MuniWireless

MetroFi will be shutting down its Wi-Fi network in Aurora, Illinois because the city will not pay any money for the expansion of the network. MetroFi was asking the city for $3.5 million. MetroFi’s business model - offering free Wi-Fi supported by ads - has proved unsuccessful. The city claims it has not completely given up on citywide Wi-Fi, but how such a network will ever be deployed is not clear. Neighboring community Naperville will also see its MetroFi network…

If only US cities and regions had deployed fiber optic networks that were open to all providers, Sprint’s WiMAX deployment wouldn’t be in the pickle it’s in today. Fierce Broadband Wireless says: “Sprint, which was supposed to launch its Xohm network in April, is having difficulty finding high-capacity transport links to connect cell sites as typical T-1 lines that feed today’s mobile networks are inefficient for high-speed wireless broadband data. The problem is that the majority of Sprint’s sites today…

After a week of all 3G iPhone all the time, it’s pretty clear that the performance hurdle is being set for the “new” Clearwire and its planned nationwide WiMax network: Devices will need to look and perform reasonably like an iPhone, at as-fast or faster speeds, for lower prices, to get any traction at all. Luckily for Clearwire and its partners, those barriers aren’t insurmountable, but there’s also not a lot of time or chances to get things right. As…