[Chapter-delegates] [ISOC-NY Discussion] Google plan would offer free Internet throughout SF

[Christian de Larrinaga]

Desiree

A simpler analogy exists with free local newspapers.

You don't need to personalise each paper for each individual who  
picks it up off the sidewalk. All you need to know is that the person  
reading it is in the area. This lets you present a local search  
engine to the user so they can find the nearest bar, restaurant,  
dentist, and other service advertised by the local business  
community. So you don't really need to be intrusively nosey just  
provide a simple and useful interface to local information.

A city can lease access to providers over a wlan infrastructure if it  
sets it up. So there is scope for a city to be serviced with both  
free to use and pay to use ISP's. This can take into account  
different user needs such as for IP address allocation,  VLAN's,  
traffic volume, applications, secure payment, VoIP, discounts on  
local services and so forth.  Some businesses will say to their staff  
you must only use ISP x when you are on the road and so forth.

The danger of a local authority in promoting a single IP service  
level provider is you end up with just one financial model for IP  
access over that area and this both limits choice to the user but  
also restricts the ability of that infrastructure to be financially  
viable long term. A community WLAN that receives lease fees from both  
advertising and pay for access gets the best of all worlds.


Christian de Larrinaga
cdel at firsthand.net



On 4 Oct 2005, at 19:46, Desiree Miloshevic wrote:

> Fred
>
> You raise right questions, such as how is the cost of service  
> subsidized.
>
> If Google decides to send you ads that are really of interest to you,
> also known as personalization service, then, this is in my opinion  
> fine
> substitute for the cost of access.
>
> I think that Google's answer might be:
> a) run everything that will be free as a free service
> b) use that service to amass useful personalized data and make money
> from the personalization
> c) keep the interface between a and b scrupulously well-defined.
>
> The separation that Google's CEO Eric Schmidt talks about is by  
> analogy
> to newspapers, the separation between the business side and the
> editorial side, e.g., so theoretically the newspaper can write a big
> story about environmental issues at the local supermkt while accepting
> ads from same supermarket.
>
> Schmidt thinks that maintaining the sep betw "service to users"
> and "revenue from ads" is key to the don't-be-evil equation.
>
> and btw an interesting partnership was announced today:
> http://news.com.com/Google%2C+Sun+plan+partnership/ 
> 2100-1012_3-5887923.html?tag=nefd.lede
> http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3553371
>
> Desiree
> --
>
>
> Fred Baker wrote:
>
>> the key question is "how will it be paid for?" If access is free, but
>> the access network has to pay the backbone for transit services,
>> money would appear to be coming out of thin air.
>>
>> I suspect that the real result of this will be that the Internet will
>> be free if you want the service that is provided for free, and that
>> service will be subsidized by back room deals that leave the user
>> receiving content he doesn't want so that the subsidizers will be
>> willing to subsidize. Very much like the color-glossy-magazine and
>> the newspaper industries; the service you receive is primarily paid
>> for by advertisers, perhaps advertisers that know your location (what
>> hot spot are you in?) and have some level of access to your private
>> communications patterns (think about what google does with hit
>> counts) and perhaps even your communications (gmail).
>>
>> It's an Internet, I suppose, and you won't be being directly charged,
>> but the advertisers are coming up with their cash somehow - you will
>> be paying the advertiser. And ask yourself, if you were offering it,
>> what services you would offer and on what basis.
>>
>> It doesn't result in an internet for everyone. It results in an
>> internet for the advertisers.
>>
>> On Oct 2, 2005, at 1:13 PM, Veni Markovski wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> That's the way to make sure Internet will be for everyone.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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