Google Launches Free Wireless Broadband Via User’s Plumbing System
TiSP Access via Fiber-optic Cable in Local Municipal Sewer
Google’s “dark porcelain” project offers self-installed plumbing-based Internet access.
Google Inc. yesterday “announced” the launch of Google TiSP (BETA), a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users’ plumbing systems. The Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system.
“We’ve got that whole organizing-the-world’s-information thing more or less under control,” said Google Co-founder and President Larry Page, a longtime supporter of so-called “dark porcelain” research and development. “What’s interesting, though, is how many different modalities there are for actually getting that information to you – not to mention from you.”
For years, data carriers have confronted the “last hundred yards” problem for delivering data from local networks into individual homes. Now Google has successfully devised a “last hundred smelly yards” solution that takes advantage of preexisting plumbing and sewage systems and their related hydraulic data-transmission capabilities. “There’s actually a thriving little underground community that’s been studying this exact solution for a long time,” says Page. “And today our Toilet ISP team is pleased to be leading the way through the sewers, up out of your toilet and – splat – right onto your PC.”
Users who sign up online for the TiSP system will receive a full home self-installation kit, which includes a spindle of fiber-optic cable, a TiSP wireless router, installation CD and setup guide. Home installation is a simple matter of GFlushing the fiber-optic cable down to the nearest TiSP Access Node, then plugging the other end into the network port of your Google-provided TiSP wireless router.
“I couldn’t be more excited about, and am only slightly grossed out by, this remarkable new product,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. “I firmly believe TiSP will be a breakthrough product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of their best thinking in the bathroom.”
— TechNewsPulse
