Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of products for Google, today confirmed that the world's largest search company has been in talks with wireless carriers to deliver connectivity directly to mobile users in the U.S. He also confirmed that the company is working on a new mobile payments framework named Android Pay. Pichai said it won't be a full-service mobile network in competition with existing carriers. Instead, he said, it will give Google a platform through which it can experiment with new services for Android smartphones.

"We don't intend to be a network operator at scale," Pichai said in a keynote address at the Mobile World Congress trade show. "We are working with carrier partners. You'll see our answer in coming months. Our goal is to drive a set of innovations we think should arrive, but do it a smaller scale, like Nexus devices, so people will see what we're doing."

A Google service could potentially shake up the US wireless industry.

Google is rumored to be working with Sprint and T-Mobile to create a cellular service, which would also be aided by local Wi-Fi networks to augment coverage.

Google is also working on building a backbone for connectivity in regions of the world where there's no existing infrastructure. The For example, the Project Loon employs balloons that lift cellular radios in the air to augment coverage on the ground.

After two years, the balloons can now keep cellular radios in the air for as long as 200 days, Pichai said.

The next phase is Project Titan, which would take lightweight drone aircrafts outfitted with cellular radios to further augment coverage. He said that the drones could be deployed areas in need of extra capacity, like a disaster zone.

The company envisions a mesh network stitched together by drone and balloons to bring the Internet to regions that have no other options.

Pichai also talked about the Android One program. Today, smartphones that most people would be happy using can be purchased for $100. But, Pichai said, "that could be done at $50 two years from now," something that would bring smartphones to a market of 1.7 billion people.

Pichai also confirmed that it's working on a new mobile payments framework named Android Pay. He noted that confirmed that this would not be a new product for users, but an "API layer" that allows other companies to support secure payments on Android in both physical stores and via apps.

"We are doing it in a way in which anybody else can build a payments service on top of Android," said Pichai. "So, in places like China and Africa we hope that people will use Android Pay to build innovative services."

Pichai claimed it would "start with NFC" and eventually accommodate biometric sensors as well.

Pichai also confirmed that Google Wallet would continue as a separate service to Android Pay, albeit one reliant on Android Pay's framework.