Just as AOL is getting out of the ISP business to focus on advertising, Google today turned on free Internet access for all of Mountain View, Calif.

Google will move its Wi-Fi experiment out of its "trusted-tester" beta phase where its been since June and open the citywide secure wireless connection to anyone with a standard 802.11B or G card.

Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives for Google, said Google's free-for-download VPN, Google Secure Access, which encrypts all data transmitted from the computer, should allay security concerns.

Bandwidth will reach around 1 megabyte per second both ways.

The move comes ahead of schedule, because the community took so readily to the beta test, Sacca told internetnews.com.

But despite the enthusiasm, Google doesn't plan on pursuing the ISP business full time, Sacca said.

The point of Google Wi-Fi is to show that municipal Wi-Fi can be done.

Full article: internetnews.com