(Tuesday, September 20)

Get Ready For the Undernet (aka the Non GoogleNet)

I had a conversation with my wife about 2 or 3 weeks ago during lunch about why cell phone companies should be really worried about Google (She works for Cingular). Well there were a bunch of ideas and speculation about what Google may be doing before I wrote this, but today I am starting to see the first step of the GoogleNet vision with the release of Google Secure Access. I think GoogleNet is coming and there are a lot of technologies (cell phones, GPS Navigation, etc) that should be MAJORLY worried about their business models. Let me Explain.

Over the past few years (and much more recently) Google has been slowly acquiring dark fiber. During the Internet Bubble, everyone and their mother (dotcoms) started investing in optical fiber and it started to be installed all over major metro areas. A lot of big .com and other tech companies were investing heavily in optical fiber installations and after the boom ended a lot of this optical wire sat around unused. Hence it became what is called "Dark Fiber". Basically, just optical fibre that is unused.

Slowly but surely over the past few years (and a lot more since the IPO) Google has been buying this fiber at a rapid pace. Everyone has just assumed that the dark fiber was purchased for data center redundancy. When you make a request to Google, you are not actually making a query to one set of servers in California, you are actually making a request to one of many Google Datacenters around the world (25+ or so, one supposedly in Woodstock Ga) that answer your request. Each datacenter has to have a localized copy of Google's MASSIVE database to run the queries against (to produce your search results) so everyone always figured that they needed the dark fiber to move these massive databases around.

Then people start to speculate (and this is why Google Secure Access is a step in that direction). In the last few weeks Google sold another ~$4 billion in stock. Everyone is wondering, what on earth are they going to spend that much money on? Well it may be for more Dark Fiber and:

Wifi Access points.

This is the kicker. If Google took all this Dark Fiber (that runs to most major cities) and dropped wifi points all around the city connected to all this dark fiber, they literally would have their own wireless network for multiple (and could potentially be) most major cities. How about then offering free wifi to people in these cities? So how would Google make money off free wifi?

Ads.

Google is an Advertising company, not a search company. Their stock has not risen to great heights from search, it has risen because they make most of their money from selling ads on search results pages. Now with free wifi, and the fact they own the network, they can track everyone's web movements on the free wifi. This will help to analyze search patterns and aid them in creating a better search engine, and also be able to tailor more ads to specific people in a better fashion (the golden chalice of advertising). Get the eyes you want.

So why should other industries be scared?

By offering free Wifi to major areas, Google has just put ISPs out of business. Who wants $50 comcast cablemodem or $30 bellsouth DSL when they get free Wifi from Google? Sure businesses will still need fater pipes for work, but home users will be content with fairly fast wifi speeds from "Googlenets" wireless access points (I predict that if this does happen, on the days that Google upgrades to newer versions of wifi hardware in an area from an older, slower wifi, these days will be designated gHolidays and there will be massive gParties for the new bandwith). So who else should be scared?

Cell Phone Companies.

Skype, Gizmo Proj, Google Talk have all done a decent job at bringing VOIP to computers, but what if they created a cell phone that used only VOIP? What if you carried your skype or Google Talk/IM friends list with you everywhere on a device that looks like a phone? What if instead of dialing your buddy, you just IM him for a conversation on your VOIP cell phone? Who needs Sprint/Nextel/Verizon/Cingular? The whole cell network can now be reached by any trendy person who has a VOIP device on the Google Wifi Net. Why pay a cell phone carrier for service or traffic?

What if (and this is already happening in the cell industry) Google also can triangulate your position using their wireless nodes, to not only know who you are (from your VOIP device) but "Where you are". Now they can deliver specifically geotargeted advertising to a specific person at a specific place. Hungry for Mexican? Type in Mexican in your Google VOIP phone and it knows that you like Fish Tacos (From your Gmail conversations, your previous search history) and that you are at the corner of Peachtree and North Ave (form triangulation), and it can automatically give you the location to the best rated (from their database of ratings) fish taco place that is closest to your right now. We are now all just information nodes of the new Library of Alexandria, and it's mobile for us to use (Good?/Bad?).

Wait, they can't just give you the name, how about your Google VOIP devices show you the navigation (like GPS) to this place? How much would Jose's Fish Taco Restaurant pay for that? Customers directly to their doorstep?

There are tons of other uses (tracking run times for exercise, tracking points on a lake where the fish are biting, etc) that these devices will allow people to do. All this seems like a dream for advertisers, and normal people. So why am I scared of this?

I know all the stuff I just wrote about seems extremely shadowpunk (and speculative), but it is something that needs to be thought about/dreamt because with the release of Google Access Security today, it really is a first step in this direction (ok, maybe only for San Francisco). But still there are many things to think about with this. For one, what if the Goverment took it over? Google could not stop that. Also, is there anyway anyone could even begin to compete with Google (even MS and Y!) if this came to fruition? It is extremely neat to think about (as a programmer/geek) but also kind of scary (as someone who is already paranoid about civil rights).

Like it or not, the future looks Googly.