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Letter to the editor

City WiFi deal falls through

Earthlink had planned to build a network for free, but backs away. from a deal for a St. Petersburg network.

By PAUL SWIDER, Times Staff Writer
Published September 1, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - A citywide WiFi network will have to wait.

Earthlink, the company the city chose to provide the service, is no longer interested in covering the city's 60 square miles with wireless Internet connections.

"We are unable to further pursue the project due to a realignment of our corporate-wide strategic objectives," reads a letter from Donald Berryman, who headed the company's efforts earlier this year in a winning bid to build the $7-million network for free.

Instead, the company "will be focusing only on cities which will contractually commit to purchase network services from the onset of network deployment," he said.

The idea of a company building a free WiFi network is dying all around the country. Just a few years ago, several companies offered to build such networks without any commitment from local government to buy in. They assumed paying subscribers could support the enterprise. But as Earthlink and others started building networks, they discovered they required more hardware and therefore more guaranteed customers. Most governments refused to commit to using the networks.

The city's chief technology officer, Muslim Gadiwalla, said the city does not have extra money or needs pressing enough to commit to paying for such a service, so he will just wait and watch the market to see what happens.

Other technologies similar to WiFi might prove cheaper to install, he said, so there may be new wireless Internet options to consider.

Under the arrangement with Earthlink, the company would have built the network at its own cost. Most city residents would have had to pay to use it, and the city would not have been required to purchase the service.

Earthlink won the right to build the network here over a St. Petersburg company, Citi WiFi, which also says it would no longer build the network for free. Citi Wifi has built free networks in Dunedin and Treasure Island and is in discussions about a network in West Palm Beach.

Earthlink is building networks in Philadelphia, Anaheim, Calif., and New Orleans, but it recently quit San Francisco. Though Earthlink has some guaranteed income in Houston, that city is fining the company for not starting work there.

Earthlink this week laid off half its national workforce. Berryman was among those who will be leaving the company. The Atlanta-based company reported $46-million in losses during the first half of this year.

The city pursued WiFi because of its potential convenience and possible efficiencies for government and public safety uses. The idea of providing easy Internet access everywhere also was seen as a potential spur to economic development. Earthlink and all other bidders also offered to provide discounted access to economically depressed areas.

While the city's stance is wait and see, others think providing Internet everywhere is an idea whose time has come, regardless of the failure of Earthlink to make it happen.

Charles Harshbarger, a retired schoolteacher and wireless Internet user who has been following the situation, likens the circumstance to the era when Robert Fulton added a steam engine to a boat and created a revolution in transport. "It's steamboat time," he said. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how this can go. It's something whose time has come."

Just a few years ago there were just more than 100 WiFi networks nationwide; now nearly four times as many have been built or are being considered. In some places, community groups are developing networks; in others neighbors just string together a series of access points and create an ad hoc network.

A nonprofit model, ProjectSafety, has proposed using federal grant money to build a network in Pinellas County, said Larry Karisny, who has been pitching Community Network Integration for several years now. He's looking to test in some beach communities an idea that would use wireless Internet to enhance traffic flow and emergency response along with public access.

"Basically the public sector supports the equipment and the private sector supports the recurring costs in location-based advertising and other enterprise service models," Karisny said. "There are also subscriber premium services to individuals, small business and enterprise applications. It is not just radios, it is intelligent radios."

Harshbarger said he used to use a dial-up free network when he lived in Tallahassee and sees no reason why a wireless version couldn't be built here. He said he's heard of networks in Spain that are built on the connections of businesses.

"Originally, it might be only along main corridors," he said, "but it might knit the community together."

Having businesses create a network is an appealing idea, said John Long, president and CEO of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce.

"We'll have to look into that because it's a real interesting idea," Long said. Losing the Earthlink deal "is obviously a disappointment but other opportunities like this will come along. We're a pretty exciting and vibrant city, so people will come up with things."

Paul Swider can be reached at pswider@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2271 .

[Last modified August 31, 2007, 22:53:48]