Google Wi-Fi Passport is a new Android app that allows people in Djakarta, Indonesia to get access to participating Wi-Fi hotspots. Users buy credits to use Wi-Fi Passport from online payment system Mogplay.
It is one more way Google is expanding the ways people can get online, aside from becoming an Internet service provider itself, as Google does in Kansas City, Kan. Kansas City, Mo., Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah, offering Google Fiber, or by providing Wi-Fi access at Starbucks coffee shops.
Beyond that, Google has experimented with providing Wi-Fi access in some parts of U.S. cities as well, and also is exploring non-traditional forms of access as part of Project Loon.
Few companies whose business model is based on advertising ever have made such investments in getting everybody online, at the fastest speeds possible.
The only other real example is AOL, whose original revenue model was based substantially on access revenues, even though it has transitioned largely to an advertising model at present.
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