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Google WiFi is currently being trialled in a few locations close to its San Francisco Bay Area headquarters.

The free service supports encryption through a downloadable utility as well as connections to corporate networks through existing VPN channels.

The SecureAccess utility is available at the Google site, and more information is available in the associated FAQ.

It seems Google WiFi is yet another child of its 20 per cent policy which allows its engineers

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to spend some of their working day on other projects.

The FAQ describes it thus: 'One of our engineers recognized that secure WiFi was virtually non-existent at most locations. As a result, he used his 20 per cent project time to begin an initiative to offer users more secure WiFi access. Google Secure Access is the result of this endeavour.'

Services such as Google News and the social-networking portal Orkut originated as 20 per cent projects, but a WiFi service would potentially have a bigger impact, fleshing Google out as an Internet service provider.

Such a move would be of little surprise to the likes of John Delaney, Principal Analyst at Ovum Consumer Group. When eBay bought Skype last week he told us: 'The big brands are positioning themselves - they're all elbowing into each others's territory,' he said. 'They all share one common denominator in that they are all powerful brands, but in niche services. What they all want to be is a generalised consumer Internet portal.'

Thus, Google has already bagged search and contextual advertising, rolled out email, instant messaging, VoIP. All that's missing is to provide the Internet connection itself.