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SF Wi-Fi in big trouble
By Larry Hendrick | August 3, 2007
Earthlink has looked at the bottom line, and found Muni WiFi lacking. The agreement between San Francisco and Earthlink took another hit when the city refused to sign up for the services as an anchor tenant.
This news could even hurt other programs in progress. We’ll see.
» SF Wi-Fi slows down as EarthLink changes its muni biz plan | ZDNet Government | ZDNet.com
EarthLink’s once-bold plans to build out municipal wireless networks is on hold as new CEO Rolla Huff said the old business model simply doesn’t work.“Until we’re confident that we can build new networks and get an acceptable return, we will delay any further new buildouts,” Huff said on a conference call following EarthLink’s second-quarter earnings report. The company lost $16.3 million in the quarter, which ended June 30.
The immediate impact is being felt in San Francisco, where EarthLink was slated to built a much-touted WiFi network. Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin moved to push back votes on the network until September.
Topics: WiFi |
August 6th, 2007 at 8:03 am
This also appears true for other Earthlink cities. Alexandria, VA’s network was due to be available this month, but Earthlink is now hedging that it may not get built at all.
More information at wirelessalexandria.com
Looked like a viable alternative for Alexandria, especially as Verizon has passed over Alexandria for FiOS, and Comcast is, well, comcast (which is not comcastic).
August 6th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Thanks for the comment and the link, Drew.
I was afraid of this very thing since reading that Earthlink is losing money faster than they can print it. This is something stockholders and board members don’t like to read about in the papers. It’s so bad for business.
When a profitable method is determined (maybe WiMax?) private industry will rush to fill this void, but until then, stories like this will continue.