There's a catch to free Wi-Fi

Don't ditch that wireless router just yet. Google's proposal to offer free wireless Net access throughout the city of San Francisco--the first of many areas, according to much speculation--may sound appealing, but it wouldn't be the same as the high-speed DSL or cable connections used in homes and businesses today. The chief difference is speed. Google's service would apparently top out at 300 kbps. That's about five times the speed of telephone dial-up connections, but hardly the kind of capacity needed for many high-bandwidth services and applications. So any reports about the death of traditional telecom and cable carriers would appear greatly exaggerated.

Another concern would be the coverage under today's Wi-Fi technologies, which other cities have found trickier to deploy than originally thought. Blogma once tried to use San Francisco's Wi-Fi hot spot in an area called Union Square: The connection was spotty at best and wouldn't work at all across the street.