MuniWireless

A tale of two cities: Philadelphia’s wireless network, acquired by a group of local investors, is being rolled out to parts of the city where there’s no access. More importantly, the investors are going after the municipal and business markets, two areas that EarthLink failed to focus on in its muni Wi-Fi strategy. Philly’s network sees over 100,000 users per day (correction: it’s not 100,000 users per day, but sessions per month — see Glenn Fleishman’s comment below), with more people online…

The city council of Anaheim, California voted to terminate EarthLink’s franchise for a municipal wireless broadband network. Under the termination agreement between Anaheim and EarthLink, the company is required to take down all of the wireless equipment installed on poles and other city property.

EarthLink has pulled out of the muni Wi-Fi market and stopped all of its projects in the US. In Philadelphia, a group of local investors took over EarthLink’s network, which is already deployed in some neighborhoods.

Download the…

EarthLink says it wants to merge with other ISPs, possibly AOL, to keep its dial-up business alive. Although the company had a profit of $53 million in the second quarter of 2008, it had 30% fewer dial-up subscribers than last year with a significant drop (21%) in revenue. EarthLink pulled out of the municipal wireless business and its joint venture with SK Telecom, the MVNO called Helio. EarthLink lost a lot of money on Helio. They invested more than $200…

A group of investors has bought EarthLink’s Philadelphia municipal wireless network. Among the investors are Mark Rupp and Derek Pew, executives at Boathouse Communications Partners, an investment firm, and Richard Rasansky, a local entrepreneur.. Dave Hanna, chairman of Tropos Networks, is also part of the group (note: the Philadelphia network uses Tropos equipment). They will expand the network and offer wired and wireless service. News sources are reporting that the new owner plans to target institutions around the city as…

Nothing is official yet but Philly news sources are reporting that a group of local investors will be taking over EarthLink’s municipal wireless network in Philadelphia. EarthLink wanted to shut down the network after failing to find a buyer. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the investors will offer free Wi-Fi service supported by advertising and charge local institutions (universities, hospitals) for secure citywide Wi-Fi access at a price. Philadelphia’s mayor is expected to make an official announcement today.

Last year, New America Foundation released an in-depth report and analysis of the Wireless Philadelphia Project, “The Philadelphia Story: Learning from a Municipal Wireless Pioneer.” We concluded that the private franchise model was suboptimal and that Philadelphia’s solution was problematic in a number of ways. At the time, we received good press coverage and a helluvalot of blowback from certain constituencies (who continued to assert that everything was on track).

Now that we’ve made it to May, 2008, Wireless Philadelphia is…