Google forging ahead with Wi-Fi efforts

Google will begin a phased rollout of a free wireless Net access service in its hometown of Mountain View, Calif., this summer and is still hammering out details with San Francisco officials for its citywide Wi-Fi service there.

Testers who volunteer to offer feedback for the Mountain View project will be able to sign up for Wi-Fi starting sometime this summer, and the service will be widely available to the public later this year, Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google, said Wednesday.

“The Mountain View network rollout is on track to be completed by (the end of) June,” Sacca said. Google will operate the network itself and has partnered with wireless technology providers, equipment vendors and integration providers to design, build and install the network, he said.

“We are going to be an ISP here in Mountain View,” Sacca said, adding that there are no plans at this time to put ads on the service.

Meanwhile, Google’s free Wi-Fi service in San Francisco may or may not have advertisements, he said. “If we get to the point that we decide that providing ads to end users is a benefit, then we might do it,” he said. Ads are “not driving this…For us it is much more of an experiment and a lofty social benefit.”

He could not say when deployment might begin.

Full article: CNET News.com