[LINK] Fwd: Is Google planning a free wireless internet service?

[Jan Whitaker]

Is Google planning a free wireless internet service?

Google, with deep pockets and seemingly boundless
ambition, keeps marching steadily beyond Internet
searching into new markets like e-mail, advertising,
book searches, a satellite map service, instant
messaging and telephony. Where next?

The most intriguing recent guess, based on a few
Google experiments, is free wireless Internet service.
And there appear to be fascinating hints on several
Web pages nestled in Google's site. They describe a
new test service called Google Wi-Fi and indicate how
to use its wireless desktop software, Google
Secure Access.

On one page, the features and terms of the new service
are described as answers to questions. "Is there a fee
for using Google Secure Access? No, Google
Secure Access is free."

"Where can I go to download Google Secure Access? The
program can currently be downloaded at certain Google
Wi-Fi locations in the San Francisco Bay area."

Citing those Web pages, Reuters carried an article
last week saying that Google was preparing to
introduce its own wireless internet service. Later in
the
day, Reuters distributed a revised version of the
article saying that Google had begun a limited test of
the wireless service.

Google started two wireless access points in Silicon
Valley in July, a spokesman said, one at a pizza
restaurant and the other at a gymnastics center.
Recently,
it has also talked with San Francisco officials about
setting up public wireless networks in the city, where
it established a single access point in Union
Square last spring with a partner, Feeva.

Any further plans, a national rollout perhaps? "We
have nothing to announce now," the spokesman, Nathan
Tyler, said. The early efforts, Tyler said, are
part of Google's public outreach program and in
keeping with the corporate mission to "make the
world's information available."

Google is always guarded about new offerings. Its
"billionaires with a heart" image - fostered in
language and culture by its young founders, Larry Page
and Sergey Brin - only serves to make industry
analysts and rivals think that some marketing strategy
is to be teased out of even the most innocuous
pronouncements.

Speculation that Google may be planning free wireless
service around the country has been rising.

Such a free wireless service could make business
sense, according to John Battelle, author of "The
Search," a new book about Google published by
Portfolio
Hardcover.

-NY TIMES


JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at melbpc.org.au  --  http://member.melbpc.org.au/~jwhit/whitentr.htm

'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is 
no plant.' - JW, April 2005
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