Wifi Revolution

Few companies strike fear in the heart of Microsoft and the incumbent telephone companies like Google. Analysts and journalists seem to delight in asking the software leader and the companies comprising the new AT&T how they will fend off the threat from Google (News - Alert).

 

Google’s influence is felt throughout the world and the government of France is concerned that Google is responsible for slowly destroying French culture.

 

Then there is the threat to eBay as Google hones its Froogle search engine, payment and e-commerce products. Newspapers have a love/hate relationship with Google News but mostly hate as they see Google news replacing their sites as primary news sources.

 

It would seem, everywhere you look, Google is wreaking havoc with existing business models and causing boardroom chaos.

 

The newest chaos is being felt in the offices of cell phone operators around the world. You see, Google decided today they will make WiFi free in their home town of Mountain View, California.

 

The implications of this news are profound and one can already imagine Google doing the same thing throughout the world. Of course Google says they don’t have plans to bring free WiFi (News - Alert) to the world but the company has been helping to provide WiFi in nearby San Francisco as well.

 

One can’t help but wonder if this isn’t the start of a trend. With all the debate over net neutrality and telephone companies threatening to charge Google to provide high-speed services, it would seem a no-brainer for Google to start to rolling out WiFi in other parts of the nation as soon as they can.

 

There are certainly many ways to obtain end-users, as Sprint showed recently in their latest WiMAX news. Also, Google has been dabbling in broadband over power line technology for quite some time.

 

It seems likely that incumbent telephone companies and cable companies may be forced to charge Google if the search engine giant plans on launching a competitive broadcasting service using Internet television. To that end, we can expect to see more and more of these sorts of announcements.

 

I expect to see a city here and a city there until the nation, and eventually the most important parts of the world, is covered. Of course, if a friendly broadband policy exists in a country, Google probably doesn’t have the incentive to roll out WiFi there.

 

But what happens to wireless carriers if we start living in a world where WiFi is free?  Why would we then use cell phones? Why would we use EVDO and other so-called “high speed” wireless technologies?

 

In fact, how would a wireless carrier make money in a world where WiFi was free? The answer is unclear. VoIP has done enough already to alter the business model of landline carriers; now the wireless industry must be very concerned about its future, too.

 

The ad-supported model Google employs allows them to do things others just don’t want to do. For example, Google’s Gmail raised the storage ante to 2.5 gigabytes, a manifold increase over their competitors. In fact, Yahoo! and Microsoft (News - Alert) had to reluctantly increase their storage policies and cost because of Google.

 

And as long as Google and others are leading the way, and as long as the price of WiFi continues to plummet, IP communications will flourish. In fact, out of the  primordial soup of broadband innovation we can expect living, breathing IP communications success stories and business models that will evolve more rapidly than most species on the Galapagos islands.

 

The sort of environment which was a dream for Darwin is absolute chaos for telephone companies who, until recently, were in no hurry to change.

 

 

-----

Rich Tehrani is President and Group Editor in Chief at TMC. In addition he is the Chairman of the world’s best attended VoIP event, Internet Telephony Conference & Expo.

Back to WiFi Revolution home