TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Macworld | EarthLink to remove Philadelphia Wi-Fi

But there were delays in rolling out the network and it never gained much traction. In court papers filed Tuesday, EarthLink said it had only 5,034 regular residential and business subscribers and 908 customers under the subsidized plan. EarthLink said it knew by late 2007 that the business was unsustainable.

EarthLink’s other municipal Wi-Fi networks also failed to deliver, and the company started shutting down its municipal Wi-Fi unit last year. Since then it has given networks back to cities including Corpus Christi, Texas, and Milpitas, California. 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.

It’s too bad these plans aren’t working. I wonder, though, how a mesh-style network would work as opposed to the model Philadelphia and San Francisco have used where one well-established company is contracted to develop and run the city’s wireless network.

Service may not be quite as ubiquitous with a mesh network approach, but I am wondering if ultimately it is more sustainable.

I hope something outside the hands of the telecoms works for providing wireless access, because Earthlink’s failure, along with Sprint’s Clearwire deal and the various “4G” implementations under way, the telecoms are looking strong. And that’s painful to say.