Time Warner offers free wifi to Austin customers in response to Google

The money quote is this:

"Google's recent announcement encouraged us to deploy our network more aggressively now. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we’re ready to compete."

Which sounds nice except, if you were ready to compete, why weren't you competing the whole time? It sounds rather more like you were sitting on good profit margins and now you're being forced to compete.

It's becoming clearer what Google's strategy is with Google Fiber: they don't care if it makes a ton of money, what they really care is that it makes Internet access speeds in the US better, whether by providing the service directly, or pushing other providers to compete harder than they have been.

Faster Internet access means more Google services consumed, more time spent, more ads clicked. That's what Google wants.