Lunch on Verizon?

After months of sparring over the terms of the 700 MHz broadband spectrum auction, Google and Verizon are becoming fast frenemies (or is it enemiends?).

The two companies are reportedly in talks to bring Google-powered phones to Verizon’s network. Said a source close to the companies, “There are good useful talks going on and they could result in a deal.”

Surprising to hear, given the war of words between the two during the past year. Guess there are no hard feelings over remarks like this one from John Thorne, a Verizon senior vice president and deputy general counsel, offered up last year during a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The network builders are spending a fortune constructing and maintaining the networks that Google intends to ride on with nothing but cheap servers. It is enjoying a free lunch that should, by any rational account, be the lunch of the facilities providers.”