Peter Griffin: Free wi-fi access within Google's sight

It's a rare but sweet thing when you check into a hotel and find it offers guests free wi-fi hotspot access.

Suddenly there's no worry about being fleeced on broadband charges, or having to venture out into dark streets to find an internet cafe.

Wireless fidelity, or "wi-fi", lets internet users online without having to connect through a phone line or high-speed internet connection.

Public hotspots have cropped up at cafes, hotels, gas stations and airport lounges. They're popular here, but much bigger in the United States and Europe, where sitting hunched over a laptop in a cafe has become a social norm.

By and large, users have to pay for the privilege of connecting to these hotspots with their laptops, handheld computers or wi-fi-enabled mobile phones.

But now there are growing rumours that internet giant Google is getting into wi-fi - free wi-fi, even.

No one has really been able to make the free wi-fi model work on a large scale, or use it to lure customers into buying other things they might be selling - be it cappuccino or hotel suites.

But if any company can make a free service work, it's Google, which has been successful in finding ways to make advertisers pay for things we don't want to pay for.

The company has become the biggest force on the internet as a result and generated enough cash to make a move into free wi-fi networks plausible.

The move would involve Google building infrastructure, or at least partnering with a company that can manage and maintain thousands of wi-fi hotspots, which is new territory for the company.

But then who really expected Google to go into instant messaging, internet telephony or satellite mapping?

Web pundits this week seized on some information published on Google's website (http://wifi.google.com/faq.html), which refers to downloadable software the company has developed that allows for the secure sending of information over the internet. It's a sort of encrypted virtual private network application, and its existence suggests Google's free wi-fi network may be set to grow.

Google has just a handful of free wi-fi hotspots operating in the San Francisco area at the moment, but there's genuine excitement in the US at the possibility of the company taking the free wi-fi model national or even global.

At present all the company's services - from the search engine and Gmail to Google Earth and Google Talk - are free. Advertisers subsidise the system by paying for the information Google mines from our web searches and the scanned contents of our email messages.

Wi-fi is actually perfect for targeted advertising, which underpins Google's multi-billion- dollar business. If you know where a wi-fi network connects to the internet, it's easy to identify the people who are connecting over it.

Google could then target those web surfers with advertising specific to their locale. For instance, the adverts in Gmail or down the right side of Google search results could point users to special deals at the supermarket across the road from the Google-sponsored cafe they're in.

With the introduction of WiMax, a new wireless technology that works the same way as wi-fi hotspots but on a much larger scale, the possibilities are endless. Users may not even have to visit their local wireless hotspot for access - Google could deliver it wherever they are, as long as the company can serve up targeted advertising.

There are other clues to Google's intentions - reports that the company is in the market for long stretches of unused fibre-optic capacity. Google has also partnered with Feeva (feeva.com), a San Francisco start-up that develops free high-speed internet networks and software used to "identify, target and deliver relevant and useful information to the user, in collaboration with online media, content, advertising and search services".

The rumours have prompted an understandably rabid reaction, as the move would be a major expansion of Google's business.

Since the company's public listing on Nasdaq last year, it has grown in market value to well over US$80 billion, becoming the most valuable internet company in the world and bigger than many of the established media and technology companies.

Investors are desperate to pick Google's next move and get into the company before its next bout of genius is reflected in the escalating share price.

Locally, the paid-for wi-fi model is gaining traction. Three main players - Telecom, Cafenet and Reach Wireless - have wireless hotspots they charge for by the hour, day or month.

Telecom has said it will let its account-holders connect to its hotspots with their Sony PSP wireless gaming consoles to play multiplayer games over the internet. We're all likely to use wi-fi hotspots as more wireless devices become available, and there's no incentive quite like a free lunch. I hope the pundits are right - that free, advertising-supported wi-fi access is in Google's sights.

The company could well change how we access the internet after already heavily influencing what we use it for.