With Google lamenting on the idea of citywide WiFi wireless broadband internet launches -- its first is in San Francisco -- a new Israeli company may be Google's answer to cheaper WiFi. Wavion is saying that its new wireless broadband internet equipment can quadruple the capacity and coverage of a normal citywide WiFi access point -- or more.Instead of using 25 wireless access points to cover a 20-square-mile area for citywide WiFi, only eight Wavion access points are needed. Google may have just found its best friend.
In addition to the possible teaming up with Google and Earthlink for the beginnings of untethering broadband internet access in larger metros across the U.S., Wavion is sure to see increased interest from almost any entity that would like to deploy a wireless broadband citywide network, but has been scared by the deployment and maintenance costs.
If Google can harness Wavion's technology and start to leapfrog actual municipalities in the design and installation of citywide WiFi networks, Google, going against its recent statement that it does not want to become a "service provider, may become just that in a manner of speaking. As a GOOG investor, are you for this? It seems that if Google can have WiFi networks deployed and have even more customers using Google services (like Internet search), its ad revenues will only benefit.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-28-2006 @ 8:16PM
Kawika Holbrook said...
Actually, it would take about 500 conventional APs to cover 20 square miles versus 160 APs from Wavion. The numbers stated in the Business 2.0 article (25 conventional APs versus eight APs from Wavion) cover one square mile. Still, with four times the capacity and coverage, Wavion's spatially adaptive access point is certainly worth the attention it's receiving. (Full disclosure: I work for Wavion's public relations firm, Sterling Communications.)