Om has been breaking stories left and right. Here's his latest, written for Business 2.0, entitled "Free Wi-Fi? Get Ready for GoogleNet."

The story sounds plausible, though we haven't confirmed anything ourselves:

What if Google (GOOG) wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a userās precise location? The gatekeeper of the worldās information could become one of the globeās biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop. Sounds crazy, but how might Google go about it?

First it would build a national broadband network -- let's call it the GoogleNet -- massive enough to rival even the country's biggest Internet service providers. Business 2.0 has learned from telecom insiders that Google is already building such a network, though ostensibly for many reasons...

PS: We were confused by the 1900 date of the article too, but note that Om linked to it last night from his blog. (Update: Date has since been corrected).