WiFiNetNews says a purchase of the Tempe Arizona municipal network may be off.
According to the East Valley Times; the future of citywide wireless networks in Tempe and Chandler (waztempe.com and wazchandler.com) became murky Tuesday, when Telscape, which was looking to buy the unsuccessful systems, said it may now back out of the deal.
An authentication server was taken down in Mississippi, home to Kite Networks. That server “tells them whether you’re a paid-up customer or authorized to be on the network,” Tempe spokesman Dave Heck told AZCentral.com. That shutdown created havoc on the system said Telscape chairman Tad Neeley.
The Tempe network was launched in March 2006. Neoreach Networks began network operations with fewer than 400 access points serving a city of more than 165,000, but Kite took over the network soon after and added about 600 nodes to improve coverage. Kite Networks, a Ridgeland, Miss.-based company, was bought by Gobility in July, which is based in Richardson, Texas. The new owner was expected to be Telscape, based in Monrovia, California.
Other bad news; Citywide Wi-Fi is dead in Yuma, reports the Yuma Sun. Kite Networks, has stalled the project indefinitely. “The company and the implementation are not doing well financially and the outcome is doubtful,” said Greg Wilkinson, the city’s assistant information technology services director.,
Gobility has completed the initial phase of deployment for its Longmont, Colo., Wi-Fi network (www.kite.net/longmont). The deployment of the Wi-Fi mesh network, covering approximately 22 square miles of Longmont, was completed in less than 90 days. But Gobility, wants to sell the system or find a third-party contractor to resume its customer support and billing services. For now, the whole city has free wireless access — at least until they can sell the system.
.gif)
