Earthlinks Drops Out of San Fran Wi-Fi Project
With Earthlink’s troubles it’s not surprising they’re pulling out of covering San Francisco with wi-fi:
Mayor Gavin Newsom’s high-profile effort to blanket San Francisco with a free wireless Internet network died Wednesday when provider EarthLink backed out of a proposed contract with the city.
The contract, which was three years in the making, had run into snags with the Board of Supervisors, but ultimately it was undone when Atlanta-based EarthLink announced Tuesday that it no longer believed providing citywide Wi-Fi was economically viable for the company.
Does Google go into the infrastructure-building business? Embracing citywide wi-fi appears to be a way for them to sell highly-localized (and presumably profitable) ads. But building a network moves them away from their core of organizing information even though they’re full of smart people.
With few companies seeing profit-making opportunities in municipal wi-fi don’t be surprised if cities try building tax-funded networks. I could see that sort of attempt in a very liberal city like San Francisco.
“S.F. Citywide Wi-Fi Plan Fizzles as Provider Backs Off”
UPDATE: The Economist has a great survey of the state of U.S. municipal wi-fi.
