Free WiFi from Google

location based services

This has been expected for a while now. The real question on my mind has been "When is Google going to provide city-wide wifi where I live?" The answer: Never :(
When pressed about Google’s future plans, Sacca said the company has no national ambitions. “There are 300 RFPs out there for city wireless networks, and we are not participating in one of them,” he said.
Note, this is not really about having free internet access at home. This is about having constant internet access while mobile. Location based services, mobile communication, etc. It is not a question of when, it is a question of Cellular or WiFi or WiMax or some combination of them all.
In 3 years we will see new cars being sold with navigation systems that take into account real-time traffic information when available. When you think about how much time the average american spends in their car you can see that there is a real value to making traffic more efficient and municipal wifi (or whatever technology is used) will spur that kind of efficiency.
Google, Sacca said just wanted to be a catalyst, just like it wants to catalyze the location-based services. The company is working closely with start-ups such as Flagr and Meetro. Sacca said the goal was to turn Mountain View into a large-scale test bed for various WiFi enabled devices that are coming to market.
Thanks Google. Hopefully municipalities will see the light from your experiment. One question though. What are you going to do with all of that dark fiber?
There is also a post on Googleblog.