[RTC List] FYI

[Gregg Foster]

  San Francisco formally ends citywide Wi-Fi effort
  By Ben Charny
Last Update: 9:38 PM ET Sep 12, 2007
    SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- EarthLink Inc.'s plans to build a
wireless Internet network in San Francisco was formally scrapped by the city
on Wednesday.
 The initiative, which was also to include Google Inc. (ended when a
committee of city supervisors refused to vote on a contract that San
Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had negotiated with EarthLink.

 According to Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who chaired the committee, it appears
EarthLink isn't in a position to honor terms of the contract.
 The bureaucratic move Wednesday makes the EarthLink effort "a moot point,"
San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano said.
 "It's done," he added. "Now we have to start all over again."
 The events in San Francisco are illustrative of how cities across the
United States are still struggling to build wireless Internet networks,
ostensibly to provide their citizens with free Internet access.
 In the case of San Francisco and 11 other cities in negotiations with
EarthLink, business realities got in the way of cities' goals.
 EarthLink's municipal wireless efforts began to dissolve in late August
when the financially ailing broadband provider said it was no longer willing
to solely fund construction of city-wide wireless networks in San Francisco
and 11 other cities.
 Rather, it wants the cities it was in negotiations with to help pay for the
construction.
 The about-face, as evidenced by the quiet end to EarthLink's San Francisco
effort, is clearly not going over well with EarthLink's potential partner
cities.
 The retrenching was part of a broader restructuring at EarthLink, which
also included plans to eliminate half its work force.
 Shares of EarthLink fell 11 cents, or 1.4%, to $7.82 on Wednesday.
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-- 
Gregg Foster
Director of Business Development
Lost Coast Communications, Inc.
KHUM/KSLG/KWPT
P.O. Box 25
Ferndale, CA  95536
707-786-5104 voice
707-786-5100 fax
gregg at khum.com
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