Google Nationwide WIFI

September 20, 2005 8:58 AM

Googlenet. What if Google wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user’s precise location? The gatekeeper of the world’s information could become one of the globe’s biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop. What was speculation this last month, now seems to be getting closer. However, it looks like it's raising hackles, similar to the ugly memories of google web accelerator beta which was cancelled just a few days after release
posted by Mave_80 (41 comments total)

Screw the hackles being raised by bloggers. Everyone getting free wifi is a great thing and I trust Google more than any other company big enough to afford doing this.
posted by mathowie at 9:09 AM on September 20, 2005

Also, the web accelerator was canceled because it interfered with many sites. A google VPN isn't going to change the way the web works at all. It's apples and oranges to compare the two.
posted by mathowie at 9:11 AM on September 20, 2005

Interesting. I was able to reach the FAQ page: http://wifi.google.com/faq.html but the Google Secure Access Installer download page (final link on the FAQ page) now just redirects to www.google.com.

I'd love to see Google offering nationwide Wi-Fi, but sitting in the middle of Nebraska, I know I'd be the last person to see it.
posted by spock at 9:11 AM on September 20, 2005

hackles shmackles. let's face it, google knows a lot about anyone who uses their wonderful services. if i don't want them to know about my lesbian porn addiction or the fact that i've been searching out which sirius receiver to buy, then i don't have to use google, froogle, or gmail.
posted by poppo at 9:13 AM on September 20, 2005

(Also mentioned here).
posted by swift at 9:14 AM on September 20, 2005

or maps which i use a lot too
posted by poppo at 9:14 AM on September 20, 2005

The counter-rumor is that Google is only trying to control its own bandwidth costs. Crawling and indexing the web while the web constantly growing and content is getting bigger requires big bandwidth. Google is a big enough bandwidth customer to negotiate a fair price for itself but probaby figures its cheaper in the long run to own its own fiber instead. And in the meantime it doesn't hurt Google that people wildy speculate world domination on its behalf.
posted by StarForce5 at 9:15 AM on September 20, 2005

Good luck to Google in getting past Verizon's lobbyists. If a state government can't keep a telecommunications corporation from monopolizing a publically-owned radio spectrum commons, I don't give much chance to Google. But best of luck to them.
posted by Rothko at 9:17 AM on September 20, 2005

So now when you submit a search (for instance 'used cars') into google and you do it via Google Secure Access they'll know exactly where you are and exactly what car dealerships are in your area (hell they'll probabnly know exactly what cars are being sold) and direct them straight to you.
posted by PenDevil at 9:17 AM on September 20, 2005

If they contact me with a great deal at a lot nearby where I can test drive the car, I see nothing wrong with that.
posted by linux at 9:19 AM on September 20, 2005

How many of these bloggers and how many metafi users are actual WISP owners/operators? It's a huge undertaking to provide city (or town) wide access...at least reliably, fast with good uptime, and offer support as well. This isn't something you just throw up and forget and pretend the users, day to day operations, etc will just be handled by robots. Half the time it takes multiple APs in a building (I'm not talking about some open coffeeshop here people) plus those units fail, require attention, or you have morons hacking that requires attention, bandwidth hogs etc etc etc. The list goes on. It takes real people, with real time, who have mortgages, to provide, fix, expand and maintain. Who's going to do this for google? You can't just throw up a single AP on a tower and think you can provide access to an entire city

BTW - if all spectrum is available for everyone, expect NO service to work. We already see lots of interference in 2.4, starting to happen with 5.2/5.7 when more than one WISP operates in close proximity...900 interfereces with SCADA, the list goes on. Is google going to put an AP in EVERY single building in EVERY single city? :)
posted by evilelvis at 9:20 AM on September 20, 2005

I think the coup here would be WiFi enabled phones. No cell contracts ever again.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:24 AM on September 20, 2005

..From the FAQ, it doesn't look like they're actually setting up a wifi infrastructure. They're just providing a set of VPN servers for people who are _connected_ to an access point to use. This way, if you're sending unencrypted traffic, only google can see it, and not your local wifi provider.
posted by Laen at 9:36 AM on September 20, 2005

So now when you submit a search (for instance 'used cars') into google and you do it via Google Secure Access they'll know exactly where you are and exactly what car dealerships are in your area (hell they'll probabnly know exactly what cars are being sold) and direct [you] straight to [them].
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:37 AM on September 20, 2005

Only bloggers could complain about free wireless Internet access.

Current mood: Irate
Current music: Some trite crap that expresses my outrage at Google!
posted by wakko at 9:41 AM on September 20, 2005

If a state government can't keep a telecommunications corporation from monopolizing a publically-owned radio spectrum commons, I don't give much chance to Google.

Really? I'd give a public corporation much more of a chance than a state government.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:42 AM on September 20, 2005

And by "everyone in America" you mean "everyone within line-of-sight or close proximity of a Google wireless access point." Free for all, locations are limited.
posted by mikeh at 9:51 AM on September 20, 2005

from Futurehistory: ..and on 17 march 2007 at 13:47:04 PM EST, the Googlenet became self-aware, ending any hope of humanity surviving into the next decade. The end came quickly.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:54 AM on September 20, 2005

"The program can currently be downloaded at certain Google WiFi locations in the San Francisco Bay Area."

Were these known about before?
posted by cillit bang at 9:55 AM on September 20, 2005

I wish they weren't so Windows-centric, but beyond that .. meh.
posted by bonaldi at 9:58 AM on September 20, 2005

Man, this would be SOOOOOO great if they were able to do it. The idea of being able to surf anywhere is very alluring. I've had dreams about sitting on the beach getting work done. Or downloading that monkey pron I love so much.
posted by fenriq at 10:05 AM on September 20, 2005

Isn't this how the terminators eventually took over the world?
posted by drezdn at 10:11 AM on September 20, 2005

from Futurehistory: ..and on 17 march 2007 at 13:47:04 PM EST, the Googlenet became self-aware, ending any hope of humanity surviving into the next decade. The end came quickly.

Simultaneously easily excitable bloggers began a baseless yet ultimately useful resistance movement. As their tin foil hats did actually resist Googlenet's brain exploding wifi-signals, these manic resistance fighters began their struggle to take back the planet.
posted by aburd at 10:13 AM on September 20, 2005

I, for one, welcome our new Goverlords.
posted by toastchee at 10:23 AM on September 20, 2005

The system goes on-line September 20th, 2005. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Googlenet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, October 15th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
posted by fet at 10:52 AM on September 20, 2005

On post, I suck.
posted by fet at 10:52 AM on September 20, 2005

I could see something like that promoting local markets. ...Purchasing less tomatoes from the other side of the planet, instead buying stuff that was grown 20 miles away.
posted by thisisdrew at 11:44 AM on September 20, 2005

Inneresting. I wonder if Google is heading toward creating it's own private internet to be used by people willing to pay $X above and beyond their ISP fees to access... ? Secure private email? Faster web access to the most-popular sites? Secure file transfers (ie. P2P pirating)?
posted by five fresh fish at 11:55 AM on September 20, 2005

Unless something dramatically changes, WiFi will not be able to supplant cell phone companies. The technology is just not there. Complement, yes definitely ... but to complement cell phone coverage, there has to be something in it for the cell phone operators.

I think that it is quite possible to have a boat load of hot spots that are free to users. But that is a far cry from the near ubiquitous coverage of cellular.
posted by forforf at 12:01 PM on September 20, 2005

Yes, WiFi's not inherently a more accessible protocol than cellular, is it? If WiFi was to be as ubiqitous and reliable as the cell nets, it'd cost just as much.

Well, perhaps not quite as much. Orange wants £1,0000,00000,0000,0000 per megabyte for G3 Data in the UK. Grrr.
posted by bonaldi at 12:05 PM on September 20, 2005

In the second piece Mave_80 linked, there's a link to download the 'Google Secure Access Installer' that actually works. Has anyone (braver and more intelligent than I) tried it to see what it does?
posted by footballrabi at 12:43 PM on September 20, 2005

Really? I'd give a public corporation much more of a chance than a state government.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:42 PM EST on September 20 [!]

What corporations are public? Verizon isn't a public utility.
posted by Rothko at 1:11 PM on September 20, 2005

The Internet hasn't seemed this dynamic since 1998.

This could be Google's Windows 95 moment- establishing a natural monopoly platform. Maybe EBay is like Lotus Notes- the market leader in applications with VOIP (Skype) / Paypal, but inevitably falling victim to the natural monopoly. Microsoft is IBM and Yahoo is Broderbund. Now if I really believed my analogy I'd be switching around investments and jumping on the bandwagon.

Note that outside the US networks tend to be government regulated, so this play won't globalize that well.
posted by efbrazil at 1:21 PM on September 20, 2005

What corporations are public? Verizon isn't a public utility.

I was referring to Google, as compared to the state government. I don't like it, but I think it's true. Google may have more success standing up to Verizon than Pennsylvania would. We're going to have the same problem in SF, though I suppose the real problem would be federal legislation.

Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005
posted by mrgrimm at 1:58 PM on September 20, 2005

All I care is whether all this speculation will make the stock price increase. GOOG++
posted by beth at 2:34 PM on September 20, 2005

Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005
posted by mrgrimm at 4:58 PM EST on September 20 [!]

Well, I would call Verizon dragging its feet a market failure. There were a number of small neighborhood organizations that were putting together ad hoc wireless networks well before the city of Philadelphia (and Verizon's lawyers, in turn) got involved.
posted by Rothko at 4:14 PM on September 20, 2005

What if such a move (google wifi) forced others (yahoo, msn) to attempt similar services. Or it could lead to monoply as efbrazil suggest

I imagine that mobile phone companies would not like the possiblie of vopi mobile phones. The time of the One device are comming closer.
posted by sylwester at 5:07 PM on September 20, 2005

Oh dear gods, I hope this isn't Google's "Windows95 moment." That freakin' event held back computing technology by damn decades.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:15 PM on September 20, 2005

I'm working with a group called Lawrence Freenet that is setting up a community wireless broadband mesh network in Lawrence, KS.

We have put up a few backbone AP's, and are starting to add users. We are working on an agreement with the local utility that would allow us to mount AP's on the streetlights, and last month we went before the City Commission in order to get access to the city right of way. Since we are a non-profit, volunteer group with the goal of providing free wireless access and refurbished computers to families that can't afford them right now, the city has decided not to charge us for our access to the right of way, but we still have to have a 2 million dollar insurance policy.

I could go on and on about how complicated it is putting something like this together without even getting to the technical aspect of keeping the network up and running or other vested interests that may not be too happy about someone else stepping on their toes.

Here in Lawrence the local newspaper is owned by the same company that owns the cable company that was one of the first cable broadband providers in the country. They have been cited as an example of the "convergence" of media by NPR and the NY Times. They haven't really done much other than try to ignore us (so far), but who knows what SBC will do if other communities areound the state try to deploy similar networks.

I agree with evilelvis. This is not something that google can just wave a wand and *poof* it is deployed nationwide. It will much easier when the wimax hardware starts hitting the streets at the beginning of next year, but it will still require quite a bit of work to get it started and maintain it.
posted by sp dinsmoor at 7:55 PM on September 20, 2005

If anyone can do it, Google can.
posted by rwalling at 9:59 PM on September 20, 2005

Well, if they want to give us some dough we would be happy to work with them. If their goal is to build out a natiowide wireless network, then partnering with existing networks is probably one of the best ways of going about it.
posted by sp dinsmoor at 5:26 AM on September 21, 2005