EarthLink next calendar month will close down its Philadelphia Wi - Fi electronic web , the flagship of its now - flash municipal wireless initiative , and then remove it from the city ’s street lights .
Unless a deal to hand over the connection can be salvaged , it will be a somber ending to the projection that put municipal Wi - Fi on the mapping in the U.S. just three years ago . Philadelphia ’s design in 2005 to build the country ’s large municipal Wi - Fi web , cross 135 satisfying international nautical mile , drew fire from Verizon Communications , which charged it was unfair to habituate taxation dollars to make a web that would compete with private service supplier .
Under EarthLink ’s win proposal for the project , the carrier finance , build and operated the mesh at no cost to taxpayer , sharing revenue with Wireless Philadelphia . The idea was to make Wi - Fi available to residents and businesses throughout the city , reaching expanse the city suppose did n’t have broadband , and to offer the service at a subsidize rate to low - income resident to make for them online .
But there were delays in stray out the internet and it never bring in much traction . In court papers file Tuesday , EarthLink said it had only 5,034 regular residential and business ratifier and 908 client under the subsidized plan . EarthLink said it knew by previous 2007 that the business was unsustainable .
EarthLink ’s other municipal Wi - Fi networks also fail to deliver , and the ship’s company started shutting down its municipal Wi - Fi unit last twelvemonth . Since then it has given networks back to cities including Corpus Christi , Texas , and Milpitas , California . The company offered to give the Philadelphia electronic internet to the city or the unknown nonprofit for free , after which the non-profit-making would offer gratis service , grant to EarthLink . instance of the metropolis and Wireless Philadelphia were not immediately usable for commentary .
Also on Tuesday , EarthLink asked a federal court to declare it has the right to take down the net and that its liability for pulling out is capped at $ 1 million .
“ Wireless Philadelphia and the metropolis are still lick actively together to identify alternatives for preserving this connection and applying it to numerous civil , commercial-grade and societal purposes . We remain affirmative for an orderly settlement of this affair , ” Greg Goldman , the group ’s CEO , said in a instruction .
The history of Philadelphia ’s wireless enterprisingness is get it hard for the city to move on , accord to Craig Settles , an autonomous municipal meshwork adviser who has written a book about the project . The mellow hopes raised by the labor , the foresightful wait to see it built and the bitter fight with incumbent serving provider — who might have taken over the web — have put loss leader in a problematical status , Settles said .
Given the possible price of take down the web versus just running it at a expiration for a few more calendar month , Settles trust EarthLink may have threaten the move to scare its negociate cooperator into a resoluteness . Yet given more time , the metropolis and its pardner might find other stakeholders such as hospitals or universities to assist out , he said .
“ I ca n’t see why you would just take the air in and draw the plug , ” Settles say , though he added , “ Dumber business organisation deals have been done because of someone just getting peeve . ” EarthLink might also want to dissolve the issue apace to crystalise the way for a sale of the company , he supply .
