Neglected Google Wi-Fi In Mountain View Getting Replaced

Yeah, i used this one in mountain view from my phone which is 20 min away from me. It was much faster to actually use 4g/lte, if I used wifi i had to wait and wait even for google search to download

Another missed opportunity for Loon.

Dont get me wrong, Google is very talented and pump out great products but god help you when something new and shiny catches their interest.

I don't really think public wifi for household use is a really good idea. You're operating on an unlicensed spectrum while using a technology that is only intended for a relatively small number of nodes per AP.

My house alone has about 9 nodes. Now imagine about 100 of my households trying to use one AP (which would be a relatively small neighborhood)...not pretty.

Back when google created it, we didn't have a ton of different little gadgets using 802.11, rather maybe your laptop or desktop did. Now basically every little device you buy these days wants to hop on a wifi AP. When you look at how CSMA/CA works, you can quickly see how this will become problematic, and that is also completely ignoring all of the other little devices that operate on the same spectrum and don't give a shit about what else you're trying to do on that spectrum. I've seen wireless cameras and other crap that will effectively act as a wifi jammer, and if your neighbor uses one you're just SOL (it's perfectly legal for them to do that.)

Public wifi will work fine in a setting like a mall or a downtown center where each one person *may* carry one device that wants to use wifi, but it'll fail for anything else.

this is how any successful tech company operating in today's environment works.

Squirrel!

... is beyond broken, it never worked.
it allows for connection but that is about it, which makes it worse. I have to explicitly set the phone wifi to not connect to it and just rely on cellular.

It is interesting that comcast cable wifi is overlapping the google wifi deployment in MV. And as much as I don't like comcast, their wifi does work, but only with a comcast login.

I got an average 50mbps/50mbps on speed tests when I used it in 2010. I'd say it worked some of the time.

I wish the City of Riverside, California, where I am presently doing some work, would go the way that Mountain View has with Google (They go screwed by AT&T).

August 30, 2013: RIVERSIDE: City may end six-year flirtation with free Wi-Fi

quote:

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Like an overly-optimistic lover thinking they can change their beloved, Riverside began its relationship with free citywide wireless internet in May 2007 with stars in its eyes.

Six years later, the nearly obsolete network only covers about 66 percent of the city and has been called slow and unreliable, and Riverside may be calling it quits.

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February 7, 2014: Editorial: Hits and misses

quote:

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Riverside’s experiment with “free” wireless needs to end. The city’s seven-year-old system is unreliable, unnecessary and nearly obsolete, and the taxpayers have better uses for their money.

The Riverside City Council is debating the future the city’s Wi-Fi network, which the city unveiled with great fanfare in 2007. The goal was to provide “free” wireless Internet service to nearly the entire city. But reality fell short of that goal: The network never reached more than 66 percent of the city, and service is slow and spotty. And the system is old and outdated by advances in broadband technology.

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Like I mentioned earlier, wifi is a poor choice for municipal broadband. The technology just wasn't designed for that.

...and got better service via Verizon LTE. Now days, why is there a need for "city wide" WiFi? There's no security, slow as heck, so I don't see the point. I visit there a few times a year but never use it. Heck, the local Starbucks has better service!