Philadelphia public Wi-Fi network headed for scrap heap

Once touted as a model of efficiency and good design, Philadelphia's citywide Wi-Fi network is set to shut down at any moment.

Beleaguered Earthlink, which has operated the network for the city, gave Philly a "final deadline" of today to offer a plan to take over the operation of the network from Earthlink or else it would pack up its gear and go home. Philadelphia's mayor said the city had no plans to spend any additional money on the network, which all but seals its fate in the junkyard. (Mayer Michael Nutter also said that contractually Earthlink cannot legally impose such deadlines, though at this point Earthlink looks like it's ready to accept whatever consequences come its way.) The network, as of today, was still operating in 80 percent of the city, but that could change at any time.

Earthlink has been working on extricating itself from the expensive and wholly unprofitable muni Wi-Fi business all year, canceling contracts left and right while it retrenches and, basically, tries to stay in business. Earthlink's similar network in New Orleans (where public Wi-Fi was of great public service during the post-Katrina weeks) is set to shut down on May 18.

With these two huge projects on the rocks, it's hard to declare public Wi-Fi as anything other than a disaster at this point. While dozens of muni wireless projects are still in operation, they generally cover smaller cities and/or limited areas inside those cities. To my knowledge, no one is making any money with muni wireless, and it's not even clear whether consumers are even using the networks.

Any readers in Philadelphia who can offer a "man on the scene" report?