : 2-3 years

  • market : Worldwide

What is possible with this new tech

Provider side

  • Build more powerful data-intensive solutions/ Apps

  • Centralize computing and storage as a network is unlimited

Consumer side

  • End-user devices can render data-intensive Apps

  • Run more real-time experience

Solutions

  • Communication/ Social – Phone /laptop now render real-life full 3D communication

  • Virtual reality – A real-life assistance always around you to talk to [Alexa is a real 3D woman]

  • Automobile industry – Self-driving car [ no latency issues for ML algorthms]

  • Cloud computing – Now can provide ML insights for different industries

  • Robotics – Intelligence robots centrally commanded

Evaluation Criteria : Relevance to goal, align with Google, Improve CX, possible in the next 2 years
Description of solution
With unlimited bandwidth google can build real-time 3d experience around all its offering [Maps, Android Phones, Chromebooks]. But most importantly google can now launch a messager that renders real life 3d communication within your professional or social network. This could help google leapfrog in $500B social media market from outdated updates to real time / real life communication.
Tradeoffs
 – Requires phones hardware and apps to evolue to leverage all the bandwidth and deliver 3D experience
– Privacy issues if everything can be transmitted in real time

Here’s my thoughts on answering this Google product strategy question.

Approach:

  1. Clarify
  2. Reiterate Google’s mission
  3. Highlight global issues that Google is well-positioned to solve with unlimited bandwidth
  4. Prioritize
  5. Brainstorm the solutions
  6. Compare and prioritize the solutions
Clarify
We assume that “unlimited bandwidth” means:
  • On every device on earth we have unlimited Mbps, with no latency or range limitations – Correct
  • Should we build something as part of Google or build something in general? – Google
  • Google is a huge corporation with multiple product areas, does Google have the main reason/goal to build something leveraging unlimited bandwidth capabilities? – Yes, we want to get more Google product users
Mission alignment check
Unlimited bandwidth is a great success catalyst for most existing Google products. Given the most recent span on Google’s mission “To help people get things done”, there are many things that are very hard to do without the technology especially in the emerging markets.
Global issues
Most of the global issues can be considered in developing countries with the lowest Internet Bandwidth like countries in: Latin & Central America, Africa, India etc.
We have the following main problems:
  1. Mass hunger
  2. Affordable healthcare
  3. Quality education
There are initiatives from other companies that help to solve these problems. Also we know that video would become a much more popular data format in the “unlimited bandwidth” reality. Given Google existing products like YouTube, Google Meet, Google Calendar and Android, Google is well-positioned to tackle education problem.
Solutions for Quality education:
Here are a few reasons besides bandwidth why it’s hard to have universal high quality education:
– Not enough teachers
– Not enough content
– Not enough schools
If we solve the first problem, others won’t be as important anymore.
Here are a few solutions:
1. Crowdsource local teachers to create video content for K-12 & leverage Google calendar for scheduling mid-term exams (via YouTube live)
2. Open source Google Assist to expand live translation for illiterate adults
3. Launch a new version of Google Home_Edu with the projector that is more accessible/cheap than Android or any other laptop
Prioritization:
Solution ideas New users potential Efforts Risk Strategy
1 H H M Not many teachers are needed for the content creation as long as they represent the education needs of their location. Distributing structured content should be ok, given the popularity of Android.
2 M L H It will be up to the local dev community, would need monitoring and quality control and we assume that there are more K-12 kids than illiterate adults.
3 L M M Needs hardware, so there will be cost associated with that and the willingness to pay is not high (poverty)
We’d go with the solution#1 as it has higher impact (in terms of TAM) and slightly lower risk.