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Google CIO To Unveil Free WiFi In NYC’s Chelsea Neighborhood
- buffportion 14y agoBecause if there's anyone who desperately needs free WiFi, it's people who live/shop in Chelsea.
- fatalerrorx3 14y agoYes, that's a poor neighborhood right? lol
- pdog 14y agoPublic WiFi is useful when you're on-the-go.
- rayiner 14y agoSoHo and TriBeCa are next.
- yan 14y agoI get the snark, but their NY HQ is in Chelsea, so why not start there? Google also offers free Cellular inside some area subway stations.
- vvhn 14y agoit is also consistent with what they do in the Bay Area. Mountain View ( where they headquartered ) has free Google wifi. http://wifi.google.com http://wifi.google.com
- Benferhat 14y agoThe people in Chelsea Houses [0] might appreciate it. [0] http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/developments/manchelseaelliot.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/developments/manchelseael...
- untog 14y agoOne saving grace is the High Line. I think it works well to serve public WiFi in places where tourists are going to be- they're likely not using their (expensive, international) data connections but need to get access to info. WiFi like this already exists in Union Square and Times Square.
- paulyg 14y agoThis was my reaction as well. I'd rather see them put it in a poor neighborhood.
- fatalerrorx3 14y agoThat makes it rather easy to get new ideas for products, if a bunch of developers start using their wifi lol
- pavel_lishin 14y agoWhat?
- fatalerrorx3 14y agoIf you control the Wifi setup you can see the traffic passing through it, easy way to pick up ideas if a developer happens to be working on a project using it. Not saying that Google would do this, but they have done this in the past with streetview cars picking up and listening in on unprotected public Wifi connections
- pavel_lishin 14y agoYour ISP could do the exact same thing, except SSL, etc., etc., etc.
- rauljara 14y agoGoogle expects to be making money off of this somehow. They are willing to go pretty indirect routes to make their money sometimes, like offering android for free in the hopes of driving web search. But the added revenue from search in a place already as connected as Chelsea seems like it would be pretty tiny to me. So if they are doing this to eventually make money (and not as some sort of brand building, "look at us we're so generous" exercise) I can only imagine that they believe the data they will collect from that network will be more valuable than its cost. There are ways to collect metrics from that sort of a network that don't freak me out. But wiring up a place of that size still sounds expensive to me (though that's admittedly just a guess). The data they collect feels like it would have to be pretty valuable to make up for it, and one sort of data that would fit the bill would be the sort of location based data you could collect from wifi. By triangulating signals using multiple routers , it wouldn't surprise me if they could get a pretty good guess as to which apartment that laptop is in. And that sort of data collection really does scare me. Of course, there are more harmless sorts of metrics they could be collecting. And my shaky chain of reasoning based on a random tech crunch story could definitely be off. So I'm less saying this is what they're doing than there is the possibility that this is what they're doing. Please take it with a grain of salt.
- batgaijin 14y agoNo, they don't expect to make money off of it. They expect other ISPs to lower their prices dramatically/speed up their service like AOL did after the Kansas rollout. http://www.qgazette.com/news/2012-12-12/Features/Time_Warner_Cable_Boosts_Download_Speed.html http://www.qgazette.com/news/2012-12-12/Features/Time_Warner...
- neovive 14y agoChelsea is becoming quite a tech hub: Google, Apple and Microsoft, eBay and many start-ups. This is a great move by Google and a great way to test out urban wifi in a tech-savvy neighborhood.
- jmathai 14y agoDoes anyone know if this is different from the free wifi they provide in their home town of Mountain View? It's so elusive. Always shows a strong signal but is rarely usable.
- gkop 14y agoGoogle and Microsoft provide free wifi in my SF neighborhood. Though the signal is strong, it's apparently capped around 1/.25. Not only is the bandwidth horrible, but they drop you after one hour. Anybody forced to use these APs is surely going to resent the brand behind it.
- bbrent73 14y agono bandwith limits in Chelsea.There is no time limit. and the reason for the strong signal vs usability is the weak signal put out by the mobile devices compounded by competing rf signals in the area. the solution in Chelsea? - Hi-gain 2.4 antennas.
- smackfu 14y agoPersonally I think the future is cell radios in everything, not a hodge podge of free WiFi networks.
- TillE 14y agoI'm not sure about the technical limitations of LTE, but for densely populated cities (case in point: Manhattan) WiFi might be a better choice, even in an ideal world where mobile data cost much much less. Google is interested in mobile applications that will use more than a few GB of bandwidth per month, like Project Glass maintaining a constant connection and streaming photos or live video. Any interesting vision of the mobile future requires vastly cheaper bandwidth, one way or another.
- cagenut 14y agoI'm leaping to the conclusion that this is so that their employees can wander around the neighborhood testing google glass without having to rely on spotty carrier 4g.
- packetslave 14y agoBit more technical detail here: http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/334644/google-offers-free-neighborhood-wi-fi-nyc-chelsea-district http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/334644/google-offers-... "The entire network has a download speed of 150Mbps, and each location will have a download speeds of about 5Mbps to 10Mbps, to be shared among all users. The project has 29 antennas affixed to lamp posts, buildings and other locations scattered through the neighborhood. Wireless service provider Sky Packets set up the network, which is connected to the Internet through Verizon and Time Warner Cable"