San Francisco muni WiFi project on its death bed

Not that anyone who lives in the fair city of San Francisco was really all that confident that the muni WiFi project would ever make it off the ground -- even despite Major Gavin Newsom's best intentions -- but now it looks like bad's gone to worse. As you may have read, yesterday EarthLink laid off nearly a thousand employees, and word came today that addition to that news, it's latest corporate restructuring would have it completely backing out of investments in its San Fran WiFi project contract, as well as the WiFi contracts in other cities. Again, not the most earth quaking news, given the word we received from the city that they were more or less pulling the plug anyway.

Watch the whole thing crumble, in slow-mo reverse chronological order:
Read (April 6th, 2006) - San Francisco selects Google/Earthlink for citywide WiFi
Read (January 6th) - It's official: San Francisco to get free WiFi blanket courtesy of Google / EarthLink
Read (August 6th) - San Francisco pulls the plug on Google / Earthlink's citywide WiFi... for now
This post, today.

[David @ Aug 30th 2007 7:51PM]

Figures...

[Blake @ Aug 30th 2007 7:53PM]

Well the date of the announcements: 666...guess that explains it!

[Rutch @ Aug 30th 2007 8:02PM]

when did the mayor become a major?

[Christian @ Aug 30th 2007 8:27PM]

I didn't even see that, hahaha Major Gavin Newsom... well it does sound like it and looks like it too.

[Rob S. @ Aug 30th 2007 8:03PM]

There used to be all these huge public work programs 60-100 years ago as infrastructure in america was bettered with quality of living greatly increasing and the government supplied much-needed jobs to a depressed market... America definately has the resources to provide wifi to major cities. Maybe this needs to start as a federal project in America's major cities and then slowly expand to suburbs and rural areas. Oh and uh, durpa durpedy durp.

[yoshi @ Aug 30th 2007 8:44PM]

That is exactly the WRONG approach. What needs to happen is for the government to GET OUT OF THE WAY and let private enterprise do what it does best. Goverments are not known for doing ANYTHING correctly. Why hand this over to them?

[Mike Klein @ Aug 30th 2007 9:48PM]

Customers of public-owned utilities have done pretty well...I'd say the same would happen with wifi.

A rising tide doesn't lift all boats you know...

[Craig @ Aug 30th 2007 8:03PM]

chicago recently scrapped a similar plan

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/08/29/wireless.chicago.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

[kuzu-b @ Aug 30th 2007 8:13PM]

This is why I am an Obama supporter, a GREAT idea, fucked up by a bunch of bureaucrats who have nothing better to do than get in the way of progress so it looks like they are doing their job.
I was SO looking forwards to this, I hate SF's Board of Supervisors they are some of the worst I have seen in any city, Chris Daly alone is about the most horrendous human being I have ever had the displeasure of knowing in my life.

[Jeremy H @ Aug 30th 2007 8:33PM]

Ryan-
I think that's regular-chronological order you have there.

[Jeremy H @ Aug 30th 2007 8:49PM]

and its a fast-forward replay

[ItsTheOMGShow @ Aug 30th 2007 9:26PM]

Sprint's EvDo costs a measly $10 a month. C'mon, get over this crap already

[Nathan @ Aug 30th 2007 10:38PM]

city wifi is such an unpractical idea.
I am guessing it will be 802.11b/g APs.
So they implement that and 3 years from now everyone bitches that their N standard cards don't get the 10x faster transfer speeds... so the city has to replace the APs with faster 802.11n standard APs.

...and then 10 years from now we use a WAN wireless standard in all major cities, at no cost to government, we realize what a waste silly city proposals like this truly are.

[splig @ Aug 30th 2007 11:03PM]

Well, that's one reason that meraki has been setting up free WiFi in the city for the last few months (as previously covered here on Engadget). See sf.meraki.net

[Rex @ Aug 30th 2007 11:53PM]

Quick! Start selling your Google stocks!! :|

[Laura @ Aug 31st 2007 2:49AM]

Hmm. Well I'm from Corpus Christi and our city-wide wi-fi was fully launched Dec. '06 and Earthlink took over June 1, '07 so the city didn't have to waste resources on the network. Now I wonder what's going to happen. =/

oh and Nathan, yes the network is 802.11b BECAUSE its primary use is wireless utility meter reading (not exactly bandwidth hogging stuff). It's just accessible to the public because its there and well, our taxes are paying for it.

If private enterprises were the sole facilitators, we'd be overcharged just so they could make a bigger profit. (Read AOL in the 90's).

(I'm just crossing my fingers that once Earthlink is gone, CC wi-fi will be free again. :] )

[ThomasAllen @ Aug 31st 2007 10:58AM]

I have been considering switching over to Earthlink/Philly WiFi here in Philadelphia. Because the telecom/cable lobbyists were successful in PA, municipalities are not allowed to provide free WiFi, but the Earthlink option here is inexpensive (compared to DSL or cable --no Fios in the city) with higher promised speeds.

Anyone have experience with the WiFi in Philly? Good, bad, so-so?

[W.C. Varones @ Sep 3rd 2007 3:12PM]

Did you see Gavin Newsom's new campaign slogan?