Goldman always acts as if he’s the head of a charitable organization, not of a utility or the overseer of a utility. If Wireless Philadelphia were fulfilling its promise, Earthlink would have tens of thousands of new full-rate subscribers, and the digital divide subscribers would make up a noteworthy but minor fraction of the total subscriber base. Would Earthlink spend $20 million or however much to get a couple thousand people on subsidized Wi-Fi? (By the way, no one knows how WP is really doing because Earthlink refuses to release subscriber numbers.)

The real story here, as Philly’s local weeklies have reported, is that Wi-Fi was supposed to provide a citywide alternative to the Comcast and Verizon monopolies, and the technology has proved inadequate in the places where it’s already built out. It wasn’t promised as a way to read parking meters, and god forbid if police or firefighters were to depend on it for communication. It wasn’t supposed to be a pretty but useless first adopter that tech pundits could crow about it and give awards. It was supposed to give us a less expensive, more accessible way to get online – all of us, whether poor or not so poor, and in that respect it is a crashing disappointment.

Will a gradual groundswell of subscriptions provide Earthlink, in a couple years, with the millions in annual revenue it was originally expecting? Or, a decade from now, will we all be shaking our heads at the folly of Wi-Fi and celebrating the city’s wisdom at not financing the buildout itself? I’m a wireless enthusiast, but I’m also betting on the latter.

There are two misrepresentations above that typify the problems with WP. First, it is absurd to say that Wireless Philadelphia has “remained close to schedule.” Which schedule? The only way WP has been able to make this claim over the past three years is by revising the schedule every three months. Since the original Executive Committee report, which completed its work in 90 days, the project has missed every single deadline it set for itself.

In an interview I did with Greg Goldman in October 2006, he said the proof of concept would be up by December 1 of that year, with approval and start of buildout a small number of weeks after that, and the completion of the entire network by October 2007. The POC was not approved until this May and now Goldman says, “The network probably won‚Äôt meet its goal for completion this year.”

In itself, the missed deadlines are not a big deal, or at least they are to be expected; I acknowledge the challenges of such a pioneering effort. The problem is that WP consistently insists it is on schedule rather than giving a straight answer about what they’re doing with their time. This contributes to the unnecessarily high expectations Goldman complains about. Their lapses in communication while their self-imposed deadlines pass by have also undermined the project by losing momentum and giving the nattering nabobs more of a chance to complain.

The second misrepresentation is in the comment above from Keith of O3 World (who built a beautiful website for WP that greatly improved the flow of information). Whatever it is or has done, Wireless Philadelphia is not “an incredibly efficient non profit group.” With its overhead, debt service, and payments for Earthlink’s electricity bill, none of WP’s share of EarthLink’s revenue is going to close the digital divide in Philadelphia.

WP does not provide any direct service, instead brokering subcontracts with existing providers. That’s a better approach than competing with those existing service providers, but it still puts WP in the position of a middleman, adding inefficiency to the system. They can make up for these inefficiencies by raising a lot of new money for Digital Inclusion programs, but that doesn’t make them efficient.

I want to give Wireless Philadelphia the credit it’s due ‚Äì including getting anything done in that complicated city and in the face of intense pressure from incumbents ‚Äì but that doesn’t mean we should give it a free pass.

This is a city brimming with negativity, and this is one of those things that should be welcomed by the community, not scorned. So many people seem to want it to fail, and by having that attitude and sharing those sentiments, they are slowing the momentum of an otherwise progressive movement run by an incredibly efficient non profit group in Wireless Philadelphia.

There are a variety of factors going against this initiative: being the first of its kind and having a corporate partner in a distant city are just a couple. Not to mention, I think people are completely underestimating the technical complexities of this. Philadelphia is the first with this….because this is an incredibly difficult challenge no other city had the courage to take on.

It would be nice if Wireless Philadelphia got the credit its due, and the city, frankly, would get off their back and got on track with providing a solution and helping, instead of being another naysayer. It doesn’t take much effort nor much courage to knock a cause, but it takes a lot of that, and a whole lot more to make a positive contribution. And as a city, we should be doing so collectively.