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Mobilestar Less Mobile; Excite@Home Less Exciting

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the companies-in-freefall dept.

jc1 writes: "MobileStar, provider of 802.11b wireless LAN connectivity throughout 500 of the USA's Starbucks cafes, has laid off 88 of its staff, which a source described as "everybody". With the demise in August of Metricom's Ricochet service, one is left to wonder if there is a business to be made in providing public wireless Internet services." Or any broadband internet access at all - Excite@Home, currently in bankruptcy proceedings, has stopped taking any new orders.

1 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Excite@Home - who needs it? by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It was never clear what value Excite@Home added. The cable company provides the infrastructure for cable modems, and some backbone provider provides the long-haul portion of the service. Excite@Home was supposed to compete with AOL's "content", or at least that was the hype a year or two ago. Apparently they also did tech support for cable services, badly. So, no great loss.

    I live near Excite@Home HQ. I await the furniture auction; they had good furniture.