Certain Silence

Continuing the bad news, Earthlink backed out of its much touted collaboration with Google to build a wifi network with San Francisco. After Philadelphia, San Francisco’s network was easily the highest profile muniwifi effort in the nation, and its apparent failure is a huge blow to the muniwfi movement. Certainly Earthlink’s financial woes (which as I wrote earlier, are only partially related to the unproven muni business model) are part of the problem, but the peculiar disfunction of San Francisco’s city government is just as responsible.
    From a San Francisco Chronicle Editorial yesterday:

IT’S TIME for Wi-Fi 2.0. if San Francisco is serious about overcoming the financial and leadership problems that killed the first version. For over two years, City Hall pored over – and mostly bickered over – a plan to blanket San Francisco with free wireless Internet service. Mayor Gavin Newsom, to his credit, put forward a system to be built by Earthlink and backed by Google at no city expense. But free Wi-Fi comes with few guideposts or standards, and the idea came loaded with heavy expectations that it would level the digital divide between the wired and unwired sides of town. The terms called for a 16-year contract and Internet speeds criticized as too slow. These conditions were among several that stalled the idea at the Board of Supervisors, which had its own ideas.

Don’t hit Wi-Fi delete key

“Had its own ideas” doesn’t begin to cover it. Some of the concerns, particularly over Google’s proposal for location-based advertising, were worth debating. But the Chronicle’s right, it was a good deal, better even than a city councilor’s proposal that the city could easily be wired by running fiber along the sewer lines, which prompted Google’s April fools joke this past year.
    Maybe one of the reasons for high profile failures of municipal wireless is that the projects invariably require the participation of, um, municipalities.