EarthLink Says No Future for Municipal Wi-Fi

Glenn Fleishman writes "EarthLink dropped its final bombshell on city-wide Wi-Fi, saying that it wouldn't put more money in and was talking to their current deployed cities about the future. The company had won bids in dozens of cities, and then backed out of the majority of them before building or finalizing contracts a few months ago. The remaining towns they were building out, like New Orleans, Anaheim, and Philadelphia, will ostensibly be turned off unless local officials come up with scratch or a plan of their own. EarthLink pioneered the model of free-for-fee networks, where there would be no cost or upfront commitment from cities, and EarthLink would charge for network access. Apparently, you can't make money that way."

Comments

Re:Unnecessary

[aproposofwhat]

Well Sheffield's in Yorkshire, and Yorkshiremen are noted for giving "nowt for nowt".

Down here in Southern pansy land, there are open access points all over the place.

Re:Unnecessary

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

Maybe that is how to stop the vehicles driving by blasting music way too loud. Threaten them with a RIAA lawsuit.

Re:city-wide wifi has its uses

[hey]

Nice to see footnotes in a Slashdot posting.

Re:Unnecessary

[vertinox]

there are no so many home networks left open that one can just use whatever is nearby.

This is why my routers DNS entries redirect to a particular website with a particular image. You know which one.