EarthLink&#39;s Calling
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EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK) is the latest company to bridge the Internet and the telephone. It&#39;s offering Voice over Internet Protocol (or VoIP) service for free to its customers, as it announced in a press release today.
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- EarthLink Inc. ELNK.O on Wednesday said a   U.S. federal judge has awarded the company a $11 million   judgment against a Nevada Internet marketing company, KSTM, for   sending millions of illegal mortgage related email   advertisements.
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(InfoWorld) - EarthLink's current contract to build a municipal Wi-Fi network in San Francisco appears to be dead followingÂ a restructuring of the struggling Internet service provider. The deal, hammered out in months of negotiations last year and completed in January, calls for EarthLink to build a citywide network at no cost to the city and sell high-speed service to residents while Google provides a free, slower service over the same network. But after announcing layoffs of nearly half its workforce and a gloomier financial forecast, EarthLink said Wednesday it won't invest any more money in that business model. "We will not devote any new capital to the old muni Wi-Fi model that has us taking all of the risk by fronting all of the capital, then paying to buy our customers one by one," President and CEO Rolla Huff said on a conference call Wednesday morning. That includes currently planned networks where the company hasn't yet made capital investments, EarthLink spokesman Jerry Grasso confirmed. In San Francisco and other such cities, networks would have to be built under new arrangements. "We will approach them to discuss the needed changes to the business model," Grasso said. He declined to comment on the state of discussions with any particular city. San Francisco's deal with EarthLink has yet to be approved by the city and county's Board of Supervisors, where it faces fierce opponents. The deal is due for a vote in the Board's Budget and Finance Committee next week that could send it on for full board approval. But the changes at EarthLink appear to make the current contract a dead issue. EarthLink's municipal Wi-Fi woes come as the company struggles across most of its businesses and as the overall climate for municipal Wi-Fi changes. The promise of free networks supported by advertising or residential subscriptions has faded, and EarthLink and other network providers are looking to local government as "anchor tenants" that support the projects by buying services. Chicago, which had been talking with EarthLink and others about a citywide Wi-Fi project, dropped the plan this week, citing high cost and low subscriber interest. The company forecast municipal Wi-Fi capital investments of $30 million to $35 million in 2007 as it completes projects already begun in Philadelphia; Corpus Christi, Texas; and Anaheim, California, but is not forecasting any capital spending on municipal networks in 2008, Grasso said. Aaron Peskin, president of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, approached EarthLink earlier this year with proposed amendments to the Wi-Fi deal that he hoped would make it more palatable to opponents. However, he rejected the idea of anchor tenancy, saying the city's departments weren't ready to use the Wi-Fi network. Neither Peskin nor San Francisco city officials were immediately available for comment.
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In a May 21 story about municipal wireless projects, The Associated Press erroneously reported that EarthLink Inc. suspended new bids. The company said it won't seek as many bids, but isn't completely ruling out new ones.
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(InfoWorld) - The ACLU has turned up the political heat on EarthLink and Google's plan for Wi-Fi in San Francisco, telling the city's Board of Supervisors that the proposed contract doesn't have enough privacy or free speech protections. The ACLU of Northern California said in a letter to the supervisors on Tuesday that both EarthLink's paid service and Google's free offering would fall short of most of the group's recommendations on collection and sharing of personal data and possible tracking of users. Among other things, there are no limits on what kind of information EarthLink can or will collect, and terms for the Google service call for requiring "minimal" information on login without defining "minimal," the letter said. In addition to privacy concerns, the group is worried that knowing information is being collected will cause users to limit what they say and do on the Internet. The city and EarthLink agreed on a contract last month, and EarthLink is confident the closely watched project will get off the ground with deployment of a proof-of-concept network starting in April, said company spokesman Jerry Grasso. But the proposal has been under fire since before the contract was completed, and some members of the board have said a municipally owned system would be better for the city. EarthLink negotiated the deal with the city and would build and operate the network, bringing Google in as a tenant providing the free, slower service. Some critics have warned that San Francisco could be giving a virtual monopoly on citywide Wi-Fi to private companies without ensuring user privacy or complete coverage. The ACLU said a municipal Wi-Fi network should let users opt in or out of any service that collects data on what they look at or search for on the Internet, or their e-mail messages. There are no provisions for that in the paid or free service terms, it said. EarthLink can only save location information for 60 days, but there's no limit to how long it can store personal protected information and no limit to how long Google can store any information, the ACLU said. Users of the EarthLink service can opt out of receiving marketing materials, but EarthLink has free reign to share personal information with partner companies that help it deliver or promote the service. Both service providers can hand over users' personal information for law enforcement or national security reasons without a warrant or notification of the user, though they would require "court-ordered documentation" before doing so. If information is sought for a civil suit, EarthLink or Google would have to tell the user first. EarthLink's Grasso declined to comment on the ACLU's letter, saying EarthLink has not seen it. Google and city representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.
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Written by Net 4 Nowt EarthLink has announced plans to become the first major Internet service provider to test DomainKeys, a leading cryptographic e-mail authentication solution introduced by Yahoo!
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EarthLink confirmed Friday that its partner in Helio, SK Telecom, had agreed to invest up to $270 million in the wireless venture.
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I&#146;m on teleconferences several times a day. They&#146;re either great, or a mess. Some people don&#146;t know how to start one; other times there&#146;s no one in charge of moving the call forward or there&#146;s no agenda. Sometimes you don&#146;t know who is on the call. Save yourselves!
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EarthLink Inc. on Thursday posted a higher third-quarter profit, helped by subscriber growth, but it forecast revenue below analysts' consensus target for the current quarter, which dragged down shares 9 percent.
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A new file-sharing program hit the Net late Wednesday, posted by none other than Internet service provider EarthLink. The software, hosted on an out-of-the-way corner of the company&#39;s research and development
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EarthLink Inc.&#39;s current contract to build a municipal Wi-Fi network in San Francisco appears to be dead following a restructuring of the struggling Internet service provider.
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If you&#39;re already paying for high-speed Internet service, why not make the most of your money? Those cables aren&#39;t just good for downloading sports scores, they can digitally transmit and receive phone calls, too.
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Phone service that's available wherever there's a Net connection is approaching 2 million users.
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EarthLink will announce new security services aimed at thwarting hacking techniques that specialists regard as particularly insidious.
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Broadband over powerline (BPL) got a boost from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week, but even as the technology begins deployments, it&#39;s unclear how much of a fight it will put up against DSL and cable.
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Alpheus Communications, operator of an extensive fiber optic network  across Metro Texas, today announced that they will provide fiber-based  backhaul support for EarthLink's (NASDAQ:ELNK)  municipal Wi-Fi network in Corpus Christi.
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EarthLink, the US Internet service provider, and SK Telecom, the leading South Korean mobile carrier, formed a &#36;440m joint venture dubbed SK-Earthlink, to offer mobile services in the US.