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Comment by sdkmvx | Hacker News Reader

What does this even mean? Google provides the leased line to the store? The store obtains an Internet connection the normal way, but then tunnels to Google? Or is Google's level of involvement that they have paid for an ad in the SSID?

Google Fiber is a nice business opportunity for them, but that requires infrastructure. This comes with none of that. It's not even a precursor to Google Fiber rollout. Either they are getting a similar-quality leased line to _one_ place, or it's just an ad. And even if the Starbucks uplink is "Google Fiber", the wireless connection itself will be a huge bottleneck, as it always is when you have more than around five devices communicating at once.

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> Or is Google's level of involvement that they have paid for an ad in the SSID?

They're paying for the increased speeds in exchange for the ad, yes. It seems pretty clear to me that Google wants to brand itself with the word 'fast'. This goes as far back as the original Chrome commercials. I think it's rather smart.

> It seems pretty clear to me that Google wants to brand itself with the word 'fast'.

And it's rather peculiar that we all associate AT&T with 'mediocre' thanks to their Starbucks wifi sponsorship.

I've actually never thought of AT&T as 'mediocre' because of a Starbucks relationship. I view them as 'mediocre' due to a decade of terrible, unreliable, and spotty cellular service. It's amazing what service we'll put up with just because all of our friends and family are using that same provider.

It sounds like Google is outsourcing the connectivity to Level 3. Essentially you'll have Google branded L3 wifi.

Wayport (the outfit that AT&T acquired to do its public access WiFi play) also used Level 3.

Source: I was the Wayport CTO.

edit: I said Google acquired Wayport. It was AT&T.

What I'm saying is that I think they are using Level 3 for the whole stack, not just circuits. I think L3 is doing the captive portal and everything else. I could be wrong though.

What makes you think there will be a c(r)aptive portal?

Do you really think Starbucks would give up its captive portal? Have you seen it? It's full of Starbucks branding and content. I don't see that aspect disappearing with the new provider.

Sounds straightforward to me -- Google is subsidizing the installation of faster, free wifi at all Starbucks. If you are asking what Google gets out of it, probably good PR, their name in the network SSID, and of course, the more people use the internet (on average) the more money google makes.

> the more people use the internet (on average) the more money google makes.

People tend to forget about these indirect effects - changes in habits, behaviours, economies. Anything leading to "more internet" or "more computer" in our lives will, almost certainly, lead to more revenues for Google.

Also, something I didn't think about, but if this push forces other companies to follow suit, and makes free wifi more standard, then this indirect effect could be pretty big.

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