EarthLink's Wi-Fi dreams may be fading
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Layoffs signal a major setback in the company's effort to break free of its dying dial-up business and become an Internet player.
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AT&T is rolling out citywide Wi-Fi networks, but the company is moving slowly as the market develops and the company continues to push its own 3G cellular services.
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In a perfect world, there'd be no wires. They clutter the view, get tangled behind desks and limit how far networks can reach. That's why the telegraph gave way to the radio. Cell phones unstrung telecommunications. Wi-Fi liberated computer data.
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One change that's likely to happen eventually is the demise of the Linksys brand.
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EarthLink says it can't afford to foot the bill to build citywide Wi-Fi networks, jeopardizing cities' plans to provide low-income residents with affordable broadband.
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Business models followed technology too closely A year ago, hardly a week went by without news of a major municipal wireless project in the US, supporting free or subsidized access and a host of shiny business models. Now hardly a week goes by without news of the death of one of these plans.â¦
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EarthLink has backed out of a deal to build San Francisco's free citywide Wi-Fi service.
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Despite Intel's support of the emerging wireless technology, some doubt its potential.
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There could be trouble when metro-scale Wi-Fi systems run in the same areas as unrelated WLANs, but there are ways to minimize the effects of this interference, says columnist Craig. J. Mathias.
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EarthLink Inc.'s current contract to build a municipal Wi-Fi network in San Francisco appears to be dead follow...
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Cities and towns are jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon. But a municipal model of connectivity may be tricky to pull off.
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Analysts suggest that 802.11n Wi-Fi will start replacing wired Ethernet within the next two to three years.
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Among the 900 layoffs announced by Earthlink is John Berryman, the vice president in charge of Earthlink's municipal Wi-Fi projects. Under his wing was a high-profile project to blanket San Francisco with wireless connectivity.
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Rumors are swirling that the next massive wireless merger is in the works.
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Study warns that investment in network capacity may not keep up with increasing demands for bandwidth.
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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- One of the hottest technology markets, Wireless LAN (WLAN), or Wi-Fi, is undergoing a fundamental shift, according to In-Stat/MDR (http://www.
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(InfoWorld) - EarthLink's announcement that it will lay off 900 people is a blow to broadband competition, but some industry followers say it doesn't signal the end of municipal Wi-Fi. While EarthLink's statement about the job cuts doesn't include a single mention of Wi-Fi, the company's municipal Wi-Fi business is likely to be hit hard. A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made on Tuesday says the position of president of municipal networks is being eliminated and Don Berryman, who held the position, is one of the employees being let go. At the end of June, EarthLink had just over 2,000 employees. In addition, EarthLink has been reining in its municipal efforts since earlier this year. Most recently, in July, the company saidÂ it would not take on any new municipal Wi-Fi projectsÂ until it's confident of a reasonable return. EarthLink's woes could eliminate the potential for new competition in the broadband industry. "What you won't see any more is a new entrant in the telecom business coming in like EarthLink did and trying to build green-field networks and compete against the incumbent to build a third pipe to the consumer," said Ron Sege, CEO of Tropos Networks, the vendor that supplies EarthLink with Wi-Fi network equipment. Instead, he suspects that existing operators will build Wi-Fi networks as an extension of their DSLÂ offerings and that cities may build the networks in order to use them for public safety applications or meter reading. EarthLink's troubles point to a couple of problems with many of the municipal Wi-Fi business plans, said Phil Solis, an analyst at ABI Research. "The whole premise of doing municipal Wi-Fi was that it would be extremely low cost," he said. "But the low-cost assumptions were built on having 30 or 40 Wi-Fi [access points] per square mile." In practice, operators found they might need as many as 100, which changed the economics, he said. In addition, some operators assumed that the municipalities would use the networks, but in some cases that didn't happen. Some newer contracts are requiring municipalities to commit to a certain level of business, guaranteeing the operators some revenue, he said. Solis called EarthLink's restructuring a "reality check." Operators and cities are better off considering Wi-Fi, WiMax, and cellular, depending on the application, he said. Wi-Fi can still work in dense areas and will work even better when 802.11n, a faster Wi-Fi standard, becomes widely used, he said. Given more time, EarthLink might have succeeded, Sege said. Gary Betty, EarthLink's former president and CEO, started the municipal Wi-Fi business at the company. But Betty suddenly died in early January, leaving no one to "carry the flag" for municipal Wi-Fi, Sege said. He suspects that Betty may have had a long-term growth plan that would have seen the networks start to pay off in around five years. New President and CEO Rolla Huff hopes for a quicker payoff, he said. EarthLink, which has scheduled a conference call for Wednesday to further discuss the restructuring, has not said what it plans to do with the Wi-Fi networks it has already built. It operates networks in Anaheim, California; Corpus Christi, Texas; Milpitas, California; New Orleans, and Philadelphia. It could continue to operate them or consider selling them to Clearwire or Sprint Nextel, companies that are just beginning to build WiMax networks. EarthLink's customers and access to city infrastructure for hanging network equipment could be valuable to them, Sege said. News of the restructuring could cloud the municipal Wi-Fi initiative in San Francisco, where city officials early this year finished negotiating a contract with EarthLink. The network still needs approval by the city's Board of Supervisors. A committee is scheduled to vote next week whether to send the contract on to the full board for approval. Opponents have used EarthLink's financial woes to raise question the viability of the plan. In its statement, EarthLink said it expects subscriber additions to slow down in 2008. At the end of June, EarthLink had more than three million dial-up and 1.1 million broadband subscribers. In addition to offering wired and wireless Internet service, EarthLink is also part owner of Helio, a struggling mobile virtual network operator. (Stephen Lawson in San Francisco contributed to this story).