trillianjedi - 1:21 pm on Sep 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

Giving away a free pipeline for any type of communication has proven to be a valuable business model as of late (witness the market value of Skype).

Bingo.

Only, I can't see Google going all out on providing Wi-Fi hotspots (with about 150 feet maximum range) around the nation.

Who says they need to?

Google Secure Access will work equally well from the desktop (and it's working right now from London actually - and over WiFi from Swisscom AP's in London, so this whole San Francisco thing is a red herring).

What it does is create a new VPN sub-net running on the internet backbone from which only Google can mine data and information.

Now how powerful is that for an advertising company? Dark fibre anyone?

And re: Skype - as a leading industry blogger put it this afternoon : "why buy a company when you can swallow it?".

TJ