Google smothers stranded US holiday travellers with Wi-Fi
US travellers forced to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas in airport lounges will be able to send apologetic emails to their families for free, after Google declared it will sponsor free Wi-Fi at the nation's airports. The search monolith has made a "holiday gift" of free Wi-Fi access at 47 US airports from Thanksgiving through …
When the whole family gathers at various transport terminals and download presents to each other!
"One might ask whether a suggestion that the passenger stayed at home might have been even better for the environment. But once again, where's the fun and branding opportunity in that?"
How about this for a brand opportunity?:
Go
On
'Orseback.
Green
Loonies
Encourage.
have third generation Wi-Fi everywhere.
once data centers are everywhere (and im still waiting for my data center/water heater, google) its just a half-rack of radio control, and a few thousand smart pico cells away, from delivering HD bandwidth to the end user.
this should make AT&T very happy, since your i-phone will then work at wire speed.
without additional plant costs.
nonetheless, most of the carriers still fear open, mesh forming, public networks. eventually, the smart ones will learn to embrace this concept, allowing them to concentrate on content, hopefully in time to catch google.
"I'm sorry you missed your connection sir, but the next flight to Podunk, US isn't for another 6 hours"
The difference between getting online with a phone verus a laptop with Wifi is similar, in magnitude, to that between being a bit annoyed at the delay and RAGING to the point that they have to close down the airport.
You can email your letters of complaint to the airlines whilst you're stuck waiting.
What is this "holiday travel" you speak of?
Oh, yeah... that thing people do on airplanes when they feel just haven't been punished enough already.
Holiday travel for the wife and I consists of driving about fifteen minutes across town to visit her daughter, the daughter's husband and our freshly-minted granddaughter for Thanksgiving -- and about two hours' drive up to South Joisey on Christmas Eve to visit the wife's sister and remaining family.
What the hell kind of masochists _fly_ anyplace for the holidays? They must either really, really love their families or have been really, really guilt-tripped by them.
Oh, and what other "gift" do I get from Google along with the free wi-fi -- perhaps a wide selection of "targeted" seasonal advertising from all the surrounding airport hotels, and all the overpriced gift shops in the terminal?
Too bad you guys don't offer us a "M'eh" icon.
I just used this in San Jose CA. It was really useful. Yes Google will own the whole world soon - but it least it will work
This is ripe for abuse. One crooked person could just put up a few google logos, google wifi.. freee and set up their own man in the middle wireless ap ssid freegooglewifi and just start sniffing sessions.
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