Mountain View Accepts Google’s Free Wi-Fi Internet Proposal

The Mountain View City Council on Tuesday night gave Google the green light to begin building a wireless network in their city, in which the search giant is based. The City Council unanimously ratified a five-year property lease required for the construction of Google’s proposed network that will provide Mountain View’s community of 72,200 people with free online access. In an email statement yesterday, a spokeswoman for Google stated that the company is “excited to begin work on this project.” Mayor Matt Neely also expressed excitement stating, “It’s going to make us one of the first, if not the first, to have citywide Internet. It’s a pretty cool thing.”

Any city would be hard-pressed to turn down Google’s offer. Under the terms of the deal, Mountain View doesn’t have to spend a dime; rather, Google promises to fund all the construction and run the operation. Any installation and maintenance costs will be borne by Google, and utility costs will be paid by the city and fully reimbursed by Google, which is estimated to be $3,000 to $4,000 per year. The deal is also non-exclusive, so Mountain View isn’t closing the door on other future opportunities to bring Internet access to its residents.

Anyone with a free Google account and the right gear will get access to the network. Google will also give city employees, including emergency service workers, a secured connection of their own at no cost to the city. Furthermore, Mountain View will have the option to buy the network in the future. And if all that weren’t enough, Google promises to add wireless access to the Google Mobile, a mobile library the city expects to eventually take ownership in.

Under the current plan, Google will use Wi-Fi, an inexpensive and popular technology for distributing Internet access through the air as opposed to through cables. A network of 300 to 400 transmitters, each the size of a shoe box will be installed atop the city-owned street-light poles. Any residents within a three-block radius of a transmitter will be able to connect to the Internet, provided their computer or phone can pick up Wi-Fi signals. While the Wi-Fi may be weaken behind walls, anyone who wants to access Google’s network from inside buildings only needs to purchase additional equipment in the $50 to $100 range.

While the speed of the network has yet to be disclosed, it’s believed that Google could offer rates from 300 kilobits per second and up, similar to the speed guesstimates divulged in Google’s free internet proposal to the city of San Francisco earlier this fall. San Francisco has yet to accept Google’s bid, though the city’s planned Wi-Fi coverage of the entire city is significantly more complex, as it involves taxpayer money.

Fortunately, the decision to approve the plan seemed to be an easy one for Mountain View’s City Council, thanks in large part to Google footing the bill. According to a document from the City Council website, Mountain View will not only incur zero expenses for the Wi-Fi network, but will actually stand to gain financially from the deal: "The City potentially could receive an annual payment of approximately $12,600 [adjusted annually for increases in the Consumer Price Index (CPI)] for the placement of Google equipment on City-owned light poles."

Apart from paranoid concerns over radiation and privacy, the approval process has thus far been relatively seamless, though Google does have some more negotiating to do before it can blanket the city with Wi-Fi access. According to the City Council’s document, there are parts of Mountain View that have streetlight poles owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E), not the city itself. Google intends to work with PG&E to gain access to these poles or to develop equipment to provide these parts of the city with Wi-Fi coverage.

So why is the world’s most widely used search engine eager to engage in such a one-sided deal? In a letter last week to the Mountain View City Council, Google Product Manager Minnie Ingersoll, wrote: “We believe that free (or very cheap) Internet access is a key to bridging the digital divide.” Yet, Google’s offer isn’t exactly altruism on the company’s part, nor is it an early Christmas present to the city. Ingersoll made it quite transparent that Google is in it for the money: “In our self-interest, we believe that giving more people the ability to access the Internet will drive more traffic to Google and hence more revenue to Google and its partner Web sites.”

Obtaining the city’s approval for the Wi-Fi plan is also a major step for Google, which has earlier acknowledged its desire to build its own Internet network to challenge the incumbent broadband operators’ vice-like grip on the Internet service provider market. In her letter to the City Council, Google’s Ingersoll also stated: "We are committed to showing the world that this technology works and we would like to learn more about the costs of operations so that we can build a well-informed business model."

While Google already provides Wi-Fi access in two local Mountain View businesses, and in Union Square, a popular outdoor public space in downtown San Francisco, perhaps there isn’t a better test base to prove that giving people free wireless Internet access on a grand scale is a good idea. With about 1,000 employees living in Mountain View, Google contends it’s the ideal place to test services and products and gain a better understanding of its emerging technology.

Google’s free Wi-FI plan is arguably a blessing for all. It smashes to smithereens an immense barrier between sites like this one and readers like you. This translates to more customers for online services, more folks downloading or streaming media, more readers for sites like this one, and more consumers doing more stuff online (all of which can mean more revenue opportunities for online marketers and affiliates alike).

Google’s plan also gives access to people who can’t afford monthly Internet fees, thus in Google’s words, “bridging the digital divide.” Furthermore, one can expect that citywide Wi-Fi will induce more customers to spend more of their time outdoors or in the downtown area for instance, since people can get work done between errands, as well as when they shop and dine. If all goes to plan, in a matter of months, we may all be surfing the Net with a wireless laptop at a sidewalk coffee shop on Castro Street.

Who said there’s no such thing as a free lunch? This is as close as it gets.

Sources:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1887581,00.asp
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/
opinion/13170954.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/
wifi/story/0,10801,106281,00.html
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/
local/states/california/peninsula/13180240.htm