Bad Connections Dog Google's Mountain View Wi-Fi Network

itwbennett writes "Google launched its Mountain View, CA public public Wi-Fi network in August 2006. It was one of the first public wireless Internet services in the U.S. and was intended to provide free service across the city. But in 2012, one year after Google signed a 5-year agreement to continue the service, it started a slow decline to the point of being unusable. 'We started noticing it in very large files, things like operating system updates, but now it's on files as small as 500 kilobytes,' said Rajiv Bhushan, chief scientist of pharmaceutical startup Livionex and a long-time user of the network. A recent test by IDG News Service resulted in a total failure to get a working Internet connection at a dozen sites around Mountain View, including in the city's main downtown area and directly in front of Google's headquarters." I've had disappointing results trying to connect to several other public wireless nets around the U.S., both privately sponsored and municipal. Do you know of any that work especially well?

Comments

Did anyone check the power supplies yet ?

[Anonymous Coward]

it seems to me that most consumer electronics fail with a bad power supply after about three years of continous online time.
professional equipment tends to last a little longer, so 2006 till 2013, that's about 7 years. failing capacitors, can make a lot of things go spooky.

my 2 cents
joy

[wdw]