Google is said to be launching its own mobile phone network and sell airtime and data price plans directly to its customers.

Plans for a US service, which will use wholesale carrier space acquired from Sprint and T-Mobile, will come to fruition in the "coming months".

Google's senior vice president of products, Sundar Pichai, confirmed as much during a public interview at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. He said that the company's experience with Android will benefit the firm in creating a new kind of mobile network.

"The core of Android and everything we do is to take an ecosystem approach and [a network would display] the same attributes. We have always tried to push the boundary with the innovations in hardware and software," he said.

However, Pichai was keen to stress that Google's codenamed "Nova" network would not take on the regular carriers in the States head to head, rather complement them.

"We want to experiment along those lines. We don’t intend to be a network operator at scale. We are actually working with carrier partners. Will announce something in the coming months," he revealed.

So, when you buy your next Nexus phone, chances are you'll be offered a different kind of mobile contract to go with it. And from Google itself.