Want to know where EarthLink is headed? Take a look at Corpus Christi. The city’s network, which EarthLink purchased in March, could well be the model that the company pursues in the future. I caught up with Don Berryman, president of EarthLink Municipal Networks, as he caught a plane to attend the wire-cutting there Thursday. Here’s what he had to say.Want to know where EarthLink is headed? Take a look at Corpus Christi. The city’s network, which EarthLink purchased in March, could well be the model that the company pursues in the future. I caught up with Don Berryman, president of EarthLink Municipal Networks, as he caught a plane to attend the wire-cutting there this morning. Here’s what he had to say.
Berryman sees the network as “a true evolution.” In 2003 the city decided to deploy its own network to support city services in the field. At the start, the network was targeted for city use with the specific goal of using it for automatic meter reading (AMR). Corpus Christi became the first in the U.S. to use AMR when the network was deployed in 2004.
It was after the network was built that the city decided to make it more consumer-friendly and run commercial service across it. That was where EarthLink came in. The company had been working with the city for about seven months to upgrade the network for commercial service when, in March, EarthLink purchased the network from the city along with the rights to the city’s 147 square mile market for $5.5 million.
EarthLink added $900,000 in equipment upgrades, mostly access points to insure coverage, and has been selling subscriptions to residential and business subscribers since June.
The multi-use nature of the network, one in which the city continues to have a big role as anchor tenant, reflects the sort of business model for muni wireless that EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff indicated last month would be the company’s new direction.
In Corpus Christi, subscriptions are just one part of a comprehensive and ongoing relationship with the city. The company purchases wholesale access to the city’s backbone for $340,000 a year and the city has a $500,000 yearly commitment to buy back network services from EarthLink. EarthLink does not release data on customer growth in individual cities but Berryman said the commercial sales in Corpus Christi are going well and that total subscriptions in the three cities where EarthLink has active deployments‚Äö?Ñ?ÆAnaheim, Philadelphia, and Corpus Christi‚Äö?Ñ?Ægrew from 2000 to 4000 in the last quarter.
“I think it really is the model of the future,” Berryman told me. “I think the days of cities getting free networks are gone. There’s not sufficient capital to just build a network without getting any advance commitment from the cities.”
Click here to read the Corpus Christi Caller-Times’ story about today’s wire-cutting.
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