Philly muni-WiFi close to shutting down

Philadelphia looks to soon join the ranks of Houston and San Francisco as muni-WiFi provider Earthlink is close to shutting down the network.  It seems that municipal WiFi networks are too expensive to set up and run profitably what was to be the largest such network at the time Earthlink took it on they have stopped accepting new customers.  The network is only 80% complete and they have stopped construction on the remaining portion of the network and it definitely looks like they will shut it down at some point.  Perhaps Earthlink is smelling the pungent odor of WiMAX rollout across the country?

(via CNET)

Comments

[Ricky B.]

Basically, if Earthlink fails to roll out these networks, they get to earn a lot of money charging people inside the cities for subscriptions. Coincidentally, all rollouts have failed for "technical reasons."

I'm extrapolating, but that's pretty much what happened here in San Francisco.