San Francisco pulls the plug on Google / Earthlink's citywide WiFi... for now

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.

[strider_mt2k @ Aug 6th 2007 9:55AM]

-and the 700Mhz plan will be better...how?

[Matt @ Aug 6th 2007 12:38PM]

-and your comment is relevant... how?

[strider_mt2k @ Aug 6th 2007 3:02PM]

WiFi was also supposed to be more "open" for "the people" and look how it turned out.

700 Mhz is now being talked about in the same way.

If I'm mistaken your low rankings are earned, and I'll take my lumps.

[Woolly Mittens @ Aug 6th 2007 10:21AM]

This stuff will likely end like mobile phone networks: The whole world will have free wireless internet while in the US commities are talking about it endlessly.

[Harry Wagstaff @ Aug 6th 2007 10:28AM]

A city near where I live (Milton Keynes, in the UK) is meant to be getting free wifi access but I haven't actually heard anything else about it and the hotspots probably won't extend over here anyway.

[Jon Kelly @ Aug 6th 2007 11:36AM]

fascinating.

[FreshDailyGadget @ Aug 6th 2007 10:36AM]

So Earthlink made "unfriendly" comments and the city wanted to cut the contract length in half? Which one came first? Comments = shortening the contract or shortening the contract = comments? I missed something here... (http://www.freshdailygadget.com)

[TC @ Aug 6th 2007 10:48AM]

Yet another reason to recall Jake McGoldrick, the SF Supervisor whose picayune demands brought this three year fiasco to a screeching halt.

[netposer @ Aug 6th 2007 10:56AM]

Finally there's a technology SF doesn't get!

[Brian in SF @ Aug 6th 2007 11:23AM]

The wireless deal was just a bad deal. It locked us into 2007 (if that) technology. We will be substantially better off for not doing this and waiting for a real technology that will actually be able to handle the task capably, whether that be WiMax or some other technology. But, as it was currently slated, the deal wouldn't have even promised access to people living above the second floor of buildings. That is a lot of people in a city of apartment dwellers. Perhaps Engadget and its readers should understand the issue before casting judgment.

The plan made no promise of providing access to low-income neighborhoods as the contract allowed Earthlink to build out on a timetable that would meet their profit goals. And the 16 year contract length was ridiculous. Who wants to use 16 year old technology? How's that 2400 baud modem serving you? While municipal wireless is not a bad idea, Earthlink's plans were far less than a guaranteed victory for our fair city.

[Mile @ Aug 6th 2007 11:28AM]

I understand what you are saying but now nobody will get it and you are going to be standing there for how long hoping a 'newer' technology comes out that the profit ratio will allow for fewer years and larger (and quicker) rollout to fulfill all of your desires. Let's see where SF is in 6 years - then I'll guess we'll know if the right decision was made or not.

[Blake @ Aug 6th 2007 11:28AM]

I dunno dude, 54 Mbits/s is pretty fast.

[Jon Kelly @ Aug 6th 2007 11:39AM]

Soo... you figure that if Earthlink is trying to run a profitable business that over a 16 year contract they wouldn't strive to keep abreast of whatever the current de-facto standard was for wireless communications? Seems to me it would be in their best interest to upgrade the network over time so as to avoid losing customers to the 'hot spot' model that currently exists to supply demand. If they don't upgrade then every Starbucks & Peet's will re-launch pay-as-you-go wireless plans using whatever the new faster/better/cheaper standard is that all laptops ship with in 10 years.

[yoshi @ Aug 6th 2007 1:21PM]

It's 2007 and you don't want 2007 technology. You want 2009 technology. So you pass on the deal to give you 2007 technology NOW and wait until 2009 so you can get 2009 tech. And then 2009 arrives and you find out that they're only going to give you 2009 technology when, if you wait only two more years, you can get 2011 technology. Won't THAT be sweet! So you pass on getting 2009 tech....

Am I missing something?

[Carl @ Aug 6th 2007 4:36PM]

As a third floor resident, I'm really pleased that you are concerned about guaranteeing me access. But I'd prefer somebody get actual access.
McGoldrick's campaign slogan should be "fighting against the the good & free on behalf of the perfect & impossible."

[Jake @ Aug 6th 2007 11:23AM]

That stinks, it was my only reason to vacation in the cold Bay Area, a place where I could you my iPhone's wifi everywhere.

[Eric @ Aug 6th 2007 12:07PM]

Come to Minneapolis instead. Sure our bridges are falling down, but less than a year after they awarded the contract for the wireless network it's already up in a significant part of the city with it scheduled to be completed in the next couple of months. It took them about 3 years to go from first proposing the idea to actually finishing it.

And yes, Minneapolis is a smaller city than San Fran is (population wise, Minneapolis is actually about 12 sq miles larger), but we've got a much smaller company than Earthlink and Google working on it.

[Dmills @ Aug 6th 2007 1:59PM]

I was in Minneapolis/St.Paul airport yesterday $9.99 for 24 hour access to your "free" wifi.

[jdc @ Aug 6th 2007 2:57PM]

Dmills- Are you that stupid? Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, which quite a few people fly through as it is a Northwest hub, is neither in the city of Minneapolis, nor in St. Paul for that matter (not unlike most major airports). I guarantee you San Francisco's network wouldn't extend to SFO, not without some complicated sharing agreement among the municipalities south of the city, near the airpot. Pittsburgh's free wifi (available only downtown) isn't the same access provided at the airport. Perhaps this too is because the airport is not in the city, and any business deal the City inked with the provider would likely (and logically) not provide access for areas outside of the city. This isn't to say that wouldn't be a delightfully regional approach to providing equitable access to services and technology, but it just wouldn't make sense as a business deal. And, if you read the article before making your comment, you would know that a central component of this deal is the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, not the San Francisco City-Airport- Suburbs-In-Between-And-Then-Some Board of Supervisors. So, were you just trying to be a jackass with your comment, or was it merely 'Oh, I've just been flying alot' bravado?

[reader @ Aug 6th 2007 11:41AM]

What?

[Cellenin @ Aug 6th 2007 1:11PM]

Are the hippies acting up again?

[Frank @ Aug 6th 2007 3:03PM]

Interesting ... people are already using the city wide Earthlink deal in Philly but it's not free or associated with Google. I wonder if the folks in SF can look forward to the Philly "business model".

[Milford @ Aug 6th 2007 5:09PM]

Yawn. The supes will screw up any and all iniatives. Just watch -- they'll demand that wifi antennas include homeless shelters built in.. and then charge homeowners for the fees.. All while chastising car owners for having a car [even a Prius] and spending $$ to debate useless, non-binding statements about the war, Bush, and unfair treatment of asparagus.

[jonathan neil @ Aug 6th 2007 6:11PM]

The deal was terrible to begin with. The wireless wouldn't be able to penetrate the neighborhoods that need free internet the most, and as stated, it would generally be useful only outside. As an infrastructure, it's not very good at all.

The city would be much better served with fiber laid out, which is one of the proposed alternatives. A fiber network would be useful for decades, and would provide tall buildings (of which there are many) and lower income neighborhoods with true broadband.

The deal was as follows:

EarthLink, the Internet service provider, would own the network and offer a faster service, at 1 megabit per second, for $21.95 per month.

I currently pay about $40 a month for 6 megabit service from Comcast. Who in their right mind wouldn't spend an extra $20 for true broadband speeds. 1 megabit isn't a whole lot these days. 300 kilobit is just laughable.

Bottom line is, a city/public owned fiber optic outlay would be a much better spend of taxpayer $$$. The city could sell FTTH service at a cheaper rate than Comcast or AT&T charge for cable or DSL.

[Mack Mall @ Aug 17th 2007 5:55AM]

1) Mountain View already has this free google wi-fi. It's extremely slow and has poor signal quality. Signals can be boosted with an $80 unit called a high powered wireless ethernet converter. This means 2nd floor and above can still get the wifi signal with the expense of this additional unit, a router to repeat the signal indoors, and probably some In-Home IT guys to set it up. Overall, its still slow and the money put into the "free wifi" will cost the same as paying for DSL.

2) Fiber Optics is the future. Data Speeds traveling at the speed of light. I don't think we will discover a faster form of energy for decades or even centuries to come if it even exists. 30 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps Upstream means digital TV, Phone service, and Internet all in a single line. Businesses can easily be supported from a home office with this upload speed that blows T1 out the water for a fraction of the cost.

3) With sites like "youtube.com" and "veoh.com" you can easily see the trend of video streaming becoming more and more popular. High Definition is about to become a standard in homes as well. This all means that a strong network foundation is needed to carry all this data.

4) 54 Mbps is the BURST signal strength of wireless G only if you are at a close enough range. Average consistent connection for wireless G is 14 Mbps. That still does not mean that the free wifi will operate at that speed for internet use. They will probably cap it out at 1-2 Mbps.

5) 16 years is a ridiculously long period of time to be tied down for technology. If this were to happen, the contract needs to be written out with a plan to stay up to date with specific internet needs.

[Mack Mall @ Aug 17th 2007 5:56AM]

Sorry, it seems that the speed provided by earthlink will only be 300 kbps. Wow...at that rate we might as well use tin cups and a wire.

[George Walters @ Aug 28th 2007 6:08AM]

Check out the quietly being used and not talked about new and completely free Internet sevice provided by Meraki; "Free The Net San Francisco" at: http://meraki.com/. It's real and they even send you the equipment you need for free. Now try and beat that if you can!

[Wi-Fi 4all @ Jan 9th 2008 2:06AM]

It's amazing how this story was spun. The 'real losers' are the Supervisors. They saw this as another Newsom pet project. It wasn't about download speed or wireless enabling homeless and low income folks, it was about stalling a project that was Newsom's idea. The Supervisors are the prime example of disfunction. Newsom in all his flaws had a vision to provide wireless connectivity. The Supervisors in their grand ego took a good thing and once again screwed SF and everyone else. Google and Earthlink should not just walk away but run! The only real attraction in SF now is the three ring Circus now playing at City Hall.