Philadelphia's citywide WiFi close to shutting down

It'd be absolutely spectacular to actually see one of these admittedly ambitious municipal WiFi projects actually work out every now and then, but instead, we're seeing the nails start to sink into yet another citywide WiFi coffin. This go 'round, the network blanketing most of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is on the verge of sending out its last signals unless the city can devise a plan in short order to take it over from EarthLink, who unsurprisingly wants out on the double. Unfortunately, we don't have a great feeling about the system's future -- history has a way of forecasting, you know?

[Via CNET, image courtesy of Stippling]

[Dado Posted May 11th 2008 8:06AM]

There's no such thing as free stuff. There is only stuff paid for by somebody else.

[Galley Posted May 11th 2008 8:14AM]

I'm not feeling any "brotherly love", what with the lack of Wi-Fi and all of the arguing.

[rednano74 Posted May 11th 2008 8:40AM]

I believe from what I have read this wifi is meant for the poor. It was to provide a huge discount of internet service for them only in their HOMES. Unfortunately it takes money to lay and put up such technology. So when you add up the revenue and add up the cost, it becomes a LOSS or Earthlink would do it as well as other companies who have pulled out on cities too. The city's business model to providing internet to poor apparently needs to be looked at again.

But...

They already get so many services from govt free healthcare, free or discounted day care, subsidized housing, tax child rebates/check refunds, etc. How much more do we tax payers have to keep giving in the name of of the poor just to give a big liberal saying, "we care?"

[(Unverified) Posted May 11th 2008 9:08AM]

The WiFi was a joke and didn't cover the city at all. EarthLink wants the city to bail them out from their mistakes... ehh I don't think so. They'll probably cut their losses and sell the hardware already in place to someone else hopefully on the cheap and they'll actually do something with it.. or take down all the things they put up but who cares it's not like it actually worked for anyone.

[(Unverified) Posted May 11th 2008 10:47AM]

Welfare intarwebtubez doesn't Farewell. lulz
If you can't afford 10-20 bucks a month for your own ISP account, or better yet 2 dollars to get to a public library, then you shouldn't be on the net in the first place. Get your your arse to better job.

[(Unverified) Posted May 11th 2008 12:13PM]

@jollyllama
"1. You don't pay per kilobyte, you pay per month, thus unused bandwidth is wasted"


This isn't always the case and many users pay for only so much bandwidth a month, 2GB, 8GB, etc. so if you're using their connection and they go over where will you be to pay the overage charge.

[jsr123 Posted May 11th 2008 7:53PM]

I'm interested to know. What do people think of a service like FON http://fon.com for sharing wifi?

[Gibson Posted May 12th 2008 12:47AM]

Their problem was going with a wireless standard that has only 60 feet of range. Anyone could have told you this would be inefficient and high-maintenance.

[(Unverified) Posted May 12th 2008 4:18PM]

you guys should check out the wifly city wide wifi in taipei, taiwan,
it cost around like 15 dollar or less a month ,
and its available at every metro station, main street, 7-11 (there are TONs of 7-11s) and a list of other places.

here is a linky (sorry i tried, its only in chinese traditional)
http://www.wifly.com.tw/wifly6/tw/WiflyNet/AboutWiflyNet/WiflyNetAdvantage/

[(Unverified) Posted May 12th 2008 5:42PM]

Too bad it didn't work out out in Philadelphia. Google funded and deployed a free city-wide wifi network in Mountain View, CA (where it's headquarted). It's been up and running for almost two years now. It isn't blazing broadband speed, but beggars can't be choosers, as the saying goes...

http://wifi.google.com/support/