Speculation that Google wants to blanket the Earth with free WiFi ratcheted up Tuesday after Internet users discovered software on its Web site that allows access to a service called “Google WiFi.”
The downloadable software creates a secure WiFi connection to select Google “hotspots” in the Bay Area.
Google representatives would not discuss the company’s long-range plans regarding WiFi, or “wireless fidelity” technology for high-speed Internet access. But observers said offering WiFi access might fit in with Google’s plans to find new ways to serve up ads and entice people to use its search-related services.
Two WiFi hotspots were established in mid-summer near the company’s Mountain View campus, one at Kapp’s Pizza Bar and Grill and one at Airborne Gymnastics. A Google representative said the software discovered Tuesday has been available since the start of that experiment.
Google has also sponsored a year-old free WiFi hotspot in Union Square in San Francisco and another at the San Francisco Public Library, both in partnership with San Francisco start-up Feeva.
“We don’t have other announcements of any other hotspots,” said Google spokeswoman Sonya Boralv. “At this point, we’re testing these limited locations.”
Outsiders have been speculating about Google’s WiFi plans in earnest lately, especially after the publication of a Business 2.0 magazine story in August that suggested that Google wants to build a massive broadband network.
The story was based on Google’s relationship with the Union Square hotspot and the fact that Google has been buying up massive amounts of unused fiber-optic cable, once used by telecommunications companies that collapsed.
Others believe that Google intends to use its network to deliver video content to its users.
Please, please. Offer me anything to replace Comcast! It doesn’t even have to be free.
Interesting….
If they don’t “push advertise” it to death, it could be useful. I carry a WiFi enabled PDA, and something like that might be handy, although probably not in my area for another few years.
I’m finding hotspots all over the place, but few are open. The screen’s too small to be too useful, but I can see some e-mail and a few other useful sites.
So far, Google’s web interface, although afflicted with a few ads, has been sparse enough to be tolerable, and some of the sponsored links are a hoot, but that could be an issue with a PDA.
Amen about Comcast – Anything is better, luckily in detroit we have WOW.
Saw somewhere on Digg that they were ‘dumping’ shares…
I second that comcast motion – aside from them being idiots, their killing my VoIP.
I too will 2nd dumping Comcast….. It is NEVER as fast as they claim it to be and it is down all the time. In addition to that it is too high.
So will Google be calling there new hotspots gSpots?
>JjV
Comment 1: Google seem to be doing everything right. I hope they do take over the WiFi world.
Comment 2: Currently we live in a city where we have Cox cable TV and cable modem (very good), but are moving to a city with Comcast cable. Daughter and BF live there and don’t like Comcast either, so they got Direct TV and a DSL line. Their DSL seems kinda slow but they say it’s reliable. Seriously, what’s so evil about Comcast that screws up their service? Or is it really their price schedule which appears to be higher than what Cox charges?
I assume what this is referring to is Google buying up all the “dark fiber” around the country. (http://news.com.com/Google+wants+dark+fiber/2100-1034_3-5537392.html) Surely John has presented this here before but I thought I’d just throw in the link.
I think it is a brilliant move. And because Google has, thus far, proven itself to be on of the “good guys” I’m all for it.
Circa 1996 a digging crew came buy our office and I went out there and asked the guys what they were laying down. It was fiber optics. This was pre-DSL days and I was salivating on the notion that’s we’d have a fiber optic connection in our office. Sweet! But to my knowledge, that remains “dark fiber” almost a decade later.
A more pro-active government wouild treat fiberoptic communication as a public utility and be proactive for getting it into every home. Just like the electrification efforts 75 years ago. Yes, it would be horribly expensive up-front but it would eventually pay for itself many times over. (Unlike some dubious MULTI BILLION dollar “stimulous packages” popular today.)
Also being in the Detroit area, I agree that WOW is hands down superior to Comcast in every respect. But overall, broadband in the US is crap. Way overpriced and monopolistic (goes hand in hand I guess). I’d love to see Google go nationwide with this.