Google submitted a bid to the city of San Francisco today to offer free Wi-Fi access for its residents. Other ISPs including Earthlink have also put in bids. Although the mayor's office hasn't outlined a specific time-frame, in the past he has said he would like the service to go live sometime in 2006.
The guidelines for proposals include accessibility from 95% of outdoor locations and 90% inside buildings. Google may pay for the service through local advertising. Chris Sacca, a Google business development principal, has said the offering's goal was to "be good citizens and along the way learn a lot."
The bid plans to offer amazing EV-DO type speeds of 300K/sec, which is much faster than dial-up. The company has said there are no current plans to offer the free service outside of San Francisco. It sounds like the company would like to try it out in one city to see what works and then develop new innovate location-sensitive applications.
I don't think the telecom and cable companies are going to be happy with this new development. Look forward to Verizon, SBC, and Comcast to use their legal and political lobbying muscle to impede this free Wi-Fi trend.
Google, you are commended for using the $4 billion you recently raised for the good the people. Go get those stodgy, greedy telecom companies. Take them down.
.