

Google CIO To Unveil Free WiFi In NYC’s Chelsea Neighborhood - macleanjr
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/08/u-s-senator-charles-schumer-google-cto-to-unveil-free-wifi-in-nycs-chelsea-neighborhood/

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buffportion
Because if there's anyone who desperately needs free WiFi, it's people who
live/shop in Chelsea.

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yan
I 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.

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vvhn
it is also consistent with what they do in the Bay Area. Mountain View ( where
they headquartered ) has free Google wifi. <http://wifi.google.com>

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cagenut
I'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.

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rauljara
Google 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.

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batgaijin
No, 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...](http://www.qgazette.com/news/2012-12-12/Features/Time_Warner_Cable_Boosts_Download_Speed.html)

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daeken
> like AOL did

FYI, AOL and Time Warner have no relationship at all -- they were spun out in
2009. Time Warner Cable is yet another separate entity from Time Warner as
well (as of 2009). Totally independent.

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batgaijin
Huh, didn't know that. Thanks!

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packetslave
Bit more technical detail here:

[http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/334644/google-
offers-...](http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/334644/google-offers-free-
neighborhood-wi-fi-nyc-chelsea-district)

"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"

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neovive
Chelsea 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.

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jrockway
Where is the Apple office?

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awad
There is an Apple store

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neovive
Yes. I was referring to the Apple store.

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jmathai
Does 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.

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gkop
Google 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.

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bbrent73
no 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.

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smackfu
Personally I think the future is cell radios in everything, not a hodge podge
of free WiFi networks.

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TillE
I'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.

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fatalerrorx3
That makes it rather easy to get new ideas for products, if a bunch of
developers start using their wifi lol

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pavel_lishin
What?

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fatalerrorx3
If 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

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pavel_lishin
Your ISP could do the exact same thing, except SSL, etc., etc., etc.

