Skip to main content

Google Fiber wants to beam wireless Internet to your house

Fiber TV box
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Google really wants you to get online, and it’s willing to go to great lengths to do so. There already exists a plethora of loony ways to bring Web access to the masses — from balloons to drones, tech companies will stop at nothing to help you help them. And the latest plan from Google Fiber is to beam wireless broadband directly into households.

Google Fiber has come quite a long way in terms of bringing high-speed Internet to a few cities across the U.S., but now it’s dreaming even bigger. The ability to create a wireless home Internet service could change the whole Internet sector, allowing broadband companies to better address the “last mile” issue they face. Currently, companies have to find a way to connect a series of wires in order to provide service. But just maybe, that could soon be a thing of the past.

Recommended Videos

“We are experimenting with a number of different wireless technologies,” Access CEO Craig Barratt, who runs the Fiber program, said in an interview with Re/code. “One of the things that is intriguing about wireless is that it allows you reach houses and users that are in lower density settings — where fiber becomes too expensive. So providing fixed wireless services using some of the technologies we think are ways of accelerating our deployments.”

Please enable Javascript to view this content

If Google is successful with this new venture, it would be able to go head to head with over providers, including big names like AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, and Comcast.

Ultimately, Barratt says, “We’re trying to figure out how to remove barriers that prevent more consumer choice.” And while he hasn’t revealed much by way of details into Fiber’s plans for further expansion, it seems safe to assume that you may soon be able to get all your Internet from Google — not just the access you have at Starbucks.

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
Google just gave up on its proposed makeover of the internet
Google Chrome browser running on Android Automotive in a car.

Google announced on Monday that it will pull the brakes on phasing out the use of third-party cookies on its Chrome browser because of concerns from regulators, competitors, and privacy advocates, the tech giant said in a Privacy Sandbox post. Instead, Google will be going in a different direction that will let users choose how they interact with third-party cookies.

Blocking third-party cookies would have presented a hurdle for remarketing, which lets companies serve you ads based on your previous activity around the web.

Read more
Google is cracking down on internet security in this big way
Connection is not private warning from Google.

Google is making some serious changes to digital certificate security on the web, the company announced on its Security blog. The big news is that Google will no longer trust certificates from two large security firms -- Entrust or AffirmTrust -- due to repeated security lapses.

According to Google, the companies, which are Certificate Authorities (CA), have demonstrated patterns of unmet improvement commitments, compliance failures, and no measurable progress in how fast the company responds to publicly disclosed incident reports.

Read more
Your Google Photos app may soon get a big overhaul. Here’s what it looks like
The Google Photos app running on a Google Pixel 8 Pro.

Google Photos is set to get a long-overdue overhaul that will bring new and improved sharing and notification features to the app. With its automatic backups, easy sorting and search, and album sharing, Google Photos has always been one of the better photo apps, and now it's set to get a whole slew of AI features.

According to an APK teardown done by Android Authority and the leaker AssembleDebug, Google is now set to double down on improving sharing features. Google Photos will get a new social-focused sharing page in version 6.85.0.637477501 for Android devices.

Read more