What is GoogleNet?

Business 2.0 is talking like we are back in the days of the Dot-Com Bubble. Makes one wonder if they realize even NetZero charges for internet access these days.

What if Google wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user’s precise location? The gatekeeper of the world’s information could become one of the globe’s biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop. Sounds crazy, but how might Google go about it?
First it would build a national broadband network -- let's call it the GoogleNet -- massive enough to rival even the country's biggest Internet service providers. Business 2.0 has learned from telecom insiders that Google is already building such a network, though ostensibly for many reasons. For the past year, it has quietly been shopping for miles and miles of "dark," or unused, fiber-optic cable across the country from wholesalers such as New York’s AboveNet.

More likely, they are forming a network that might be free during its beta form, but would become a pay-per-play service when it goes live. One thing we have learned is "free" is rarely a good business model for bandwidth, unless you are Starbucks or another restaurant which can guarantee people will buy food while surfing. Then again, maybe I am being overly skeptical. GMail is still free, and Hotmail has never charged for their service.