I'm mixing stories here: Om Malik speculates that Google's efforts to lease dark fiber and buy direct telecom capacity isn't just about them saving infrastructure money, but also about them reaching their users directly. He asks, what if Google gave Wi-Fi to everyone for free?
They might easily afford it. Besides their huge free cash flow and their huge GAAP-style earnings and their huge IPO, there's a secondary offering coming of INT((π - 3) * 100,000,000) shares to raise another $4 billion. With four billion more bucks, subsidizing Wi-Fi through the U.S. (or most of the industrialized world) would be a large line item.
But could it reap them enough return in increased ad dollars through localization? Probably not. It's better for them to let ISP's and WISP's and others run the end-user infrastructure, and bear all the cost and risk.
The problem with that is that very soon, there will be 4-5 DSL ISPs and 3-4 cable ISPs, and that's about it for the 30 largest metropolitan areas.
Rural areas may continue to be served by small ISPs, and particularly WISPS. But if you live in a big city, and you have an account with an independent ISP, in a year or so that will likely change.
I have figured out Google's riddle:
Google (GOOG: news, chart, profile) said it's selling 14.159265 million Class A shares to the public in a secondary offering.
Pi, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle, equals 3.14159265, rounded off.
I thought about it for a while and I'm pretty sure I figured out what Google is doing with the money.. They always play games, create puzzles, riddles, etc. Media has figured out the pi part. I think they may be telling you exactly what they're going to use the money for: "Portable Internet" , aka PI, a form of high speed wifi.
PI is a well-known acronym for Portable Internet, and is frequently mentioned along with "Wimax", and "WiPi" (another possible answer to the riddle).
Worth a thought.
Hmm, offering free Wi-Fi could improve Google's traffic balance, and make it easier to get those peering agreements that CNN suggests may be their goal...