Alphabet looks to wirelessly connect homes to Internet

Google parent Alphabet Inc. wants to beam high-speed internet wirelessly to homes, using technology that it says is cheaper than laying cables.

Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting Wednesday that improvements in computer chips and more accurate targeting of wireless signals have made “point-to-point” wireless internet connections “cheaper than digging up your garden.” Mr. Schmidt said Alphabet executives increasingly think the technology can deliver internet connections at 1 gigabit per second, equivalent to the speed its Google Fiber unit provides through fiber-optic cables in five U.S. cities.

“To give you an idea of how serious this is,” Mr. Schmidt told shareholders, he met with Alphabet Chief Executive Larry Page, Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat and others on Tuesday to discuss the technology.

Google Fiber has previously disclosed that it is testing wireless technology in Kansas City, the first city to receive its high-speed internet service, and hopes to have a demonstration network operating there by next year. The company said it is testing several wireless technologies, which could require users to have special devices in their homes to receive the signals.

Alphabet is exploring wireless technologies as a way to reduce the complexity and cost of connecting users to high-speed internet, a boon for its business, which relies on more people using the internet more often.

Wednesday’s shareholder meeting proceeded as expected. Alphabet’s 11 directors retained their seats, and six shareholder proposals, including measures to require an independent chairman and disclose more information about Alphabet’s lobbying, were voted down. Mr. Schmidt and Google co-founders Mr. Page and Sergey Brin control a majority of Alphabet’s voting shares, making it impossible for shareholder proposals to succeed without their support.

Wednesday’s meeting was the first opportunity for shareholders to question executives since the company reorganized into Alphabet, a holding company for its core business of Google and several other projects, such as home-automation firm Nest, research lab X and Google Fiber. But few shareholders asked tough questions. The first to speak asked executives why they no longer gave out coffee mugs at shareholder meetings; an executive later announced 100 free hats would be delivered.

Michael Passoff, the CEO of Proxy Impact, a shareholder-advocacy group, said Google “lags its peers in addressing gender-pay disparity” and pushed Mr. Schmidt to release more complete data on pay for men and women at Google. In a tense exchange, Mr. Schmidt said he wouldn’t commit to releasing a report on the issue—a proposal voted down earlier—but “would work to convince you this is true.”

Mr. Schmidt also highlighted several technologies that Alphabet views as promising in coming years, including plant-based imitation meat, three-dimensionally printed buildings, virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it,” Mr. Schmidt said. “We start from that premise here at Alphabet.”