Tell me something new:

“Last November, EarthLink announced it would not make any further “significant investments” in its muni wireless business and that it would “begin a process to consider its strategic alternatives.” Yesterday, the company announced that the alternative it has settled on is to sell off the business altogether. The news came when EarthLink released its Q4 and Full Year 2007 financial results.

While the company has committed to a plan to sell its muni wireless assets, which it values at $40 million, as yet, there are no takers.

The move did not come as a surprise to industry watchers, as EarthLink CEO—and newly elected Chairman of the Board—Rolla Huff has been clear about EarthLink’s declining interest in funding a venture that, while successful by some measures, was not producing the ROI stockholders were looking for.

“After thorough review and analysis of our municipal wireless business we have decided that making significant further investments in this business could be inconsistent with our objective of maximizing shareholder value,” said Huff, in a press release last fall.

In a press release issued yesterday, EarthLink made the decision to sell official.

Phil Belanger, a founding member of the Wi-Fi Alliance, who’s company, Novarum, has done extensive testing on many of EarthLink’s muni Wi-Fi networks, says its not the technology that failed, but rather the business model.

“I think that everyone has already concluded that the EarthLink-style model of building Metro Wi-Fi networks primarily for commercial public Internet access and residential broadband is not viable—particularly in large cities with competitive broadband alternatives. So, this is nothing new for the industry. It is simply the other shoe dropping. Municipal wireless networks are still being built, but the successful ones support multiple applications—usually private city applications with a commitment from the city to buy a minimum level of service,” says Belanger.” (…)

Source: http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3726981

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