Friday, September 23, 2005

Whither Google Wi-Fi?

This story has been bouncing around for a couple of days now. I haven't seen this story inspire a whole lot of crazy, baseless predictions yet, so I thought I'd try to fill the empty void with some unfounded nonsense of my own.

Wi-Fi just doesn't make sense for Google if they're doing it on a small scale--it's outside their core business and would be a waste of time and money--so I think we can assume that this is intended to go nationwide if it gets out of beta. So then, how does it dovetail with their core business on a big scale?

One way is that Google's business increases as Internet penetration increases, so they have a vested interest in increasing access. When more people are connected to the net more often, they do more searches and create more ad impressions.

Another is that ISP's can drive their less-tech-savvy customers to competing search engines like Yahoo and MSN, so by becoming the ISP, Google can do an end-run around the walled garden.

Another is that Google now provides voice communication, what with the beta of Google Talk. With widespread access, they could be a threat to Vonage and Skype.

I'm very curious to see how this all plays out. I don't know that it quite makes sense for Google to become an ISP or carrier, because there are a lot of headaches associated with that sort of business that Google doesn't currently have to deal with--customer service, in particular. At the same time, Google certainly has plenty of expertise dealing with networked hardware on a ungodly huge scale...

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