Google WiFi is a municipal wireless network deployed in Mountain View, California

Mountain View, California

-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...

. It is entirely funded by Google and installed primarily on Mountain View lightposts. Google is committed to keeping the service free until 2010.

Wireless access

As of 2009, Google uses over 500 Tropos Networks MetroMesh routers acting as access points mounted primarily on utility poles providing usable signal and broadband internet access to over 95% of the city's area of 12 square miles (31.1 km²). As of 2009, it serves over 16,000 unique users each month and handles over 500 gigabytes of data in 24 hours. There are three aggregation points (or base stations) that all traffic is forwarded to. The radios in the access points offer both GoogleWiFi (which has no encryption) and GoogleWiFiSecure (which uses WPA to encrypt the over-the-air traffic) service set identifier

Service set identifier

A service set is all the devices associated with a local or enterprise IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network .-Service set identifier :...

s (SSID). Google WiFi only requires its end users have a Google Account

Google Account

A Google Account is a user account that provides access to Google-owned services such as Blogger, YouTube, and Google Groups. A Google Account can be identified either by the username or by their unique permanent ID...

. Google offers a free virtual private network

Virtual private network

A virtual private network is a network that uses primarily public telecommunication infrastructure, such as the Internet, to provide remote offices or traveling users access to a central organizational network....

 (VPN) software client called Google Secure Access (GSA) and maintains a list of other recommended third-party VPN software packages. Unlike a residential gateway

Residential gateway

A residential gateway is a home networking device, used as a gateway to connect devices in the home to the Internet or other WAN.It is an umbrella term, used to cover multi-function networking computer appliances used in homes, which may combine a DSL or cable modem, a firewall, a consumer-grade...

, the network does not use network address translation

Network address translation

In computer networking, network address translation is the process of modifying IP address information in IP packet headers while in transit across a traffic routing device....

 (NAT): it provides a routable IP Address

IP address

An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...

 from a DHCP pool with a one-hour "DHCP lease" under the DNS domain wifi.google.com directly to the client PC. A mobile laptop user can roam through Mountain View and maintain the same IP address for at least the one-hour lease time.

While the equipment is of high quality and well-placed, actual coverage with a laptop with built-in Wi-Fi hardware is less than 100% of the claimed area; the system works well in commercially zoned areas but residential coverage areas are still spotty from block to block. There are areas in the city which do not have city owned light poles and thus do not have routers.

Rollout

The service was announced by Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

 on September 20, 2005 and the service went live on August 16, 2006. Google WiFi is available throughout most of Mountain View.

Google partnered with entrepreneur and engineer Jaz Banga

Jaz Banga

Jaz Banga is dual national, British-Canadian entrepreneur. He is an American resident who lives and works in San Francisco, California. He is the holder of more than 30 patents and is currently the CEO of ProximityWare, Inc...

, and his company UnWire Now, Inc., on this project.