Google Mountain View network celebrates first anniversary

Google’s Mountain View network is one year old. The company released interesting statistics on how many people are using it, traffic growth, percentage of use and so on. Google’s Mountain View network is one year old. The network covers 12 square miles (31 square kilometers) and 25,000 homes. The company released interesting statistics on how many people are using it, traffic growth, percentage of use, etc.:

- 15,000 unique users every month;
- traffic has grown 10% each month;
- network handles over 300 gigabytes of data per day;
- 95% of the mesh routers are being used daily.

The most interesting statistic is that “over 100 distinct types of Wi-Fi devices” have used the network. I take this to mean Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones and gaming devices.

In the Google blog, the Wi-Fi team says: This is why we’re committed to promoting alternative platforms for people to access the web, no matter where you are, what you’re doing or what device you’re using.

I hope Wi-Fi access gets easier over time and network owners don’t require people to go through laborious login procedures.

Today, most public Wi-Fi networks, especially the ones that offer free access, assume you are logging on with a laptop. They require you to enter a login name and password, click through multiple screens and check on boxes to agree to terms and conditions you can barely understand.

This type of login procedure does not allow people who have gaming devices to access the network and it makes life miserable for those who have to login with a handheld device with a tiny screen and phone keypad. The worst offenders are the service providers who require you to login with Internet Explorer. Microsoft stopped development on IE for the Mac years ago. This means people with Mac laptops cannot use the network.