City thrilled with Google's network for wireless Web access

By Wendy Marinaccio, Special to the Town Crier

photo and illustration by joe hu/town crier Mountain View eagerly awaits free wireless Internet access which is being installed throughout the city. The Mountain View-based Internet search engine Google has installed more than 300 “radios,” which will provide the free service.

Residents of Mountain View will enjoy free citywide wireless Internet access by June, thanks to Google. The Mountain View-based company is installing more than 300 “radios,” or access points, for a WiFi mesh network, mounted on lampposts and traffic signals owned by the city.

WiFi (”Wireless Fidelity”) refers to a popular type of local area network that allows people with computers and other devices to roam freely while accessing the Internet, without the use of cables or wires. Until recently, WiFi had been limited to small “hot spots” where computers could connect to each other and the Internet, such as home networks or Internet cafes.

Google’s new Mountain View network offers a ubiquitous layer of coverage, with 30 access points per square mile providing a connection to the Internet throughout the city. In this WiFi network, all the access points around the city communicate with each other using 802.11g radio technology.

“It’s going to change the way you think about Internet access,” said Chris Sacca, head of special projects at Google and co-founder of the WiFi project.

Mountain View is an ideal test case for Google to learn how people will use the WiFi technology.

“We are very excited about these networks,” Sacca said. “We were most curious about exploring how these types of networks would change the way our users use the Internet, and how we can evolve our applications. When you’re using the Internet outside your home, you will search for different things.”

Ellis Berns, economic development manager for the city, said the WiFi mesh network “gives the city, the residents and businesses another way to access the Internet. It creates an opportunity for people who did not have access, or were using dial-up modems, to get access.”

The network is an opportunity for Google to benefit its local community, said Sacca. “It improves the experience of those who are familiar with the Internet, and it also bridges the digital divide,” he said.

One such project is Mountain View’s new mobile library, or bookmobile, also funded by Google along with Friends of the Mountain View Public Library and the Mountain View Library Foundation.

“It’s a really cool Winnebago that is able to bring the library to parts of the town where it may be tough for people to get to the library,” Sacca said.

Karen Burnett, library services director, said the bookmobile will include two computers on the outside of the vehicle for public Internet searching in addition to books, a staff workstation and a self-check-out station. The mobile library will use Google’s WiFi mesh network in two ways: to allow patrons to conduct Internet searches on the computers and to give the library a secure means to communicate back to its own system for checking in and checking out materials.

“We have a very high-tech vehicle,” said Burnett. “We designed it to be as futuristic as we could. It’s pushing the envelope on the technology to do this in a wireless environment.”

Google chose to build a WiFi mesh network because “at Google, we think the best way to learn is by doing,” Sacca said. “In order to really understand what the challenges of the network are and explore what users wanted, the best way was to go ahead and cooperate to build the network.” The company reached out to the City of Mountain View because it is headquartered there.

“There are a lot of forward-thinking people within the city government who are big fans of technology,” Sacca said. “They were eager to work with us, from the city planning to the library, and gave us insights that helped shape our thinking.”

Members of Google’s engineering team approached the city; the project was vetted by the city manager and later presented to the city council, which approved it in November 2005.

“It’s been a terrific collaborative relationship working with Google on the project,” Berns said. “We’re very fortunate. We fully recognize that it’s a demonstration project, and we feel that it’s going to be beneficial both to the residents and to the businesses.”

The agreement with Google gives the company access to city-owned lampposts and streetlights. Google is paying the city approximately $30 per pole annually for use of the lampposts. Google is also paying the city for the electricity used by the low-power, 28-watt access points. “The City of Mountain View then pays PG&E,” Berns said. He said the project is intended to be as low-impact as possible on the city budget and will generate a small amount of revenue. Google will manage the project, and city staff will monitor the contract.

Google is installing hundreds of access points on lampposts and traffic signals throughout the city. A team of approximately a dozen Google employees and a contracted company from San Diego are working on the installation, which will be done before June. Then Google will test and fine-tune the network.

“We’re working as hard as we can to get it up and running, to have people try it out and to hear feedback,” Sacca said. “Like everything Google does, it’s going to be an evolving process.”

Google’s goal is to make the network as accessible as possible while keeping it safe. To offer security and privacy, a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, client can encrypt traffic at the individual computer level. Users can download a free VPN client created by Google or use any other client of their choice.

Mountain View resident Patrick Neschleba’s family has four laptops connected to a WiFi network at home. He is interested in Google’s network and looks forward to discovering new ways of using wireless Internet access that he hadn’t considered before. But he said he’s not canceling his current ISP until he learns more about security and speed in the new system.

Google has entered a bid to provide a WiFi mesh to the City and County of San Francisco; it is one of six bids being considered. If San Francisco accepts the bid, it would become the largest city in the country to provide free WiFi to its residents.

Google has said it has no plans to build WiFi networks outside of Mountain View and San Francisco.

The city of Los Altos has not been offered a WiFi network and does not plan to build one, according to City Manager Phil Rose.