When the London Times and the Financial Times run major stories about Google over the weekend, you know something’s brewing. The Times, in particular, has a piece on the Google plans for the Internet.

Readers of Google Future will know we’ve speculated in the past on Google’s intentions for their “dark fiber” network and over the moves to create shipping container datacenters. The idea of person-specific advertising on IP-TV (Internet television) is now being widely canvassed.

The Times begins its article: “Google is working on a project to create its own global internet protocol (IP) network, a private alternative to the internet controlled by the search giant, according to sources who are in commercial negotiation with the company.”

Moreover, the company has placed advertisements in the American and British press for “Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in … identification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network”. (Dark fiber is a legacy of the internet boom in the 90s when American companies laid down fiber optic cables for new broadband services. Following the dot-com crash, much of the work was abandoned. What Google is buying up is a usable network of cables spread across the United States that has never been activated.)

A leading content provider, who did not wish to be named, told Times Online: “We are in discussions with Google to provide content for their alternative internet service, to be distributed through their Google Cube product. As far as I’m aware they have been conducting negotiations with a number of other players in our marketplace to provide quality content to their users.” However, industry insiders fear that the development of a network of Google Cubes powered over a Google-owned internet network will greatly increase the power that Google wields over online publishers and internet users.

Rumors of a Google Cube, a box selling for $100 (£60), are now rife. The box will probably access web-based services of the type Google already supplies, but which will actually be more of a TV receiver for the company’s Internet television services.

The pieces of the jigsaw are starting to fall into place.