Wi-Fi in Philadelphia hits snags
3 years after the Mayor of Philadelphia announced they would be the first major U.S. city to have it's own wireless network, the project with Earthlink is delayed by delays and cost overruns.
According to the Associated Press, complaints about the providers services have reached the city councilman, who also acknowledges having problems connecting to these hotspots around the city (Associated Press, 2007). The provider, Earthlink (www.earthlink.com), based out of Atlanta, is currently undergoing a restructuring, which is partially blamed for the unavailability of service and problems with the network even though they won a 10-year contract for the city's network.
Unfortunately for Earthlink, in August they cut nearly half of their workforce to reassess the business plan. As a result of the problems in Philadelphia, the company has pulled out of the San Francisco Wi-FI project.
Recently, they paid 5 million dollars to Houston for contractual violations and are currently trying to decide if they should try to find partners for the networks or if they should abandon altogether.
City-sized Wi-Fi networks are, I believe, a thing of the future and should be watched carefully. Wi-Fi is already very popular among small areas like restaurants and businesses, but in the future could be a standard for laptops and cell phones and available just about anywhere that you would go.
Just another subject to watch...
Source:
Associated Press (MSNBC.com). 2007. Retrieved November 26, 2007 from:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21840429/