This month marked the third anniversary of the launch of Google’s Mountain View WiFi network. The free broadband access network covers about 12 square miles in Silicon Valley and is powered by hundreds of Tropos WiFi nodes.
Of course, the mayor of Mountain View, Margaret Abe-Koba, is supportive, saying: "The Google WiFi network is a valuable community resource and helps increase economic development by making it easy for residents and visitors to stay connected anywhere around town. We are very pleased that Google continues to support our community with this robust service."
Three years ago, when the free network was launched, expectations were high that Google would build out a series of wireless networks across the nation, delighting the mayors of other cities. In fact, the company still has a page on its Website saying it plans to launch a Google WiFi network in San Francisco, even though it’s unlikely that will happen soon.
A series of events, including Google buying up dark fiber in the mid 2000s and its activism in the telecommunications space (e.g., bidding on spectrum, lobbying the government, etc.), led many to speculate that Google was becoming an ISP with the intent of subsidizing its network with ad revenue.
But it’s apparent that it was never Google’s intent to jump into the telecommunications business in the near term; its highest bid for C-block spectrum was many times lower than bids from the big telcos. Rather, the company wanted to exert its influence over the FCC to impose open access rules on the winners. Having a seat at the auction table provided good leverage.
Then there’s the matter of Google’s patent application to provide ads to end users accessing the Internet through a wireless access point (WAP), which Google filed earlier this decade. The patent even specifies a method for revenue sharing with carriers.
Google has always claimed it had no secret plans to monetize the free wireless network in Mountain View, and the company has admonished us not to infer any products or services from patent filings -- but it’s hard to imagine Google not using its experiences with its free WiFi network to further its Internet advertising dominance.
The smart money says having a Petri dish in its backyard to learn from the experience will give Google a leg up on figuring out mobile advertising.
That market is building: TV advertising is expected to drop below $70 billion this year, according to eMarketer Inc. , while online advertising continues to grow and is expected to surpass $25 billion in 2009.
About half of the online advertising business will come from search, and while search is a very small component of mobile advertising today, it is expected to dominate mobile markets eventually. Unfortunately, as discussed in this video, major brands can’t yet demonstrate the ROI of mobile advertising in a way that’s compelling relative to traditional online ads, leaving the mobile ad engine sputtering.
Unlike Google’s Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) service, however, I don’t think Google’s ready to flush its wireless plans down the commode just yet. While mobile advertising is currently too immature and risky for Google to invest the billions needed to build out a nationwide wireless infrastructure, having a 12-square-mile wireless laboratory in Google's hometown is a no-brainer investment in the future.
— David Vellante spent 15 years at IDC and is a founder of The Wikibon Project. He can be reached on Twitter at @dvellante.
What are your thoughts on a Clearwire purchase by Google. They'd get major cities all over the US and could blow hotspots everywhere, generating revenue off the WiMax and the advertising. Seems like a plan to me. I think Clearwire is on the right path, but they could use Google's cash. Perfect marriage? Bobby Vassallo http://CityWirelessConsulting.com
Reaching a large number of people is probably not going to happen with a network of hotspots... but if the unlicensed spectrum technology improves, Google may be well-positioned to take advantage of it. Will femtocell equipment ever mature?
Whatever Google's WIFI plans are, you can bet they are not philanthropic in this specific instance. As readers have mentioned and in particular Michael, this has everything to do with maintaining their dominance in search by securitizing every available technology concerning data stream. WIFI is just another means to an end.
Google seems to have the Microsoft disease of using its dominance in one market to flood the market with free products and services in many others.
There is no reason for Google to do Wifi when it's available for very low costs already from Boingo and Att, and Wimax is rolling out across the country from companies such as Clear.
So, I'm not sure of the logic of Google's strategy since many times they end up offing companies that have no competition with them and in fact may be symbiotic.
3 years doesn't seem like much time when you consider the challenges Google faces, noted by many of the responses to this article. However with the convergence of portable laptops & mobile phones & what it would mean to the number of additional "eyes" viewing its ads Google most definitely not give up on their plans just yet. Maybe Google is waiting for the technology to catch up or government policies and regulations to change however Google will stay for the long haul.
Ira...Free is a very powerful concept in marketing and difficult to compete with. btw...Google's quarterly profits since going public are pretty impressive!
Google has always impressed me in their ability to figure out how to monetize giving things away for free. While I admit that I dont know their plans here, they do tend to invest heavily in things that they give away for free. They are very different than most other US companies that look for returns on a quarterly basis.
They definitely will print money! That's bad how? This is an accident waiting to happen. It will happen because they have too much to gain. That is understood, isn't it? bv
This is definitely a grander plan Ira. It's all around keeping the network open and as Michael points out, ensuring open access. Google's behavior around net neutrality initiatives, open device consortia, bidding on C-block spectrum to gain negotiation leverage, proposals around white space, lobbying the feds, etc.
As Google builds out an ecosystem around its software it gets hooks into the access points and increases its position across the network value chain...and then it prints money.
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I had the opportunity recently to meet with Jeff Kubacki the CIO of Kroll, a global risk management consulting firm and a unit of Marsh & McLennan Companies with more than 50 offices worldwide. Kubacki has been the CIO of Kroll for about three years and seems to have a good process for aligning IT strategy with business priorities.
At Twitter’s Chirp developer conference last week, the company confirmed that Twitter has more than 100 million registered users, 300,000 new users per day, and 180 million unique users per month. So I guess it’s inevitable that Twitter would finally start to “grow up.”
The Twittersphere is buzzing with rumors that Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) is considering shelling out $100 million for Foursquare, the hot startup du jour that offers location-based services.
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A Verizon/Google tablet deal not only shows that tablets are now driving the hardware/software bus, they're also capable of building new alliances between old foes.
The iPhone has created a new form of the 80/20 rule, according to AT&T, which claims only 3% of iPhone users generate 40% of wireless traffic. But is that really a justification for usage caps and pricing tiers? What did AT&T think was going to happen with the iPhone pricing plan, and are they shoveling something else at us now that we're hooked?
With the number of mobile broadband users more than doubling in 2009, and soon to exceed fixed broadband, the Internet saw a historic transition this year – and the long-term effects are incalculable.
Comparing Internet services is tough because service providers price and market their services based on a best-case scenario connection that most consumers will never enjoy.
How do you recognize an Internet bubble when you see one? Saunders explains how all bubbles have four symptoms in common – and takes a swipe at Google and Twitter into the bargain.
The sky is falling! And in other news, Saunders explains why he’s predicting a second Internet bubble – this one based around the current craze for social media.
China is investing heavily in fiber to the premises to propel itself into the world broadband Internet first division. What's it deploying, and what's it going to do with all that bandwidth?
Verizon is making a big noise about making its wireless network open, but how will we measure if they've been successful? Do we count devices? Applications? Or just take their word for it?
By 2014, mobile devices will overtake laptops as the appliance of choice for consumers. But device makers still have some wishes to fulfill, including mobile app simplification and the ability to better perform word processing/spreadsheet functions.
Nielsen’s recent numbers on the increasing use of texting bode well for enterprise networks. Shunning the phone in favor of text messaging could mean reducing bandwidth.
RIM is giving in to demands by India to snoop on encrypted BlackBerry data. It's time to develop cheap or free encryption software for BlackBerrys and other cellular phones.
Two studios have filed suit against an ad broker for placing ads to help monetize P2P sites suspected of copyright infringement. That's taking a dangerous step toward what might be a worthy goal.
By 2014, mobile devices will overtake laptops as the appliance of choice for consumers. But device makers still have some wishes to fulfill, including mobile app simplification and the ability to better perform word processing/spreadsheet functions.
Google's foray into pay-for-view movies may be an indicator that the days of free ad-sponsored content are numbered, or at least that ad sponsorship won't fund nearly enough content.
Online education, improving to better replicate the interactions that occur between teachers and students face-to-face, grew in double digits during the recession. Still, there’s more work to be done.
Google's decision to link VoIP calling of PSTN numbers with Gmail, and to let Google Voice "call" Gmail VoIP clients, will devalue the PSTN and force telcos to fund unprofitable services or create their own VoIP transitions.
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