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D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Well, that's it, they're splitting the sheets, the clothes are flying out the apartment window as we speak. Earthlink has called it quits and is pulling its equipment down off the streetlights of Philadelphia.

Like me, you no doubt have friends who have gone through a divorce. Or perhaps you have yourself. It's a terribly awkward and painful time. Many outside the relationship see the split coming way before the actual event itself. So gut-wrenching is the process itself that there's a long sigh and a painful denouement when the divorce is actually final.

Then, there comes a long period of adjustment to a new paradigm, where the parties recover. But, it's not just the parties themselves to the divorce who must adjust - the need to realign falls on all of us who count ourselves within the sphere of the divorced parties. I've lost good friends to divorce, despite my best efforts - even though I vowed to stay friends with both the man and woman in the divorce - we were close friends as couples, after all - but it most often has proven to be well nigh on impossible and one or both friendships fade slowly away. There's a new dynamic at work in the social fabric. We've lost several families from our church membership in the same manner. But life goes on.

royal wedding.jpg

So, with the news yesterday that the split between Earthlink and the City of Philadelphia has been finalized - finally - it feels like a divorce to me. What does it mean for all of us in the sphere of this highly-watched marriage? This first big municipal wireless deal was held up as a model of things to come, after all. We scrutinized this union as it unfolded .. analyzing it step by step. I'm reminded of the Fairytale Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di, back on July 29, 1981.

It was so beautiful when they came together as Prince and Princess, but so ugly when they split...

This feels to me like the second shoe finally hitting the floor. It's time to move beyond this crash and burn of Muni Wi Fi 1.0. The business model failed, but the potential of the technology lives on. It's important that we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, which many have already done, so eager are they to put the final nails in the coffin. (Let's see how many metaphors I can string together)...

Personally, I've already moved on, having processed Earthlink's withdrawal from the industry in a series of posts last year, in August and these two posts in September (see Reader's Digest Condensed Version and Big City MuniFi and Sand Castles - Fun While They Lasted). I urge you to check those posts out for a thorough discussion on what happened and what's in store.

What's more appealing to me is to focus on what comes next, because the problems that the Earthlink model sought to address sure haven't gone away, just because this first solution proved itself to be a turkey. I think there are three trends to watch...

1. Public Ownership of a Wireless Network based on Municipal Cost Savings - see my recent white paper, Lowest Risk, Publicly-Owned Networks and the upcoming announcement on San Marcos, TX's plans for wireless broadband (MetroNetIQ is completing an engagement with San Marcos).
2. Regional Planning for Broadband - see my four-year old white paper, Regional Broadband Authorities and the upcoming report on Orange County, CA's plans for broadband (MetroNetIQ has been part of the team doing the study).
3. Clearwire and Sprint and the future of WiMAX - I'll be posting an analysis of this merger and its implications shortly.

There's lots and lots more to come on mobile broadband - short and sweet, Earthlink was an experiment that failed, with high visibility and emotion (NOT the end of an era, as many will make it out to be).

In the meantime, sit back and enjoy the show, because it will be one hell of a ride.


Posted on May 13, 2008 at 06:58 PM

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