EXCLUSIVE: Wireless Philadelphia CEO On Earthlink Bluster — “It’s All Moves”
Yesterday, we took note of Earthlink’s final death rattle in Philadelphia as they make plans for removing the never-quite-finished public WiFi network that would have, could have, should have made Philadelphia unique among the nation’s big cities. In the piece, we wondered where in the hell was Wireless Philadelphia, the non-profit established to both work on getting Internet access to the poor and be the public face of everything good about the project. By the end of the day, we were on the phone with Wireless Philadelphia CEO Greg Goldman, whom we’ve always known to be an affable guy who’s got his work cut out for him, now more than ever. Goldman was refreshingly candid with us: “It’s all moves,” he said, referring to Earthlink’s threatening moves towards removing the network and filing court papers to stem any liability they have to the city to $1 million. From every report we’ve read, things are about to get ugly between the City and Earthlink, but Goldman was resolute in not pondering Earthlink’s motives too much. Instead, he’s keeping his eyes on the prize: “I believe it’s still possible [to rescue the network] if given a certain amount of time,” he said. “I believe we can identify a viable entity to come in and take over and enable this network to be used for a variety of purposes — personal, commercial and municipal.”
Finally, we thought. Is Goldman putting it out there that the project could/should get bumped over to another pre-existing Internet service provider, who would use it as both a for-pay conduit, as well as do charitable works by earmarking some services for poorer neighborhoods where digital inclusion is a major issue? Well, yes. “The whole enterprise that has a civic mission itself,” he says. “And I believe there’s a way to tie it in to other kinds of networks, a hybridized solution where the wireless is connected to fiber-obtics or other means and serves everybody. Let’s try to focus on what [the network] is good for.”
That’s great, but is anybody biting? Not just yet, it would seem. “I wish I could say that I’m gonna pull a Comcast rabbit out of my hat, but that’s just not true. But it’s going to take more time than 24 hours after one deal falling through with Earthlink,” he said, referring to the fact that Earthlink basically has given up on the network after talks with OneCommunity fell through just a few days ago. As of just an hour ago, Wireless Philadelphia released a statement [PDF] basically saying it ain’t over ’til it’s over: “We applaud and thank the Nutter administration for its aggressive efforts to seek solutions and encourage all parties to continue working together to assure a positive future for this groundbreaking Philadelphia first,” it said in part. And indeed, it’s not over: With no language in the City’s contact with Earthlink granting the ISP permission to take down what they’ve put up, this is a battle that will almost certainly wind up in court.
Previously: WiFi Interruptus: Ugly Details Of Earthlink Pullout Emerge
Note: If you haven’t been keeping up with the Earthlink meltdown and would like to catch up, we highly recommend Josh Cornfield of the Metro’s reporting on the subject as of late. You can check out his most recent articles on the subject here, here, here, here, and here.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
As much as I’d really, really like to see the network survive, there’s one little hitch: it never fucking worked.
I’d like to meet someone who has both successfully connected to the service and downloaded something or surfed the web at speeds beyond dialup.
During the brief stint I had the service I got nearly a 100% signal on the antenna widget they sent, yet was rarely able to use it. Prime times for total system breakdown was after work and all weekend, every weekend. Times people are actually trying to use the service.
That, to me, points to an infrastructure/bandwidth problem. As more people started using the network, it jammed up under the load. As mismanaged and fucked up as Earthlink was, I have no faith that anyone else can make the existing hardware work.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I think there were two big problems. When people got online, the hardwired network seemed to have some issues (as mentioned above). The second issue was the hardware itself. That stuff progresses pretty quickly. When they really started putting up the base stations, they were still using older hardware. The hardware is cross-compatible, though the newer stuff has faster data and longer range. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11 explains it. I am pretty sure they used 802.11b, your new MacBook has 802.11g or 802.11n. Basically if they had switched to the newest hardware, as it was available, they would be able to use less stations and still get more coverage (and faster speeds to boot).
Comcast is a partnership with Sprint etc to get WiMax ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimax )up and running, so i’m sure they would only support this 802.11 network as some dead end community service. Seeing how the taxpayers had to subsidize their new office tower, i doubt they would drop any money into community help…. especially when it’s direct competition to their $50/month cable modems.
Don’t get me wrong, i would love WiPhi to succeed. The 802.11 chips are standards in most all computers out there, and many cellphones (and even some other devices, like the iPod Touch). Ever Mac has had 802.11 built-in for years (most other major makers too), that’s what every school is using, it’s what you use at home. This WiMax plan is a few years out and requires some piece of hardware that doesn’t exist yet, kind of like the cellular cards offered by Verizon etc. It may be amazing, but it’s not going to help anytime soon.