Let's be perfectly clear here: Google WiFi connectivity at the library has been spotty *FOR YEARS*, not just a few months.

I note that I can stand directly under a WiFi node mounted on a city streetlight and not be able to connect. Even if the connection speed is slow, it would be a more useful network if it had some modicum of reliability. It did, once upon a time, but those days are long gone.

Let's hope the city has not been using taxpayer's money to power nonfunctional WiFi transceivers all these years.

Solution: Open a Starbucks next to City Hall.

Just as the Google comment mentioned, people now casually use wireless connection for things like real-time video, requiring 10 to 100 times the data volume of traditional internet services that were common when this system was set up. Why are these people surprised that this use swamps the system's capability? This issue is not limited to Google's city wi-fi, it is surfacing in many local wireless networks.

I used to get 3 Google wifi nodes from my home. They have been gone for years. Google installed wifi in Mountain View to advertise the service to other cities. Now they don't need us any more. They don't even CARE about the library.

Well, I'm glad someone stepped in to fix this since Foolgle won't. I mean Google. No, actually, I mean Foolgle. I bet they announce that they're taking it down, this sounds like a death rattle that the city already knows about, otherwise why spend money to replace it if Google is going to fix it soon?

Google sucks! I want my money back!

oh yeah, umm, nevermind

pretty sad with Google Headquarters in Mountain View they could not work out some WI-Fi system that they are doing other places around the country. Great relationship!

I wish Google move out of Mt. View

I wish Google move Mt. View

I Google Mt. View

People may say "you get what you pay for", however, Google was getting a lot of free press for providing wifi, whether it worked or not. If Costco promised to give out free hot dogs to every customer and then didn't, and were still advertising that they provide free hots, there would be a lot of unhappy people.

I view Mt. Google move wish.

No, people are not pushing more data through the system now than when the system was new. Google has always blocked most ports so the system only offered minimal access. It was barely usable since day one. As a network designer for 30 years and as one of the original Beta testers for Google WiFi I can authoritatively say that its never worked well. I've never gotten an entire web page to display and could only get a handful of email through it. Thats just useless and they are pointing to our fair city and telling other communities that they will provide them free WiFi like ours. Its just a matter of time before we're thought of as idiots for allowing Google to not provide service and still use our fair name.
I think that in addition to switching off Google WiFi in city buildings, it should be turned off citywide.

We hooked up to Google WiFi very early on with professionally installed Ruckus modem and a Netgear Wireless router, both quality gear. It was a disaster from Day 1 --- insufficient bandwidth and inability to access / dropped connections. It was even slower and far more unreliable than the horrible ATT 56K dial-up service that we had suffered with for years. After 6 months of free WiFi hell, we contracted with SBC/ATT DSL and have had mostly decent, if not blazing, access since then.

Google WiFi was not a total failure, at least for Google if not the people of Mountain View. Google learned a very valuable lesson known by economists as "The Tragedy of the Commons". In short, if you offer a valuable service for free, it always will be overused and become useless for all. Google learned that the future of the Internet lies in ultra-high bandwidth "last mile fiber optic cable" and is installing such a system in Kansas City, Kansas. We should be so lucky. They should have offered it in Mountain View first.

City and Google like Marriage Relationship based on trust and LOYALTY, City should not Google around because of Wifie Slow Performance. And replace it with a much Smarter Wifie Technologies. City will have to pay an Alimony support for ever . . . an eternity.

I guess it is OK that it never worked because it was free. I am sure Google thinks it is not worth fixing it or even maintaining it in a decent working condition because they are too big now. The poor working condition of Google Wifi is almost like spitting on all Mtview residents who were using it and especiailly the library patrons. if google were an ethical company with any kind of decency, they should have come out with an announcement for abandoning it. What a arrogant company? I understand it is a free service and it is not mandatory that they need to offer anything to anyone. But then if you do something , do it properly and show some respect. Don't we all respect even the homeless people even though many of us don't offer them any money? Google is just a pure arrogant company and they deserve to fail. I can't wait for that day to see massive layoffs and empty buildings.

Contrary to another reports above, I found that Google WiFi was actually useful enough to serve as a primary Internet connection for 2-3 years (let's say between 2006-2009) if one had the proper relay equipment and were lucky to be close enough to a Google WiFi transceiver.

A few years later, it ended. The system had degraded to the point where it was pretty useless. No reliable connection despite that I hadn't moved. And yes, I tried other gear, but as I mentioned in my original post, there's no connection even if you are within fifty feet of the node.

Google set up the system to curry favor from the MV city council members circa 2005-06, and basically disowned the system after it had served its purpose.

My opinion - it was a scam from the get-go.

I believe that Google only wanted to do it because it was cheaper to put wifi nodes on city poles than to pay for Internet at home for all of its employees that live here.

That they had a tiered service was telltale - they were *not* interested in providing access to Mountain View residents - only for their employees.

There appears to be a Google Wi-Fi repeater on the telephone pole about 150 feet from where my laptop sits and I've been able to connect to it and use it without much of a problem. Sometimes the connection speed is very slow, but at other times it was fine. I don't have a special modem. I just connect with the built in Wi-Fi adapter in my laptop. One time I used Google Wi-Fi to do a search to get information on configuring my new DSL modem that I have for my paid Internet access.

Whatever the backstory, everybody's known it doesn't work for years. It was time to shyte or get off the pot. Additional data demand is not exactly a new problem, and nor is it rocket science to address. Comments to the effect that it'll get fixed, hold on, we're aware of the problem, etc. have wasted everybody's time. I thought big G would fix it if for no other reason than to gain from all google wifi users having to use it via google account.

A well-loved public library in the middle of silicon valley without functional wifi? Weak sauce.

Below the radar, Google "modified" the contract with the City, deleting language for any services across Mountain View and providing service only to about a dozen blocks downtown. Rather than any apologies for the year's of hollow promises, they instead sneaked out under cover of darkness leaving the public to figure it out on their own.