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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.'"
...then I don't know what will.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
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
Google to colonize Mars!
Google to build moon base!
Google to cure cancer!!!! OMG!!!
I'll believe it when I see it.
You raise a good point. Free as in beer, Free as in Speech, and Free as in Kool-Aid. Yes, we shall have to remember that for future arguments.
Next Google will take over horse farming. And give us all ponies!
Seriously people.
Prepare to toil in our underground sugar caves! Remarkably clean, usable, state-of-the-art sugar caves, but toil you shall!
Based on how much difficulty people have had trying to blanket even smallish cities, I have no idea how Google could possibly cover a country the size of America with WiFi. How many thousands of hotspots would it take?
What they should do is bring back Ricochet...
Lately there have been so many newly announced (and shortly there-after: denounced) rumours concerning Google, I'm proposing that Slashdot create a new category just for Google related rumours.
Seriously... are there people out there that have nothing better to do than speculate as to what new thing will come out of google's labs next?
And people say that I need to get a life...
/dev/random
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.
First it was VoIP, then it was IM, now it's Wi-Fi? Why does the news media keep reporting these *completely* unsubstantiated rumors about Google as if they were actually news? Why not wait until Google actually announces what it is going to do? It's not as if there won't be an interminable beta period between announcement and public release anyway. This rampant Google speculation that has gripped the tech media has moved past the "annoying" phase to the "just plain stupid" phase.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
And it doesn't sound like the author hasn't any further proofs or even rumors.
What if Google wanted to install cameras all over the world and call itself Big Google henceforth? What if Google launched a Mars mission and secured themself exclusive rights for the whole planet? What if they bought Blizzard and released the MMORPG World of Google where virtual elves can search a virtual Azeroth-Net for magic potions?
What if Google didn't anything that would cost more than their market capitalisation, instead concentrated on remaining a search engine with new searches for kitchensinks and lost pets and perhaps a cooperation agreement with some other companies (Apple, publishers for their library project, etc) along the way? Or is that last one too far-fetched?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I like Google. Excellent search engine, great news aggregator, webmail done right. But I'm getting more than a little uncofortable about the reach of the company. I have been cutting them a good deal of slack, but I'm gradually coming around on that. They have enough data on me and my habits that they probably can map my relationships better than I can myself. They can know my interests, my taste, my foibles, probably what I'm working on, and the only thing standing between potential knowledge and actual mining of it is a non-binding, pretty vacuous "Don't be evil" statement.
And while free Wifi is great and all, that risks becoming another chokepoint - who will be able to compete in practice if the lazy, easy way is to connect to Google Wifi to access your Gmail account and get the latest news in the Google aggregator or perhaps do some comparison shopping with Google. And finding the store is easy - just click the Google maps link and you'll see exactly where it's at.
If the company ever does decide to be evil, they have a huge amount of subtle control over their users at their disposal.
Oligopolies or monopolies are bad, no matter who is holding it.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
You're forgetting Free as in Herpes.
got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
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
Special Thanks To
The Bryant Park Wireless Network is proudly sponsored by Google.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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.
Yes, there are.
Let's take a quiz. Which of these countries has "America" in its name, and would therefore be most likely to use "America" and "Americans"?
Dominion of Canada
United States of America
Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Republica de Guatemala
Republica de Honduras
Republica de El Salvador
Republica de Nicaragua
Republica de Costa Rica
Republica de Panama
Republica de Colombia
Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela
Co-operative Republic of Guyana
Republiek Suriname
Republica Federativa do Brasil
Republica del Ecuador
Republica del Peru
Republica de Bolivia
Republica de Chile
Republica del Paraguay
Republica Argentina
Republica Oriental del Uruguay
I believe that covers everything on the two American continents (French Guiana not being a country). I can go through the island nations in this hemisphere too, if you'd like.
Not that I expect you to even read this, being a troll and all. But still.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
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 use Gentoo; how does this affect me?
It won't--you still won't be able to get your wireless card working.
You have to put up so many access points to cover even an average sized office building, nevermind a whole city. You'd practically have to deploy one on top of every street light or telephone pole, and even then it wouldn't cover everything.
Unless, of course, they got a license to use high gain antennas and transmitters, which they wouldn't because Verizon and Friends (c) would cry.
To cover anything but the top 8 big cities would take hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of WiFi access points.
New long-distance wireless tech shows some promise, but we'll see how well it works and if anyone deploys it. In my opinion, until any broadband technology starts to reach into the rural areas, it's not successful. NYC and San Fran already have so many broadband options that adding one more doesn't even count.
Plus, this whole article is silly anyways. Just because Google sponsers a hotspot doesn't mean they are planning on deploying WiFi on a wide scale.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
In other news, a 14-year-old daytrader announced today that Google is giving out free blowjobs.
Really, this kind of vapid rumormongering is tapping out all the useful wishful thinking that a real Bubble can harness to fund real companies. Indulging every possible fantasy just proves that we've learned nothing from the Bubble Pop, and very little from its inflation. Do we really need Jim Clark to run everything, just so some real engineers can just get paid for a few years?
--
make install -not war
OHMYGOD I just heard that GOOGLE is about to come out with a new CPU ARCHITECTURE and it's going to run their own OS and it's so ungodly fast it's like a quad Xeon box but the basic model's only going to be like $500 or you can lease it for a year for the cost of having it shipped to you and it's so damn amazing and after they're done with that they're going to come out with their own distribution of Linux that will be a lot like Google's OS but faster and open source. Oh, and they're going to be giving away free cars in Central Park on September 4, so totally be there, and they're going to use the proceeds from all of this to bring back the dinosaurs - I swear to God! - and it's so cool because they're giving all this shit away for absolutely nothing but they're still making money hand over fist from it. Honestly, this is all true. They're like the coolest company in the world or something.
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
me too!!!!
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
No, your example sucks. Just like there is no country of South America, there is no country called Africa. Shortening the United States of America to America doesn't lead to confusion with a continent.
Maybe the original ranter would like it more if when referring to North and South America, people just said the Americas. I'm fine with that. North, Central and South, all in one tidy name.
You know what?
...wifi.google.com. Yes, it returns an error. But the host resolved, as opposed to, say, porn.google.com.
Interesting.
BytesTemplar.com
Way over there.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
Not really, no. The Wikipedia entry isn't really correct when it suggests that usage of the term "Americas" is simply disambiguation. There is no single continent named "America". There are two distinct continents differentiated by the prefixes "North" and "South". When referring to both together, the only logical form to use is the plural "Americas". When one says "America", it's patently obvious that one is not talking about the pair of continents. About the only argument that can really be made over the appropriation of the term "America" by the USA is that the dominant country in South America should have had an equal chance at it-- but then, which country would that be?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Actually, as I was informed by my college Spanish professor who spent several decades living in Columbia, calling the USA "The United States," or "Los Estados Unidos" in Spanish, is not a particularly useful term, because there is more than one "Estados Unidos"--Mexico being Los Estados Unidos de Mexico, or The United States of Mexico, if you prefer.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...