Google is Offering Free WiFi at Airports - What Took So Long?

I read today that Google is offering free WiFi at 47 airports until the end of this year. My question is:

What took so long?

It makes perfect sense for Google to find a way to provide (and control) network access. Fundamentally, the distinction between voice and data access is diminishing as cellular networks become increasingly advanced. Wireless is the future battlefield for control of the Internet and Google isn't likely to sit on the side and just watch.

I think activities like the free WiFi are playing into a specific strategy. Consider the difference in market size and fragmentation between the national cellular networks (Verizon, AT&T, t-Mobile) and the national WiFi networks - if you can find any. The cellular voice networks have become the defacto data networks at the national level. If Google wanted to compete with them for direct customer access then it has a small set of options.

The first option would be building a network from scratch; a hefty expense and a lengthy wait. A second option would be buying one of the established cellular carriers - a merger that carries complexity, risk and cost. Neither option seems like Google's cup of tea.

If voice and data are becoming synonymous, then I think Google could look at the equation from the other side. Throughout daily life, we experience WiFi availability almost everywhere we go. In airports, malls, truck stops, bookstores, coffee shops, hotels, motels, rest areas, bus stations and in all of these places, how consistent is the WiFi branding? If Google wanted to quickly initiate Google-branded Internet access, it could simply buy up a bunch of these wireless providers and go to town offering free access in exchange for an advertising model; something which it has pretty good experience with.

I think one of the main advantages of this line of thinking is the fact that almost all portable data devices (laptops and cell phones) include WiFi support; yet, only cellular devices work on cellular networks. In other words, people need to pay for a separate cellular device and data plan with a cellular network, yet their devices can inherently talk to WiFi networks. The cheapest laptop from Dell includes WiFi support. I think that Google knows which market is bigger: cellular or WiFi.

If Google could become the national provider of WiFi, it would instantly have direct access to a huge portion of the population. Besides the advertising opportunity, this would provide Google with something else it incessantly craves - demographic information. Google has surely long envied America Online in its heyday, when it controlled the content AND the access. By comparison to those days, this degree of power has been vastly magnified as our culture has become increasingly dependent on being wired.

So why wouldn't any of this trigger anti-trust concerns? Because WiFi networks are not exclusive - there is no technical or legal reason why more than one ISP couldn't provide WiFi coverage in someplace like an airport. And since WiFi networks are, by design, extremely local, it would be hard to argue that buying providers in different airports would be monopolizing a market, since any given market would only extend about 600 feet from the nearest access point.

Google just may have pulled the trigger on something bigger than it seems.