[PCWorld]

Post your comments for EarthLink to Remove Philadelphia Wi-Fi here

[RNR19952]

Only the morons in Philadelphia could screw this up
Let's see, we have a city with a murder problem, yes someone is shot everyday, so they blame it on guns, (you know those inanimate objects that magically kill people by themselves) and hire a chief of police from D.C. who also had a murder problem in a city WHERE GUNS ARE OUTLAWED! HMM that makes sense.
We have a Casino revenue that will probably never see the light of day
Our former Mayor gave his brother a no bid contract at the airport, no impropriety here...OH and when the Fed's investigated him he cried the race card....But he had time to wait in line for his iPhone on the taxpayer dime....Philly is a sewer, and extremely corrupt...This is the best part..."The company offered to give the Philadelphia network to the city or the unnamed nonprofit for free, after which the nonprofit would offer free service, according to EarthLink. Representatives of the city and Wireless Philadelphia were not immediately available for comment."
Now why doesn't someone give me a FREE citywide wireless network?
I'll take it.........BTW who is Wireless Philadelphia a shakedown organization? Must be if EarthLink had to share revenue that obviously was not enough to make a profit on after that!

[coastie65]

Man, What a mess. I thought we had a screwed up City Government here in Richmond. I haven't spent a great deal of time in Philly. I was TDY at the Navy yard for awhile, but that was quite awhile back, and things were obviously better then. 30 years ago the population of the City of Richmond was a little over 212,000, not real large by most standards, and it has dwindled down to roughly 100,000. The murder rate was through the roof, and we finally got a no nonsense Police Chief who has done wonders and there are some moving back to the city, but we still have a dysfunctional City Government ( I live in the County ). The Mayor, Doug Wilder, is a former Governor. Good Governor, maybe not so good Mayor. It looks as if the Philly City Gov't. is a tad Dysfunctional as well as corrupt. coastie65

[Davester]

Hmm...blanket an entire decaying ghetto with a free service that isn't actually free to provide. What could go wrong with that? There's a lot of socialist utopian thinking in the leadership circles in Philly, a critical reason why the city is a crime-ridden basket case. I'd bet that Earthlink didn't want to pony up enough money to fund a bloated patronage network to 'support' the wireless network, and that helped kill the deal.

[JimH443]

Under 6000 subscribers? I don't care WHICH city you're in, that's a failing business. Isn't this enough to demonstrate that there isn't as much call for WiFi as the hype would suggest?

[mphenterprises]

Hi JimH. Thank you for touching on the subscriber count. I live in the Philadelphia Metropolitan area and I personally do not believe this has anything to do with the fact that Philadelphia is a crime-ridden city or that the city is run down, all major cities have their own issues. The fact is that the vast majority of Philadelphians either did not care, did not know, or could not afford (once the service was a paid service) Wireless Philadelphia. In a city of over of over approximately 1.5 million people, 6000 subscribers is miniscule at best.

The Contract signed by Earthlink representatives stated that subscribers would be charged $21.95 for this service and the charge would be cut in half for those that could not afford that. However, the fact is that:

A) if someone cannot afford $22 per month for a wireless service, what makes someone think they can even afford to have a laptop?

B) the majority of the service only worked in a small section of Philadelphia.

C) even when connected, the strength of the signal was never more than two or three bars out of five.




As a person who travels within Philadelphia quite frequently, this service would have been very convenient simply because I would never have to rely on either a hot spot or my own wifi connection; however, from even just checking availability within certain sections of Philadelphia, you could tell where the bulk of the infrastructure for this service resides. It is a shame that a major metropolitan like Philadelphia could not make this work, regardless of the ills that the city faces. I am sure another city will learn from what Philadelphia did right and wrong and make another attempt in the future.

On another note, while watching a new broadcast, I found out that three other cities pulled similar plans. However, no mention of the exact three cities.

[RNR19952]

You know this service was not really advertised
I have not seen any ads for it
BTW does anyone know who "Wireless Philadelphia" is?

[mphenterprises]

Hi RNR. You are right. It really was not advertised at all. I guess you can chalk this one up partially to bad marketing as well. Without looking them up, I am not sure who Wireless Philadelphia is. I know they are a non-profit organization but other than that, I would have to look them up.

As I was doing some research on this, I found out that Chicago is doing something called WiMax. I did not dig deeper into that but, at the very least, the technology is there if done properly.

[JimH443]

It was only because of your reply that I even considered the possibility that the service might leave a lot to be desired. With a name like EarthLink involved, I had assumed that it would cover the entire 135 sq mi claimed with a reliable signal. Who KNOWS how many subscribers there would be if it had.

[mphenterprises]

No, not even close. I am not sure where you are located or if you are familiar with Philadelphia neighborhoods but here is what I figured during my travels throughout Philadelphia: (this is not official by any means...just what I have noticed)

- Northeast Philadelphia had the strongest signals and the most access points set up

- Center City Philadelphia, the heart of Philly, ironically had the weakest signals and the fewest access points.

- South Philadelphia was scattered. The closer one was to Penns Landing, the better the signal. Also, the closer one was to sites such as the south Philadelphia movie theater had better signal strength.

- The remainder of the city was pretty much out of the loop. If I ever attempted to connect to any available wireless network outside of the areas listed, Wireless Philadelphia was not even listed.



Overall, outside of a few pockets of strong signals, I either saw no Wireless Philadelphia SSID or if it were there, it was very weak. I am by no means a networking expert; however, I would presume that the only way this would have work for all Philadelphia residents and visitors would be if there were access points set up to essentially blanket Philadelphia in a wireless network. I am not sure if that means setting up access points within 150 of each other or what but the initial planning definitely left out the vast majority of Philadelphia.

As RNR stated, there really wasn't any advertising or marketing at all. They did a blitz campaign back in 2005 but other than that, nothing.

[RNR19952]

I don't even remember the blitz in 2005?
I was not even sure this thing was working yet.
I hope it all just does not go to waste.

[mphenterprises]

It was very, very minimal. If I remember correctly, there was a pep rally at Love Park or City Hall, one of the two, regarding this. That is just about it. No commercials, no posters, no word of mouth, nothing.

I hope this doesn't go to waste as well. My fiancee works in City Hall and from what she hears, sees, and overhears, the city is not fighting very hard to keep this around. Shoot, the implementation of something like this would be unbelievable. Imagine sitting at home in Olde City writing a document that your boss needs and have the ability to print directly to the printer at your boss' office clear across the city on the Boulevard. The possibilities are endless.

[coastie65]

Hi RNR, I hope it doesn't go to waste either. Unfortunately, the Philadelphia City Government sounds just as dysfunctional as the Richmond City Government. I saw where those chuckleheads got on the owner of Geno's Cheesesteaks, because he required customers to speak English when ordering. Seems like they would more important things to deal with. You would think they would want to make it easier for EVERYONE to connect, but like too many local Governments, there has to be some money in it for them as well. coastie

[RNR19952]

She needs a VPN

[mphenterprises]

LOL No. That was just an example of the ways a city-wide network could help business and employees. :-) According to the latest news reports, Earthlink is going to start ripping down the infrastructure next month. We will see before then if the city fights to figure this out.

[RNR19952]

Yes I thought that was funny too
My grand parents on my fathers side came from Italy, they did not run around with some Italian flag, speaking Italian, they spoke English (as bad as it was) at least they tried. Being part Native American it infuriates me to see these foreigners running around with their flags, speaking some foreign language. Hey if your country is so great, go back there please!
When I go to Lowes it pisses me off to see all the signs in Spanish, I am not in Mexico, and when I am in Mexico I don't care if you don't speak English, were in Mexico, speak Spanish all you want. Americans are such lame asses we do not even have an Official language..enough ranting ...sorry

[RNR19952]

OMG what a waste of money, time, effort.
There are not words to describe it, dumb just doesn't cut it.. LOL

[mphenterprises]

LOL If you think just my words struck a cord, check out the video file from Channel 6:




http://abclocal.go.c...ocal&id=5923639





It is so sad. The mayor thinks that they can do better later (paraphrasing) and Councilman Rizzo (I think) wants the private sector to maintain something like this because, "...they do it best."

[RNR19952]

HMM they are looking to wimax already?

http://www.suntimes....chnology/945795,CST-FIN-wimax13.article

[coastie65]

When I was TDY at Navy Yard, a shipmate who was from the area took me over there and introduced me to the cheesesteak. That was in '68. Geno's has been around for a long time, so that kinda got close to me. I was afraid that might get shutdown or get put out of business some other way, and that would have been a shame. Had that happened I believe the City Government would have received a harsh letter from me down here in Richmond. ]:) coastie