Microsoft and Google reportedly partnering with cable companies to expand Wi-Fi access

Microsoft and Google reportedly partnering with cable companies to expand Wi-Fi access

Feb 13th 2014, 18:58, by Nathan Ingraham

Some of the biggest cable and technology companies in the US are apparently putting together an unlikely partnership. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google and Microsoft are joining up with Charter, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable to launch a coalition to expand public Wi-Fi access. WifiForward, as the coalition is said to be named, would seek to lobby the government to free up more spectrum that could be used for Wi-Fi to free up networks that will undoubtably get more congested in the coming years. Despite the ubiquity of LTE-capable smartphones, Cisco says that 57 percent of mobile data traffic in the US is carried over Wi-Fi — and as data usage increases in coming years, Wi-Fi spectrums will get more and more crowded.
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