Will Google's WiFi Plans Be Spoiled By Sprint

Google (GOOG)  has been in negotiations for months to blanket San Francisco with WiFi. Its partner, Earthlink (ELNK), would supply most of the infrastructure. The "free" service would be supported by advertising that would appear on the user’s computer when the WiFi link is on.

According to media sources, the deal may be announced by the city in the next day or two. Google may use the project as a platform for tracking users across a large geography and serving them advertising using the Adense platform. Over time, the deal could bring Google a new line of geography based advertising products.

The project is a great idea, but it is bound to bump up against the huge WiMax deployment being engineered by Sprint (S) for its 4G wireless phone service. The technology should work with PCs as well. Sprint says that its technology will be available to 100 million people in the US within two years. The great concentration of those potential customers will be in cities.

Sprint is not going it alone. It has the support of WiMax advocates Intel (INTC), Motorola (MOT), and Samsung. Several other companies like Nokia (NOK) and Ericsson (ERIC) has been mentioned at technology partners as well.

WiMax technology is not particularly good for the WiFi revolution. Spreading WiFi over a large geography is expensive. It requires thousands of "hot spots". WiMax works over a much wider footprint.

Google may find itself in the midst of one of its most public technology deployments, one in its own backyard, confronted by a project supported by two or three of the largest hardware companies in the world.

Nice battle.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.