Google will pay for free wireless in S.F. parks | Hacker News Reader

Google will pay for free wireless in S.F. parks

sfchronicle.com

63 pointspetergreen46 comments

I know there is a lot of negativity around big companies like Google doing "free" things like this. There is even mis-trust over a sense of unease at the notion of "there is no such thing as a free lunch."

These feelings are totally valid, and they unfortunately can prevent the rest of the community from acquiring a valuable resource. Free wifi in San Francisco (One of the techiest cities in the world) feels like a "no-brainer." Free wifi represents the values I would like to see more of in the world, namely cooperation, altruism and generally an increase in non-monetary exchanges.

As for the rest of the negatives, the kind of data Google might collect is statistically useless - the sample bias is just too strong. And since I have worked at Google, I know that many many Googlers feel VERY STRONGLY about not doing creepy/immoral things like that. You may feel differently, and that's ok, and I suggest attempting to meet and talk to more Googlers.

Finally, there has been much criticism about Google "not giving back" to the community. First, as an employer, Google pays their employees well, and all the taxes associated with that (see articles about SF's budget to a record high due to tech employment, and the boost of social services as a result). Secondly, Google buses, while derided, create a calmer, more peaceful city population, and massively reduce the # of cars on the road. And lastly by pushing forward projects like this (and I'm sure that SF city is preventing things like capture portal ads or whatever) I feel this improves the city.

I've been curious, do you know how googlers are responding to PRISM?

On this topic, I wrote this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6078124

many many Googlers feel VERY STRONGLY about not doing creepy/immoral things like that

Many Googlers != All Googlers != Google

How would you explain this? http://mashable.com/2012/02/17/google-caught-tracking-safari...

or this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/09/google-cli...

Reading that article and the follow up[1], it looks like Google made use of a quirk in Safari to give third-party cookies that would otherwise be blocked. No other major browser blocked third party cookies in this way, so the workaround just made Safari act like, e.g., Firefox. The quirk was relatively well-known, used by other advertisers and "like" buttons and such, and the article says that "Facebook even encourages developers to exploit the same Safari quirk Google targeted here.".

Google then: * Acknowledged the problem and apologized * Stated that the workaround was meant to be used for their "+1" buttons and such, but not for advertisements * Stopped giving out these cookies for advertisements on Safari * Was sued by the FCC for $22 million * Is now being sued by consumers on nebulous grounds

If you accept the claim that it was an accident to begin with, I don't see that Google did anything wrong.

[1] http://mashable.com/2013/01/25/google-safari-tracking-lawsui...

Google is a serial offender when it comes to privacy violations. Not really different from big banks who are caught committing fraud but always manage to settle with a big wad of cash, without having to admit any guilt whatsoever.

Huh? I don't think it is anywhere near as bad as Facebook, for example.

Comparing Google ethics to banks ethics. sorry you said wat?!

I worked for at a credit bank and I am still shocked at how immoral my coworkers were... I mean there was no limit : racist discrimination with the first name to calculate a risk on a consumer credit ? checked. Intentionally put people under with credit, anticipating the fact and be first to recollect ? checked.

At Google, from day one if you remember one thing they tell you : You never mess with private data ever.

It seems most likely the motivation here is to make sure all of the Googlers in SF are able to be online and thus able to work from more places. Many of Google's benefits are about making sure employees never have to stop working...

That would be using a cannon to kill a mosquito. Subsidizing tethering plans for employees would make far more sense.

I'm disappointed to see they're already on to offering free wifi elsewhere when the network they installed in Mountain View still suffers terribly. I've never seen it operate better than barely usable/non-existent. Hopefully this ends up better.

No such thing as a free lunch/wifi. I suspect Google want to capture data which they are currently missing out on due to people using 3G/4G networks. Also it doesn't hurt to improve their image in San Francisco.

Non-paywall article: http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/free-wifi-san-francisco-goo...

For Google, $600k is a rounding error. It's the cost of one engineer. Even if somehow spending $600k could net a 10x return, it would still be relatively pointless. Remember, Google routinely kills off working products that bring in far more revenue and collect far more data. Google would have collected far more data from Reader alone.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a charitable act is a charitable act. If you want to invent a hidden agenda for this, then the most reasonable one would be Good PR.

I think it's more reasonable to say that it's worth it for Google to put free wifi in parks if a few of their engineers get work done because of it.

They already buy us mobile broadband, so we can do work without needing to be near WiFi :)

What's the point of having wifi on those buses then?

Convenience, I guess?

Just did the math (based on 2012 revenue and reported # of employees), and yup, $600k is what Google could easily afford for a single employee (with a good $400k left over for business expenses, per employee).

That's amazing.

It's not a tight bound, I used a general rule of thumb that a fully loaded employee is 2x their base compensation. A good google engineer can easily earn $200+k per year in salary + bonus + stock. Obviously the 2x rule of thumb doesn't scale as health care, insurance, and other costs don't scale up, but I'd estimate that given the perks at Google, there's at least another $50-100k overhead. So realistically, it's probably 2 seasoned engineers, or 2 seasoned engineers plus a fresh graduate.

It's even less hard to believe when you look at what much smaller companies are doing in this department. Rovio (maker of Angry Birds) already provides free Wifi to a larger area of downtown Helsinki than Google is rolling out here, and they're a company that is 1/300 the size of Google (measured by revenue). That hasn't exactly bankrupted Rovio, so it's plausible that, to a first-order approximation, Google could provide free wifi to about 300 U.S. downtowns, if they really wanted to, without stretching themselves that far.

Have you forgotten Google's history? i.e. StreetView cars guzzling down Wifi access point data.

Is that wrong? It allows them to offer location based services without making people use GPS. This is a service that you can disable, by the way.

I don't see anything wrong with collecting SSIDs that are being broadcasted onto public roads.

But to get back on topic- Google is doing a good thing here and should be commended for it.

Have you forgotten that everyone does this as it's the cheapest way to provide accurate location service on mobile devices even if you have AGPS?

If you don't want your SSID or Wifi public, disable SSID broadcast in your AP and turn on WPA2. The biggest threat to you isn't Google slurping up your SSID/Mac Address, it's some dude standing stationary outside your house capturing everything you do.

If you want SSID broadcast but don't want to be indexed, add "_nomap" to your SSID and Google will ignore it. But Skyhook, Apple, and others probably won't.

Yes, I am currently negotiating my own settlement package with major carriers for access to meta-data on my personal browsing habits. I expect it will fund my use of public wifi spots indefinitely.

When is the last time anyone here has connected successfully to outdoor wifi? Here in NY, I try it all the time in the parks that offer it, without success.

(I haven’t tried Google’s wifi near their office in Chelsea, maybe it’s better.)

Wifi seems consistently to be a poor choice for large, uncontrolled spaces. If anyone can make it work through sheer engineering will, it’s Google, but the evidence thus far is that it is a misapplication of technology.

LTE et al do a much better job of it, because they are engineered for such environments. Why do we keep pinning our hopes on wifi?

Why do we keep pinning our hopes on wifi?

It is the only wireless technology that is standard on every device.

This is awesome. I'm glad to see Google doing things like this.

Link to similar article that isn't behind a paywall?

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Google-will-pay-for-free-...

(Picked because it was also a SF area newspaper/news website, similar to Chronicle).

sfgate isn't just "a SF area newspaper/news website, similar to Chronicle", it is the same entity as the Chronicle. You'll notice that the page lined at sfchronicle.com has the sfgate logo in the upper left corner and the page linked at sfgate.come article has the Chronicle logo.

(You'll also notice that, URL differences and some presentation issues like font choice aside, the photo, caption, and the line of the article above the paywall fold on the Chronicle site are identical to the photo, caption, and first line of the article on the sfgate site.)

I sort of wish that google wasn't a private company anymore. Their service is so pervasive and so fundamental to society that I think it should really be nationalized. Or, since it's international, taken over by the U.N.

Or: to attack the same problem from another angle: I'd be happier if we had either decentralized replacements for Google and Amazon and Ebay.

I'd prefer these platforms - and the vast wealth and power they create - to be either in the hands of the general public, or in the hands of democracy, than to be controlled by the whims of the nouveau riche.

The NSA would love it too.

Yet another SF space to be crowded with laptop-wielding techies? I welcome this news with the same gusto I'd welcome it if Exxon paid for free interstates in Yosemite.

Hopefully they're preparing to produce a device that works in a park. Still waiting for the 21st century to catch up with the Psion 5 MX and PalmPilot...

but then they will quickly pull the plug on it once someone actually starts using it.

they have just done that with the Netflix deal and Chromecast - already cancelled, barely 24h after it was made available.

it's bad enough to be dependent on gsearch and gmail, no need to also get dependent on wifi access, etc. for "free", with no guarantee it will work tomorrow.

will it work as well as the free google wifi in mountain view?

Until they won't.

Google Wifi in Mountain View is horrible, I can't imagine this will be much better. 2.4GHz is always a shit-show in any major city. 5GHz is an option, but not nearly as many mobiles have it, and the available channels on each device vary wildly. Plus that would start creating noise for a certain WISP I have a fondness for and don't want to see them affected.

I've never actually successfully connected to it on Castro Street, although I only ever tried inside buildings. I thought it had been disabled or something, I didn't realize it was just like that normally. :(

You need a "WiFi modem" to use it effectively inside a building.

Do you mean an external antenna with higher gain, and/or an outdoor antenna and internal repeater?

5GHz comes with less range. As in life, there is no free lunch in wireless signalling.

Don't most working large-scale WiFi installations intentionally limit range? More computers talking to one AP is cheaper, but also doesn't work at all. So the question is: how much money does one want to spend on access points (and their locations)? If the answer is a lot, 5GHz makes a lot of sense.

(Also, how much does open air attenuate 5GHz signals, anyway?)

Edit: Interesting reading: http://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/wireless/pwr.html

It has only worked for me when I was outside, but even then it was spotty. It would probably work well if you could mount a directional antenna on your roof of your house though..

I could barely get a signal as a Mtn View resident. I'd regard this as just a publicity stunt.

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