SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc. wants to connect all of San Francisco to the Internet with a free wireless service, creating a springboard for the online search engine leader to leap into the telecommunications industry.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company filed an application late Friday to provide wireless, or WiFi, service that would enable anyone in San Francisco to connect to the Internet.
Google submitted its 100-page bid in response to a request from Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is looking for a company to finance a free wireless network to lower the financial barriers to Internet access in his city.
More than a dozen other bidders are competing with Google.
If Google is picked for the San Francisco project, it would provide a testing ground for a national WiFi service – something that many industry observers believe the company is pondering as a way to ensure that people can connect to its search engine anytime, from just about anywhere.
“It makes sense for Google,” said Chris Winfield, who runs a search engine marketing firm, 10e20. “They say their mission is to organize the world’s information, so the logical next step is to provide the access to it.”
Google spokesman Nate Tyler said Saturday that the company doesn’t have any plans to offer WiFi service outside the San Francisco Bay area.
“Unwiring San Francisco is a way for Google to support our local Bay Area community,” Tyler said. “It is also an opportunity to make San Francisco a test ground for new location-based applications and services that enable people to find relevant information exactly when and where they need it.”
Google has been quietly experimenting with WiFi service in a few connection spots around the Bay Area and New York during the past few months. In another sign of its interest in Internet access, Google recently bought an undisclosed stake in a Maryland startup, Current Communications Group, which is trying to provide high-speed connections through power lines.
If it wants, Google has both the financial clout and the incentive to get into WiFi. What remains unclear is whether the company has the telecommunications expertise to build and maintain a WiFi service.
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