We know, the little possibility that the whole deal could fall apart has been keeping you wide awake for months, but at long last, you can push aside your anxiety and hit the sack. Virgin Mobile USA announced today that it had "completed its acquisition of Helio," and all of the terms put forth on June 27th were used in the final close. Aside from garnering all the necessary regulatory approvals, Helio shareholders SK Telecom and EarthLink have received 13 million shares of Virgin Mobile USA Class A common stock, with a value of around $38 million. It's also noted that both SK Telecom and Virgin Group will each invest a cool $25 million in Virgin Mobile USA for preferred shares. And then, there was one.

We knew it was coming, but Philadelphia's citywide WiFi is now officially being turned off, and Earthlink is planning on pulling down all of its access points. Like basically every other municipal WiFi project, it seems like the cost of keeping the system going outweighed the benefits, and Earthlink couldn't find a buyer willing to take things over. Current Earthlink customers will get 30 more days of service, until June 12, and then it's lights bytes out. Here's hoping Philly coffee shops are ready for an influx of urban warriors.

[Via Philebrity, thanks Andy R.]

It looks like Earthlink was talking about plenty more than just Helio and revenue figures during its recent earnings call, with CNET News.com now reporting that the company also dropped word that it's selling off its much-hyped and significantly-scaled-back municipal WiFi business. Of course, that news hardly comes as a bombshell given the company's recent rumblings on the matter, to say nothing of its drawn out, ill-fated attempts to spread its WiFi signals throughout San Francisco. Earthlink apparently hasn't found any takers just yet, however, and there's no word about how much their asking for it, but we wouldn't let that stop you from putting in an offer -- just be ready to put up with plenty of competition.

It's hardly been a secret that Helio was causing some problems for Earthlink, but the company's CEO has just now weighed in himself on the matter, offering some comments on the situation and Helio's now former CEO Sky Dayton in one of those always exciting earnings calls. As mocoNews reports, Earthlink's Rolla Huff says the company "made hard decisions around getting our cost structure down," including the "very difficult decision...to not continue making incremental investments in Helio." Huff apparently laid none of the blame on Helio's Sky Dayton, however, saying simply that "Sky has a history of creating and building strong brands and he's done a great job at that with Helio," and that they "very much appreciate his willingness to be involved in getting Helio to this point in its life cycle." Of course, that was hardly the entire purpose of the call, and those concerned with the nitty gritty of earnings details can get their fix by hitting up the read link below.

Sky Dayton, founder and chairman of the phantasmagorical Helio, has announced that he's stepping down as CEO to become chairman of the board of the last-man-standing MVNO. Helio's new CEO will be Wonhee Sull, formerly the company's president and COO, and obviously a direct conduit to co-owner SK Telecom. "Helio has reached a point in its development where I feel the timing is right for this change... As we have for the past three years, the two of us will continue to define Helio's direction and future," said Dayton. Whether Sky's really ready to move on or not we'll never know, but it's certainly possible that the recent influx of cash (and increased ownership) from its Korean parents and dwindling marketshare of US MVNOs led SK to step in and get things on track.

Update: Lots of fun inaccuracies going on up in here, our bad. We ironed out the kinks, see above for the latest, correct edits to Helio's executive musical chairs.

In a statement so laden with PR speak that it'd bring even the most heartless PR flack to the brink of wretching, Earthlink's CEO has announced that the company is to withdraw investment in Municipal WiFi schemes unless the "model" of these networks becomes more closely aligned with Earthlink's undefined "strategy." Translation? Earthlink ain't making a big enough return on its investments in MuniFi projects, and the shareholders are getting antsy. This could leave various cities high and dry without WiFi, although Earthlink apparently won't be able to simply walk away from the contracts that they've already signed. This could be a major setback for blanket WiFi coverage in cities across the US, although we doubt it'll be long before someone else picks up the baton (either that, or the cities will probably drop it.)

[Via Slashdot]

We knew Earthlink and SK Telecom were both planning on reinvesting up to $100M each into struggling joint venture Helio back in July, and it looks like all that recent talk about "revised governance" was on point -- the deal will effectively shift management control of Helio away from Earthlink and to SKT for the first time in Helio's history. SKT has already allocated $70M to make the move, and it's also committed an additional $100M to future handset development and marketing. No word on what other changes SKT plans to make, but we'd happy to see Helio score a much-deserved second chance.

[Via MobileTech News]

As if receiving $200 million from SK Telecom and EarthLink back in July wasn't enough, Helio is now set to accept (up to) a $270 million check from SK Telecom. According to EarthLink, SK Telecom will "invest up to $270 million in Helio," and as expected, EarthLink was "very pleased" with the decision -- you know, considering that it won't be forced to cough up any more dough at the moment while still maintaining "substantial ownership interest in Helio's future." Most interesting, however, is the tidbit that mentions the parents' plans, as EarthLink and SK Telecom are reportedly "in discussions to amend their existing agreements to reflect the additional investment by SK Telecom and their future governance of Helio." Gotta pay to play, we suppose.

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.

It's hard not to love the promise of the White Space Coalition, which includes players like Google, Microsoft, Dell, Earthlink, HP, Intel and Philips. Those crazy kids want to bring us wireless internet over the "white space" bandwidth in between TV broadcast channels, and we say let 'em. One little problem though, FCC says the concept doesn't work. The prototype that the Coalition submitted for review was designed to sense existing TV signals and transmit around them, but the FCC found it inconsistent in this aim, and won't be giving its stamp approval to a device that interferes with existing broadcasts. The FCC does say that it's open to looking at the next generation of the technology, since better performance is certainly possible, and the White Space Coalition wasn't too downhearted: the group is "encouraged that FCC engineers did not find fault with our operating parameters and remain confident that unlicensed television spectrum can be used without interference." Between this fledgling technology and that upcoming 700MHz auction, things are really looking up for WiFi-jilted mobile internet users across the States.

It looks like the people of San Francisco are going to have to wait a little bit longer before they can spam their friends with memes while sitting in the middle of Golden Gate Park. The WiFi blanket deal which would see Google and Earthlink teaming up to deliver a citywide network to the Bay-area has ground to a halt after a round of somewhat "unfriendly" statements from Earthlink concerning the plans. David Noyola, speaking on behalf of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (which has been overseeing the project) said that the network's rollout has stalled "in the shadow of comments," made last week by Rolla Huff, the internet provider's CEO, who expressed reservations over municipal wireless deals. Breaking points in particular seem to be the city's request for changes in data speed and privacy controls, and its desire to downsize Earthlink's contract on the network from 16 years to eight (significantly reducing the company's time to earn a profit). The internet provider now claims that they are doing a "detailed review," of their business model regarding the project, which the company says will not provide "an acceptable return." Obviously a lose-lose situation for the laptop-toting citizens of the City by the Bay.

EarthLink DSL subscribers will have a new option coming their way this spring, when the company partners up with TiVo to distribute TiVo Series2 DVRs and the TiVo service -- with a rebate on the cost of the DVR -- to new existing EarthLink customers. TiVo's been looking to branch out to new partners after its agreement with DirecTV ended, and its Comcast TiVo service won't launch until later this year. So far the services don't work together, but representatives indicated to CNET that a combination TiVo/DSL modem is a possibility, but there are "no specific plans at this time". We understand interoperable products might be a way off, but how about throwing in a newer Series3 TiVo and some additional HD features?

Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, wants municipal WiFi in his fair city, and he seems to have the wherewithal to make it happen. Such a project, covering 498 square miles of the sprawling city, would be a massive undertaking, costing somewhere around $54-$62 million. The city will probably partner with a private provider such as Google or Earthlink to pay for and manage the installation, and should be seeking bids this fall. Villaraigosa is already forming a working group, and plans on hiring an expert to iron out the details. Aware of the certain, ahem, problems encountered in San Francisco and other places, Villaraigosa says the initiative is "not going to be a study to put on the shelf." L.A. also owns its own street light and power poles and electric utility, overcoming an obstacle with Southern California Edison, which has denied WiFi installations a place on its own poles in other California cities. Of course, there are plenty of ways that a project this massive could go wrong, but if L.A. can pull this off it'll have some quite notable bragging rights, that's for sure.

[Thanks, Gary N]

While this deal has been brewing for some time, it looks like the deed has finally been done, as Vonage has landed a deal with EarthLink to resell wireless internet access wherever it has municipal WiFi networks already in place. EarthLink already has such services setup in places like Anaheim and New Orleans, but we can't help but mention that WiFi in some of these areas can be fetched gratis. Nevertheless, Vonage is hoping that its VoIP / wireless broadband bundle service will help it compete in the ferocious market, and has promised a "next generation Vonage WiFi phone" to go along with the newfangled service. EarthLink doesn't think selling access to its networks will cannibalize its own TrueVoice VoIP service, as it believes that service and support will still sway more customers its way than with Vonage. The deal allows Vonage to purchase internet services "wholesale" from EarthLink for three years, and it seems that Vonage will also be offering whatever hardware and software necessary to get folks up and running with the new addition without much (or any) extra cost. No word on if The 5678's will crank it up a notch to celebrate the agreement. [Warning: Read link requires subscription]

[Via GigaOM]

Ah Google, where would we be without you? Instead of answering that, we'll just say that the search giant (and future world dominator?) has landed yet another smile-eliciting deal, and this time it's the San Franciscans getting the spoils. While the deal between the city of San Francisco and Google / EarthLink has been brewing for quite some time, city officials have (finally) "finalized a contract that will enable EarthLink to build a citywide wireless network and allow Google to provide free internet access." With an estimated one million or so folks to benefit from the implementation, things are looking good if you've been itching for everywhere-WiFi and happen to live in SF, and while EarthLink still plans on offering a "fee-based premium service," Google is looking out for the little guy by dishing out the free stuff. Apparently, no hard pricing figures nor rollout dates have been set just yet, but things should start moving along relatively soon if Google has anything to do with it, as a statement released by the company stated its intent to "to see the service go live as soon as possible" -- now that's what we're talking about. [Warning: PDF Link]

[Via CNET]