It’s official: San Francisco to get free WiFi blanket courtesy of Google / EarthLink

By Darren Murph | January 6, 2007

Ah Google, where would we be without you? Instead of answering that, we’ll just say that the search giant (and future world dominator?) has landed yet another smile-eliciting deal, and this time it’s the San Franciscans getting the spoils. While the deal between the city of San Francisco and Google / EarthLink has been brewing for quite some time, city officials have (finally) “finalized a contract that will enable EarthLink to build a citywide wireless network and allow Google to provide free internet access.” With an estimated one million or so folks to benefit from the implementation, things are looking good if you’ve been itching for everywhere-WiFi and happen to live in SF, and while EarthLink still plans on offering a “fee-based premium service,” Google is looking out for the little guy by dishing out the free stuff. Apparently, no hard pricing figures nor rollout dates have been set just yet, but things should start moving along relatively soon if Google has anything to do with it, as a statement released by the company stated its intent to “to see the service go live as soon as possible” — now that’s what we’re talking about. [Warning: PDF Link]