Long distance, wireless, and speedy Internet connections are everything but here. Just yesterday we were hearing some mixed reactions regarding WiMax, one of the proposed solutions. Google was also rumored to be preparing something on their own, especially after they entered the bid for the 700MHz spectrum, but at the end the communication giants prevailed and did away with that.
But the search giant is not sitting duck for a second, and this week it sent an outline to the FCC proposing to use TV bands that will be freed up next year as part of the obligatory shift to all-digital television. These unused waves, also called "white spaces" are highly valuable because can propagate long distances and through obstacles. Google outline basically tells the FCC to open up the bands for unlicensed use, opening the doors to mobile devices which could potentially browse the web at gigabits-per-second speeds. You can pretty much call it Wi-Fi 2.0.
Google is receiving support from other big names like Dell and Microsoft, and per their proposal, they are not interested in becoming service providers. It is only logical to assume that Google would still indirectly benefit from something like this.