Look out, Starbucks. Search-engine giant Google is serving up a tall order of its own: free WiFi access.

WiFi — wireless Internet access — is available at Starbucks and McDonald’s and many other locations for a fee, and in public areas for free.

Now Google, with billions of dollars to spend, has teamed up with a WiFi provider in the San Francisco Bay area to provide free WiFi access. Some experts had speculated Google was seeking to set up a nationwide network, but several analysts downplayed the suggestion.

"If you were trying to do something that covered most of the United States, that would just take an enormous amount of money and maintenance costs," said Ken Dulaney, program director for Gartner Inc., a technology research company in Stamford, Conn. "It would probably be as good an idea for making money as the war in Iraq."

Instead, Google will probably expand to major cities, including New York, said Philip Solis, senior analyst at ABI Research, a research company in Oyster Bay. Feeva Inc., which has set up WiFi access in three locations in San Francisco, has teamed up with Google but wouldn’t comment further, Feeva spokesman Keith Kamisugi said.

Advertisement

Google spokesman Nate Tyler said the company is testing the service at a limited number of locations near the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

A WiFi network could direct users to Google Web sites, bringing the company more advertising dollars, experts said.

The move also aligns well with Google’s mission, said Chris Winfield, president of 10e20 LLC, an Internet marketing and Web development company in Brooklyn.

"Their motto is to organize the world’s information," he said. "Now take that a step further: Organize the world’s information and give people access to it at any time."

The WiFi service would also offer a virtual private network, which would allow encrypted online communication traditionally available only to corporations. Several companies offer such secure network access for a fee.