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Google to Offer Free Wi-Fi?
meaning writes "Business 2.0 reports on the possibility of Google building a national broadband network and giving Wi-Fi access to everyone in America. From the article: 'So once the GoogleNet is built, how would consumers connect for free access? One of the cheapest ways would be for Google to blanket major cities with Wi-Fi, and evidence gathered by Business 2.0 suggests that the company may be trying to do just that. In April it launched a Google-sponsored Wi-Fi hotspot in San Francisco's Union Square shopping district, built by a local startup called Feeva. Feeva is reportedly readying more free hotspots in California, Florida, New York, and Washington, and it's possible that Google may be involved.'"
these are the real times we will all need a tinfoil hat. Who knows how Google will broadcast ads using a nationwide network of Wi-Fi
do.what.promptcmds
The first and most obvious question is how Google would manage to support a huge wireless network without charging for service. Perhaps they'd sell ad space and coffee near the hubs?
The second question I had was how much damage such a network would do to existing local internet companies. If Google moves in and essentially gives their product away, how can the current ISPs cope?
As a user, I'd be glad to have reliable, free wireless service available. A country where the service was ubiquitous, much like the electrical system and water system, would be a dream (probably the network administrator's worst nightmare, though).
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
This is what I've been waiting for: private companies providing free access instead of tax payers paying for it.
Capitalism does work!
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
By supporting a variety of products and exploring countless different potential businesses, Google keeps its core nebulous. Anything is a potential target for Google to diversify into. This gets them a lot of free coverage for products they may or may not even be associated with, but the "Gee-Whiz" factor is still there.
Whether or not its an actual strategy per se, or pleasant happenstance, I don't know, but it's done damn well in either case.
--mOperandi
1. Offer free wi-fi
2. Offer free search
3. Guarantee that every human being who uses them will see ads
4. Massive profit
Fixed it for ya
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
The negativity on this board is a little depressing. I, for one, am tired of getting gouged by; baby bells, cable companies, cell phone companies, etc., etc. The hope that Google, of all companies, will come in and save us from the ongoing rape of consumers of communications, is something that makes me hopeful. I know without a doubt that all these services can be provided by one vendor instead of three, using one communications technology instead of four or more.
Europe, Japan, and other countries have better services for less money. If Google can shake up the status quo in the United States of Greed, I'm right there with them. Hooray for Google.
Best regards.
There's an old saying... The most expensive gift you can get someone is a Free Puppy.
Similarly speaking... I'm not sure I can afford to get "Free" Wi-Fi access from Google.
I'm just a whee bit tired of being innundated with advertising, and the cost of product purchases going up to pay for all of it. You know, I'd be willing to spend a little bit of money to just get the things I want and need, rather than paying for everybody else to get stuff they never asked for.
I am sick of the word "consumer".
I agree. Not only that but haven't you noticed how business has moved away from the term SERVICE in the past decade or so? Now it's "support". Or "Customer CARE". I laughed my ass off the other day on a plane as the CEO of Continental Airlines explained on the recording how he was happy that Continental could offer me a "product". Yeah, air travel is a "product" now. Maybe I can re-sell it. What do I do if it breaks, can I take it back?
SERVICE as in SERVITUDE as in the CUSTOMER is the important part of the equation here.
But no, you are a "consumer", a mindless statistic that only exists to fulfill the income projections of the business. I'm glad I only work here, "stealing" a US job.
end of rant.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
1) and 2) didn't work for NetZero or any of the other dot bombs. Why would it work for Google?
Besides, Google tries to be non-obtrusive with its advertising. Most likely if they ever implemented this they'd make their revenue by increasing their reach in the services they already provide. What that also means is that service will probably be crippled to some extent. Free web browsing through a proxy, maybe, but I doubt you'll be able to use Kazaa (or whatever the current P2P app is, I haven't been following).
From what I understand, Google already pays next to nothing for transit. It seems like everybody peers with them anyways. If anything they are using the new dark fiber to link up their datacenters and for internal uses to ensure that they can get more data to the enduser with less hassles. Google Earth alone has to eat up an insane amount of bandwidth.
-nick
The article is rather bad at proving anything. It is really just speculation -- poorly thought out speculation at that. Some of their facts seem wrong as well. $60 per megabit!? No way it could be that expensive. Also, saying Goggle will provide FREE Internet all across America is really presumptuous. They have a duty to their stockholders, you know...
no kidding--this is why i have "flamebait" articles modded up to five--they're the funniest comments on slashdot.
This is not a rumor. I have a friend who works at Google and he's been talking about this for at least 8 months now. The question is, how will the phone companies respond? They are losing their phone business to VOIP, now their ISP business is being threatened.
Actually, all they need is a good faith belief that do no evil maximizes shareholder value in the long run. Which conceivably it does.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
As a public company, you can wind up in court (and your officers in jail) if you aren't acting to maximize shareholder value.
add to the above "while not breaking the law and behaving as a responsible member of society", a small detail many boards of directors forget in their quest to dupe- uhh convince - the shareholder that their stock is worth what they paid for it.
Funnily enough the shareholders have more control over the stock price than the actual corporation. Share price is a function of what people THINK it's worth and has little to do with the company after the IPO.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The thing that bugs me is the entitlement mentality that some have about this. If it is "WiFi" then it should be free.
I think the mentality is that if it's the internet then it should be free. This is due to the fact that that's how the internet was designed. Of course, free in this sense means that there aren't any payments between peers in the system. When MIT connected to Harvard neither of them paid each other for the privilege, but they both had to share the cost of the wires.
Now with WiFi there are no wires. There's still a cost, since it takes energy to broadcast a signal, but we still call it "free".
Google has some great products, many of which I can't use at home because I use a Mac. In looking at the list below I'd venture a guess that Microsoft has more Mac compatible apps than Google, which strikes me as real funny.
Google Applications that require Windows:
Basically - anything you need to download (outside of a web browser) requires MS Windows.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
...wifi.google.com. Yes, it returns an error. But the host resolved, as opposed to, say, porn.google.com.
Interesting.
BytesTemplar.com
From their latest Quarterly Report:
"the main focus of our advertising programs is to provide relevant and useful advertising to our users, reflecting our commitment to constantly improve their overall web experience, and therefore steps we take to improve the relevance of the ads displayed on our web sites, such as removing ads that generate low click-through rates, could negatively affect our near-term advertising revenues."
Just because they're a public company, doesn't mean they can't run an ethical business. Especially if its part of their image. And considering their shareholders have realized gains of 300% over the past year, they don't have very much to complain about, do they?
In fact, when it gets down to it, maybe - just maybe - you can run an ethical and a profitable business.
I'm fairly certain they're reading the signs wrong here:
Any WiFi involvment on google's part is most likely some sort of GoogleMaps-intergrated hotspot finder for finding other (free and 3rd-party-commercial) hotspots.
On the other hand, TFA mentions google acquiring bits of dark fibre. IMO, this makes very little sense for building a WiFi ISP, as I would imagine that the fibre isn't exactly located in the sorts of places you'd want to put a hotspot. This could be some sort of project to connect their datacenters using private lines.
On the other hand, this could simply be a capital investment on their part. It could be an attempt to spark some life into the dormant telecom markets. Sure, the fibre's cheap now, but the increased attention Google will get from this will drive up interest, thus driving up prices, allowing google to sell the lines at a nice profit.
That said, AT&T left a heck of a lot of dark copper and fibre lying around. It'd be a shame to see it not put to use.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
It has occured to me: shouldn't it be the other way around? The nature of the internet as I understand it is thus:
peers negotiate for links between each other
big guys charge little guys for links
little guys pay big guys for the privilage of access.
Surely google by now is a pretty big player and further, what ISP could afford not to have a connection to <cue creepy voice>The Search Engine </cue>? They should be charging for people to hook up networks to their servers.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It's not just the coverage that's an issue. Think of collisions on older networks that used hubs, WiFi access points are just wireless hubs and are extremely prone to collision. Even if you have collision detection / avoidance, it will still happen and degrade the signal quality, and eventually make it very polluted.
Debian Webhosting
Are you completely certain they're false? It's common in politics for people to deliberately leak what they're thinking of doing just to test public opinion about a controversial idea in a deniable way.
It's also possible that the occasional idea is leaked by an employee or ex-employee who doesn't like the proposed strategy and wants to raise alarm bells early enough to do something about it.
I'm not saying either of these is in play in the various situations with Google we've seen recently. But they are ever-present possibilities.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
When people say "free" here they don't mean "something for nothing" -- they mean "something paid for in aggregate".
Like electric light. When you walk through Union Square at night you don't have to put quarters into little meter-boxes as you walk along, to make the streetlights turn on. When you go into a cafe you don't expect to be charged separately for the plumbing or the lights. These costs are built into the taxes (in public places) or the cost of the food/coffee/etc (in a private establishment).The concept of charging people for electricity or wi-fi per-person and per-transaction is ridiculous, not just because it's an extra hassle for the users, not just because it's usually accompanied with absurd overcharges, but also because the extra transaction costs of tallying and collecting all those tiny line-item uses can be bypassed by charging in aggregate.
You mean like the free air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter that folks expect when they go into any commercial building? Or the electricity? Or adequate lighting? Or the water fountains? Or bathrooms? Or garbage cans? Or escalators/elevators?
All these things have an enormous infrastructure cost (as well as ongoing maintenance and upgrade costs), and were once considered luxury items. Now they are just a cost of doing business or element of the standard of living, paid for by customers and tax payers. Everyone pays their small share, and the standard of living goes up.
The other day I was in a store looking at a piece of PC hardware. I wasn't sure whether it was supported in Linux, and the sales droid was mindless as usual. If I had a WiFi connection, I could have checked the web on my WiFi enabled PDA. It turns out it was supported, but since I was at home by the time I found that out, I ordered from an online retailer. Access to information can drive sales.
The other point is that folks loiter where there is free WiFi, specifically because it's not ubiquitous. If it were, they could be almost anywhere and there would be no reason to take up space in little coffee shops during peak hours.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
If it's free as in free beer, does that mean you will give me an antenna, an AP, a laptop with a wireless card so it's free to me? probably not. You'll ask me to pay for my kit, pay for a share towards the central infrastructure (backhaul costs, your server etc), and once we've got this in place we can exchange packets for free, this is probably what I think we mean by "free".