Google buggers

Those Google chappies are jolly smart! Om has been tracking their moves to create GoogleNet, and Kevin Werbach has also pointed out the implications in a typically insightful way.
I have long held the view (AMS internal technical newsletter 1999) that the creation of a (or several, competing) 'supernet' was inevitable, as companies start to care about where their customers are on the internet and how the content ('product') is getting to them.
The Google WiFi VPN client, combined with the GoogleNet backbone is a stroke of genius, however, and it puts Google right there in the middle, between the companies and their customers.
Various comments have been made about how the VPN client actually appears to improve speed rather than degrade it. This is exactly what I would expect for services that are highly popular. You can get to Heathrow from Stansted by driving through London, but generally it's best to take the M25 (especially if the M25 is a 24 lane mega-highway!).
Google is creating demand-led route optimisation, and the WiFi client is the hook that gives access to the super-highway. Want to connect your town or business to the superhighway? It'll cost you...