This fortnight two new announcements relating to WiFi came which are going to change the way we use WiFi. While they announcements I am talking about came in independent of each other, the potential that lies in combination of the two services is explosive to say the least.

#1> Google announced that the joint bid of Google and Earthlink has been chosen to provide free Wi-fi access across the city of San Francisco, with quality to be as good as six times the standard dial-up connection.

#2> A new service Barablu is launched which provides free voice calls and messages to users of it’s product and users connect to the service via Wifi. And it does not look like yet another “now-its-there-now-it-is-not” since there is a sensible revenue model in place where users can call non-Barablu users for a small fee.
Now just think about it, when this Google’s services start in SF and the awareness about Barablu grows there are going to be quite a lot of smart individuals who would be calling each other completely free. All they would need is a WiFi phone (the other two requirements of a connection and Barablu application are completely free) and these days all new mobile models are coming up with WiFi capabilities.

It is expected that Network Operators will do some counter-move for their own survival, the only way to find out is wait and watch.

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