We knew Google was in the running for San Francisco’s wireless network project, but now we know how they’d implement their plan. News.com says that they’ve joined forces with internet service provider Earthlink for their bid, which would feature two city-wide wireless networks: one a slower, cost-free net administered by Google, and the other a high-speed, tech-supported deal handled by Earthlink that would cost about 20 dollars or less per month.
With all the attention it’s getting, you’d think the Google-Earthlink bid was the only one the city will consider – nope, it’s just the only one involving Google. San Francisco will weigh five other bids, including one by SF Metro Connect (a three-party team consisting of IBM, Cisco and nonprofit SeaKay), before deciding on a winner in April. Search Engine Journal says that one reason San Francisco’s Wi-Fi project (and Google’s bid) is getting so much press is that pundits believe “San Fran Wi-Fi may be a sandbox for Google’s plans to bring Wi-Fi to the world…” although that assumes the Google/Earthlink victory is already a done deal.
But some believe that world-wide Wi-Fi – whether delivered by Google or not – could spell certain doom. Ars Technica reports that Fred Gilbert, president of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, is refusing to approve a campus wide wireless network because of the technology’s unproven safety. Gilbert believes that the Electro-Magnetic Field (you might be familiar with the one that blankets the entire Earth) generated by wireless devices could be especially dangerous to the growing boys and girls composing Lakehead’s student body.
He notes that the hazards of certain products aren’t known for decades afterwards, saying, “We’re just finding out now what some of those impacts are. Asbestos is another example.” …We’re just finding this out? Maybe Gilbert’s newspapers are being delivered a touch late – the first successful US worker compensation claim for an asbestos injury was processed in 1926, says Wikipedia. But who knows? Gilbert could be on to something, and cities like San Francisco, Philly, Chicago and London could be in big trouble thirty years from now, when the decades of cascading muni wi-fi waves have taken their woeful toll. Either that, or Gilbert’s wi-fi worries are sci-fi; as Ars Technica points out, “The 2.4GHz frequency used by current WiFi hardware is also used other devices which are widely held to be free of safety concerns, most notably cordless phones.” And one wonders why Gilbert seems unconcerned about the dangers of wired internet, particularly the “strangulation risk from improper use of Cat5e cables.”
