Earthlink to the rescue.

Bellsouth's bullying tactics will not work. There are just too many alternatives to this monopoly. But they're trying to cut out the competition in NO just as they have tried in LFT-- and they're going to get beat in the courts and in the court of public opinion. Wise up, Bellsouth, and start making a contribution to Louisiana's reconstruction.


Wi-Fi Networking News: :

"BellSouth has a history over the last few months of being hostile in private, conciliatory in public: In December, they allegedly said that New Orleans’s plans to run its own broadband network would cause it to withdraw an offer to donate a building. Then they denied in public that they’d said this to the city.

Days ago, the New Orleans CIO Greg Meffert said he’d rather go to jail than turn off the vital broadband wireless network operating in the city. BellSouth was trying to force the issue, he said. Louisiana based a ridiculous broadband limitation bill that denies municipalities the right to build broadband networks operating at 144 Kbps in either direction or faster. Under emergency rules, New Orleans was able to turn the network on.

BellSouth now says that they haven’t challenged New Orleans at all. Private lobbying in Baton Rouge doesn’t count, I imagine.

EarthLink has taken advantage of this situation by offering to take over New Orleans network on its usual private basis, spending $15m over the next three years to build a network with a 15-to-20-mile radius. That would be 700 to 1250 square miles—perhaps diameter was meant rather than radius?"