Earthlink Shutters Municipal WiFi

Coming as no surprise to anyone who understands the true voodoo economics of municipal WiFi, Earthlink is shuttering its existing municipal WiFi networks.

From today’s RCR News:

EarthLink Inc. has officially shut down all operations related to its municipal Wi-Fi projects that hit the skids last summer. Making good on earlier promises, the company is looking for potential buyers after writing down a $20.7 million charge on discontinued operations related to its municipal Wi-Fi assets.

It’s been my view, publicly stated for well over a year, that community-wide municipal WiFi networks are losing propositions. Too many competitors vie in the WiFi space for this low-pay market, and too many competitors (think Sprint, AT&T, etc.) offer higher speed services on their own PCS networks.

Cable opearators are exploring entry into WiFi using their existing cable backbones for back-haul. That makes a lot of sense, and offers yet another reason why municipal governments shouldn’t be in the community-wide WiFi business, even with partners such as Earthlink, Google, etc.

As best I can tell, it’s the municipal consultants, paid bloggers/conference runners, and equipment vendors that are making money in this sector.

I do, however, continue to be a strong advocate for municipal governments providing WiFi in limited or controlled public spaces such as libraries, parks, senior centers, government buildings, etc.

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New Port Richey, FL opens government property, buildings to be cell sites

The opening lines of the Tampa Bay Online (The Tampa Tribune) story from February 7, 2008 tell it all:

NEW PORT RICHEY – It began as a discussion between city council members on limiting telecommunications towers within the city, but it ended up doing the exact opposite.

The city council Tuesday night approved the first reading of an ordinance that will permit the installation of cellular phone towers on most local government and public properties.

It passed 4-1.

While this is an interesting step toward wireless deployment, it’s important to realize that not every wireless carrier can make every site work on government owned property.

To read the full story at TPO.com, click here.

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Plans for the Wireless Blog Development

Here’s a road map to where I’ll be taking this blog over the next few weeks to several months…

  • I intend to start discussions regarding wireless basics for wireless planners. This series will dig into the elements of wireless sites from the aesthetic and transmission standpoints;
  • I’ll be delving into the thorny subject of RF safety, including ways to determine federal (and in some cases) state compliance;
  • I’ll be talking about future issues now coming on to the ‘radar screen.’

I’ll be taking requests to cover specific subjects. You can use the “Ask a Question” link at the top of any page to float your question or idea.

-Jonathan

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