I Want GoogleNet Now!

GoogleNet, the free wi-fi service that is serving the cities of San Francisco and Mountain View, Caifornia, is the topic of many conversations in the blogosphere these days. With the recent announcement of Google’s wi-fi patents, there is a definite curiousity over the future of this wi-fi venture. Patent #1 is a patent on a "method and system for dynamically modifying the appearance of browser screens on a client device." Reading deeper into the details of this patent, this seems to mean that a user would receive free wi-fi in exchange for having ads dynamically inserted into the browser they are using — just by logging onto the free wi-fi service. In addition, the browser may be modified to display some sort of logo or wording that would read something like "Wi-Fi Provided By" and the name of the sponsoring business. Imagine sitting in a park and seeing ads that read "Wi-Fi sponsored by Quizno’s", when there’s a Quiznos’s right around the corner. It’s a win-win-win: Google makes money from ads, the business gets more people in the doors from the sponsored by ad, and the users/potential customers get free wi-fi.

The second patent is a "method and system to provide wireless access at a reduced rate. In one embodiment, access to a WAP is provided to an end-user at a rate subsidized by a first entity. The first entity includes advertisements in an end-user view." This patent proceeds to detail how the high cost of a wi-fi deployment (for example, T-Mobile Hotspots), necessitate high rates recouped from the users. These rates defer the casual user from using the service. This patent explains how the cost of the wi-fi can be subsidized by advertising. 

Patent #3 is for a "method and system to provide advertisements based on wireless access points." This method describes how the ads displayed to the end user would be selected by the entity providing the wi-fi service.

Google has denied plans to take GoogleNet nationwide, but these have been hedged statements, with qualifiers like "at this time", or "right now."

The question that comes to my mind, is whether this GoogleNet is going to be a separate internet or not. Since Google has bought up quite a bit of dark fiber, and they have some ISPs threatening to charge them for using their pipes, they may have decided to say "forget you, we’ll build our own internet!" However, based on their San Francisco venture, they teamed up with Earthlink to provide tiered access. For speedier access, you can pay for the wi-fi provided by Earthlink. I imagine GoogleNet would operate the same way: for ad-free, fast access, you can upgrade to [insert name of ISP here]. Brilliant!