"In the past decade Garry Betty has experimented with just about every possible way of connecting his customers to the internet -- and wiped $1 billion of his shareholders' capital off the balance sheet in the process. But now the chief executive of EarthLink says he sees a way to take his revenge on the giant rivals who have long beaten him bloody.

In Anaheim, California, EarthLink has attached little white boxes to 1,500 traffic lights. At the end of the month Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle will cut a ceremonial wire, turning on those boxes and powering up America's first big-city Wi-Fi network, which will offer residents high-speed wireless web access across Anaheim for $22 per month...."

http://www.wired.com/news/technology...l?tw=rss.index

Kind of a nice idea with the Helio phones, swithing from cell to wifi on the fly when the city is wired up, should make things cheaper...

So anyone be interested in using Earthlink wireless? I know Earthlink at the moment kind of sucks balls, but if they got this to work, might be worth a look...and how about the phones...

Is the local cable company having a fit?

I think they are working with Google on getting that set up http://news.com.com/Google+details+M...3-6086639.html

they ain't to pleased, it's how they were able to keep there prices in check before and earthlink bloke begging for a slice of the pie, but he's now cutting them out, so should see prices take a bit of a competitive drop

They are doing something similar in Ontario, Ca. but offering a free version that pays for itself using an advertising bar across your browser. Not sure if its going to work with people using pop up blockers but will be interesting to see a city offering free wifi.
http://www.dailybulletin.com/search/ci_3853271

Google are talking about offering free wi-fi for the whole of san fransisco as a test project, if it takes off they will move on to other cities.

http://gigaom.com/2005/09/30/google-...co-wifi-plans/

""BBC News is running a story about the Spanish firm Fon, selling subsidized Linksys WRT54GL Wi-Fi routers for $5, in exchange for the buyer agreeing to a 12 month contract of providing access to other Fon users within range. With the financial backing of Google and Skype, their goal is to create Wi-Fi networks, street by street, across Europe and the US. Buyers of the subsidized routers can classify themselves as 'Linuses', whereby they also get free access to all other Fon hotspots, or 'Bills', where they receive 50% of the revenue made by on-selling their Wi-Fi to other Fon users. 'Alien' users can buy 24-hour passes for 3 Euro. To deter misuse, all Fon users must identify themselves by a username and password before they can access the hotspot. As long as the owner's personal LAN is not accessible, this could be a good way to offset the costs of the average geek's bandwidth bill."..."

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article...30239&from=rss

Now if they had something like that here in the US, that would be pretty good, especially in the cities...nice way for companies to get in on the act on the cheap and avoid having to use cable companies....Earthlink would have done well with that...