Google announces first-year results of Mountain View WiFi

Mountain View (CA) – It’s been a little more than a year since Google launched its free “Google WiFi” service in Mountain View California and the company is taking time to congratulate itself in an official blog posting.

The post made by Minnie Ingersoll, Chris Sacca and Larry Alder from the Alternative Access team said the city’s 400-plus mesh routers spew out 30 GB of data every day and that total is growing at approximately 10% a month. The routers cover 12 square miles and 25,000 homes. Approximately 15,000 people a month use the wireless service.

Google WiFi started on August 16th 2006 and uses 802.11 b/g routers hanging on the city’s lampposts. Anyone can access the network for free, as long as they have a Google username and password. Both unencrypted and WPA-protected access is supported.

Google has a 5-year contract with Mountain View to run the network. The contract also has a provision for two five-year renewals.