Last month I had reported that rumors were floating around that Earthlink appeared to be on some shaky financial ground and it wasn’t clear whether they would be able to proceed on deals in Houston, TX. and San Francisco, CA. Apparently this was more than just rumor since Earthlink is cutting employees and also has backed out of both wi-fi deals. Others cities such as Chicago, Il., Alexandria and Arlington, Va., and St. Petersburg, Fla. also have placed their wi-fi dreams on hold as well, after Earthlink made their announcement of cutbacks.

So now these cities and other cities who were looking into providing free access to all, may have to go back to the drawing boards and consult with Google as to what the next steps may be. Google it seems was the architect behind the ‘freebie’ stuff hoping to cash in on advertising dollars ala Google Search and Google AdSense. Though this simple advertising plan has raked in billions of dollars for the search giant, one now has to question how will a similar advertising scheme flourish using free access to the internet as bait.
As not to put the entire blame on Google, is it just that the entire industry just went to fast on supplying wi-fi access to the masses? Or is greed once again behind the scenes trying to cripple wi-fi efforts? That question and others will need to be addressed in the near future.

So what is your opinion?

Comments welcome.

[tags]google, earthlink, wi-fi, access, free, advertising, cost, [/tags]