14
February
2007
|
07:55 AM
America/Los_Angeles

GOOGlink WiFi signal could crowd out other WiFis

Here is an interesting wrinkle in the battle over the Public Internet (PI) in San Francisco. The proposed Google/Earthlink "free" WiFi could take up all the available bandwidth on the WiFi radio frequency.

Here is Tim Redmond from Politics Another problem with Googlink Wifi:

Sarah Phelan gets into it here. Sasha puts it this way:

The network will be exclusive. Although the network is not an explicit monopoly, it will essentially take up all the bandwidth at the frequency wi-fi uses, so it would be difficult or impossible to have a competing network without using a completely different (and likely more expensive) technology.

Think about this for a second. San Francisco is full of all sorts of little (and not-so-little) wi-fi networks. SFLAN, for example, is building a free wifi service with a rooftop-to-rooftop backbone. Lots of people have smaller wi-fi setups that let them, for example, sit out in their backyards with a laptop and check their email. And if Googlink puts up its private wi-fi cloud, all of those other networks will run into interference.

I'm not an expert on the technical details here, but Tim Pozar, who runs United Layer, is, and here's how he explaned it to me:

"The type of spectrum we're using is interference-prone. There's just not that much space on the spectrum. The number of access points that are required [to set up citywide wi-fi] could mean one every block. That's a lot of radio frequency energy. It will significantly impact others who are trying to use that same part of the spectrum."

Once a Googlink system is up, competitors couldn't come in because there would be too much interference between WiFi networks.

The same problem would be caused by a San Francisco owned and operated WiFi network which would cost about $20m to build with annual operating costs of $1m. But better to have a public "monopoly" than a private one.

Also, having one municipal network would mean a level playing field for the many online  service providers. A level playing field is something which GOOG lobbyists have argued for in Washington.