Gomeler.com

In a few short years Google has quickly cut a path through the online world with its world renown search engine and recently with its communication system through GMail and GTalk. With an estimated 41 datacenters spread across the globe and billions of dollars in capital Google is by far one of the largest components of the Internet yet they haven’t even touched the actual Internet, until now.

Internet For All

Nearly a year ago Google began turning their headquarter city Mountain View into an enormous WiFi hotspot. Through a slick deal worked with the city officials Google has nabbed the ability to mount WiFi antennas on the lightpoles in nearly the entire city. This huge WiFi network is considered by most to be the proving ground for a possible new service by Google, Google Net or something with a similar name. The rumor is that access would be free and the expenses would be paid for by Adsense advertisements. When I think about it I have to admit that it is a rather logical path for Google to follow. They have so many datacenters and supposedly they have been in the process of buying up loads and loads of dark fiber so with all this new bandwidth what would be better than to utilize this to make money?

The only flaw I can see in Google’s possible plan would be Adsense itself. I personally run a little Adsense bar on this site and lets just say I couldn’t buy a Subway sandwich with the money I’ve made off of it. If Google were to offer WiFi services with an Adsense banner I would bet there will be people out there hacking software to hide the advertisements. While I don’t honestly know how much Google makes off of Adsense or how much it’ll cost Google to install and maintain a wireless network for a city but I can’t imagine there will be much of a margin for Google to skim off of.

Alternatives

After thinking a bit on this subject and reflecting on what Google excels at, I thought of an alternative instead of a metro WiFi business. It seems like the going trend in television is IPTV and Google would be very prepared to enter this market. With lots of bandwidth available, lots of diskspace available, and datacenters all over the world, anyone given a proper connection would be able to connect to Google’s servers and start streaming television. With a simple price structure similar to standard cable companies Google could provide International programing to everyone which would let me get some British Top Gear and such and let everyone else get America’s terrible drama shows and whatnot.

If the rumors are true and Google is really assembling some sort of huge broadband network then I am sure there are some big plans in the work. Google WiFi would be cool but then again so would Google TV. I am looking forward to seeing what Google has planned for this, who knows, maybe they plan on linking their datacenters and playing huge games of Quake, with Google you never know. If all else fails maybe I could buy a fiber connection from Google.