BATMAN
08-17-2006, 11:46 AM
On Wednesday, Google made good on the promise it made public back in Nov 2005 when it declared that it would grant its home city of Mountain View, California with free WiFi. This comes ahead of schedule, as Google originally planned on launching the city-wide Wi-Fi service in mid-September.
The early release was partly due to the incredible amount of residents expressing their interest in testing the service. During this past summer, 1,000 Mountain View residents tested the Google WiFi service.
"The feedback was overwhelmingly positive," said Chris Sacca, who is the head of special initiatives at Google.
Google's WiFi network utilizes 380 access points, which are essentially transceivers placed on light poles located throughout the city. Any Mountain View resident with a WiFi device will be able to access the Web through these transceivers, so long as they are within 500 feet of them.
Connection speeds will top out at 1 megabit-per-second, though Sacca indicated that that speed could be increased if necessary.
Google will not support this service with ads, and have no plans on making money from this venture. In fact, they will be paying the city of Mountain View each year for the use of the light poles as access points.
Sacca said that Google has already spent about $1 million on the project. The company will also be paying $36 per light pole, which translates into about $13,680 each year. This figure will probably grow as Google implements additional transceivers for residents who have poor access with the current setup.
"WiFi signals are irregular and hard to predict, so coverage varies depending where you are, how close the node happens to be and what your house is made of, said Sacca. He added that anyone who experiences weak signals can purchase cheap repeater devices to strengthen the reception in their homes.
Residents of Mountain View just have to choose the "GoogleWiFi" signal and sign into their Google accounts with their I.D.s and passwords in order to access the Web through the free WiFi service.
If they do not have a Google account yet, they can simply sign up for a free account.
There are many skeptics that find it hard to believe that Google would offer this service so selflessly. Some think Google will find valuable information concerning the way people access the Internet, and how WiFi technology really works in a large-scale setting. Others still think that Google will eventually exploit this offering to serve ads and expand their lucrative online advertising business.
On the official Google blog, Google WiFi Product Manager Minnie Ingersoll joked that "Inside Google, people think this is a plot to make sure our Mountain View employees never stop working -- but it's actually a community outreach program."
Google and EarthLink have already agreed to partner in launching a similar WiFi service in San Francisco. This service will have one tier that will offer free Google WiFi with speeds of around 300 kbps, and another tier that entails EarthLink charging customers for a monthly subscription service with speeds of over 1 mbps.
The free tier in San Francisco will be ad-supported, which has some people concerned about the privacy issues that could arise. There are fears that Google could target ads at users of the WiFi service based on their location and browsing habits.
There are also fears that Google will know where a user is accessing the Internet from, as they will have to sign into their Google account in order to access the WiFi service. However, these fears ignore the fact that whenever a user accesses any WiFi connection, ISPs will always know the location of that user.
If the Mountain View Google WiFi service finds a large following and maintains high quality connections, it could be cause for frustration for cable companies and ISPs offering their services in the Bay Area.
Telephone and VoIP companies may have cause for concern as well. There are already reports that VoIP calls were easily made over Google's WiFi service. Though Google still maintains that it will not expand its WiFi offerings to the entire nation, telephone, VoIP, and cable companies will clearly see Google as a very real threat. At the very least, Google stands to take away some business from these companies in the Bay Area.
The next step seems to be figuring out how to effectively leverage the huge potential in these ventures to benefit low-income residents living in these areas, and seeing if those benefits could be spread to other areas in need of free or inexpensive WiFi access.
The early release was partly due to the incredible amount of residents expressing their interest in testing the service. During this past summer, 1,000 Mountain View residents tested the Google WiFi service.
"The feedback was overwhelmingly positive," said Chris Sacca, who is the head of special initiatives at Google.
Google's WiFi network utilizes 380 access points, which are essentially transceivers placed on light poles located throughout the city. Any Mountain View resident with a WiFi device will be able to access the Web through these transceivers, so long as they are within 500 feet of them.
Connection speeds will top out at 1 megabit-per-second, though Sacca indicated that that speed could be increased if necessary.
Google will not support this service with ads, and have no plans on making money from this venture. In fact, they will be paying the city of Mountain View each year for the use of the light poles as access points.
Sacca said that Google has already spent about $1 million on the project. The company will also be paying $36 per light pole, which translates into about $13,680 each year. This figure will probably grow as Google implements additional transceivers for residents who have poor access with the current setup.
"WiFi signals are irregular and hard to predict, so coverage varies depending where you are, how close the node happens to be and what your house is made of, said Sacca. He added that anyone who experiences weak signals can purchase cheap repeater devices to strengthen the reception in their homes.
Residents of Mountain View just have to choose the "GoogleWiFi" signal and sign into their Google accounts with their I.D.s and passwords in order to access the Web through the free WiFi service.
If they do not have a Google account yet, they can simply sign up for a free account.
There are many skeptics that find it hard to believe that Google would offer this service so selflessly. Some think Google will find valuable information concerning the way people access the Internet, and how WiFi technology really works in a large-scale setting. Others still think that Google will eventually exploit this offering to serve ads and expand their lucrative online advertising business.
On the official Google blog, Google WiFi Product Manager Minnie Ingersoll joked that "Inside Google, people think this is a plot to make sure our Mountain View employees never stop working -- but it's actually a community outreach program."
Google and EarthLink have already agreed to partner in launching a similar WiFi service in San Francisco. This service will have one tier that will offer free Google WiFi with speeds of around 300 kbps, and another tier that entails EarthLink charging customers for a monthly subscription service with speeds of over 1 mbps.
The free tier in San Francisco will be ad-supported, which has some people concerned about the privacy issues that could arise. There are fears that Google could target ads at users of the WiFi service based on their location and browsing habits.
There are also fears that Google will know where a user is accessing the Internet from, as they will have to sign into their Google account in order to access the WiFi service. However, these fears ignore the fact that whenever a user accesses any WiFi connection, ISPs will always know the location of that user.
If the Mountain View Google WiFi service finds a large following and maintains high quality connections, it could be cause for frustration for cable companies and ISPs offering their services in the Bay Area.
Telephone and VoIP companies may have cause for concern as well. There are already reports that VoIP calls were easily made over Google's WiFi service. Though Google still maintains that it will not expand its WiFi offerings to the entire nation, telephone, VoIP, and cable companies will clearly see Google as a very real threat. At the very least, Google stands to take away some business from these companies in the Bay Area.
The next step seems to be figuring out how to effectively leverage the huge potential in these ventures to benefit low-income residents living in these areas, and seeing if those benefits could be spread to other areas in need of free or inexpensive WiFi access.