Google Offers Free Wireless Broadband Service

Google announced on Sunday, April 1, 2007, that it will soon begin the new BETA of its Toilet Internet Service Provider (or TiSP for short), which the Mountain View, California company describes as "a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users' plumbing systems."

According to Google's press release (available here), the program is available to anyone with a WiFi capable computer and a toilet that is connected to a municipal sewage system. "We've got that whole organizing-the-world's-information thing more or less under control," said Google Co-founder and President Larry Page. "What's interesting, though, is how many different modalities there are for actually getting that information to you - not to mention from you."

According to Google, TiSP will help solve what is referred to as the "last hundred yards" problem, which is what faces Internet providers trying to get the service from their hub to your home.

After receiving your in-home installation kit, which Google swears is water-proof, it is "a simple matter of GFlushing™ the fiber-optic cable down to the nearest TiSP Access Node, then plugging the other end into the network port of your Google-provided TiSP wireless router. Within sixty minutes, the Access Node's crack team of Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) should have your internet connection up and running."

Melissa Mayer, the Vice President of Google's Search Products and User Experience division, says she "couldn't be more excited about, and am only slightly grossed out by, this remarkable new product. I firmly believe TiSP will be a breakthrough product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of their best thinking in the bathroom."

According to Google, in their in-house testing (which they swear was quite sanitary!), the flow rate of the TiSP service was up to 10x the speed of standard DSL service.