TechBloggin.com

Filed under: Cellphones

It’s hardly been a secret that Helio was causing some problems for Earthlink, but the company’s CEO has just now weighed in himself on the matter, offering some comments on the situation and Helio’s now former CEO Sky Dayton in one of those always exciting earnings calls. As mocoNews reports, Earthlink’s Rolla Huff says the company “made hard decisions around getting our cost structure down,” including the “very difficult decision…to not continue making incremental investments in Helio.” Huff apparently laid none of the blame on Helio’s Sky Dayton, however, saying simply that “Sky has a history of creating and building strong brands and he’s done a great job at that with Helio,” and that they “very much appreciate his willingness to be involved in getting Helio to this point in its life cycle.” Of course, that was hardly the entire purpose of the call, and those concerned with the nitty gritty of earnings details can get their fix by hitting up the read link below.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: Donald Melanson

written by

Filed under: Cellphones

Sky Dayton, founder and chairman of the phantasmagorical Helio, has announced that he’s stepping down as CEO to become president of the last-man-standing MVNO. Dayton will be replacing Jinwoo So, president of global business at SK Telecom (which shares ownership of the company with Earthlink), and Dayton himself will be replaced by Wonhee Sull, formerly the company’s president and COO. “Helio has reached a point in its development where I feel the timing is right for this change… As we have for the past three years, the two of us will continue to define Helio’s direction and future,” said Dayton. It’s possible that with the recent influx of cash (and increased ownership) from SK Telecom, and the dwindling marketshare of MVNOs, Sky’s taking the opportunity to get a little more control of his baby… and who can blame him?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: Joshua Topolsky

written by

Filed under: Cellphones

Sky Dayton, founder and chairman of the phantasmagorical Helio, has announced that he’s stepping down as CEO to become chairman of the board of the last-man-standing MVNO. Dayton will be replacing Jinwoo So, as chairman of the board, while himself being replaced by Wonhee Sull, formerly the company’s president and COO. “Helio has reached a point in its development where I feel the timing is right for this change… As we have for the past three years, the two of us will continue to define Helio’s direction and future,” said Dayton. It’s possible that with the recent influx of cash (and increased ownership) from from its Korean parents and the dwindling marketshare of MVNOs meant that SK felt it was time to step in and get things on track.

Update: Lots of fun title inaccuracies going on up in here. See above for the latest, correct edits.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: Joshua Topolsky

written by

Filed under: Wireless

Not that anyone who lives in the fair city of San Francisco was really all that confident that the muni WiFi project would ever make it off the ground — even despite Major Gavin Newsom’s best intentions — but now it looks like bad’s gone to worse. As you may have read, yesterday EarthLink laid off nearly a thousand employees, and word came today that addition to that news, it’s latest corporate restructuring would have it completely backing out of investments in its San Fran WiFi project contract, as well as the WiFi contracts in other cities. Again, not the most earth quaking news, given the word we received from the city that they were more or less pulling the plug anyway.

Watch the whole thing crumble, in slow-mo reverse chronological order:
Read (April 6th, 2006) - San Francisco selects Google/Earthlink for citywide WiFi
Read (January 6th) - It’s official: San Francisco to get free WiFi blanket courtesy of Google / EarthLink
Read (August 6th) - San Francisco pulls the plug on Google / Earthlink’s citywide WiFi… for now
This post, today.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: Ryan Block

written by

Filed under: Wireless

It’s hard not to love the promise of the White Space Coalition, which includes players like Google, Microsoft, Dell, Earthlink, HP, Intel and Philips. Those crazy kids want to bring us wireless internet over the “white space” bandwidth in between TV broadcast channels, and we say let ‘em. One little problem though, FCC says the concept doesn’t work. The prototype that the Coalition submitted for review was designed to sense existing TV signals and transmit around them, but the FCC found it inconsistent in this aim, and won’t be giving its stamp approval to a device that interferes with existing broadcasts. The FCC does say that it’s open to looking at the next generation of the technology, since better performance is certainly possible, and the White Space Coalition wasn’t too downhearted: the group is “encouraged that FCC engineers did not find fault with our operating parameters and remain confident that unlicensed television spectrum can be used without interference.” Between this fledgling technology and that upcoming 700MHz auction, things are really looking up for WiFi-jilted mobile internet users across the States.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: Paul Miller

written by

Filed under: Networking

It looks like the people of San Francisco are going to have to wait a little bit longer before they can spam their friends with memes while sitting in the middle of Golden Gate Park. The WiFi blanket deal which would see Google and Earthlink teaming up to deliver a citywide network to the Bay-area has ground to a halt after a round of somewhat “unfriendly” statements from Earthlink concerning the plans. David Noyola, speaking on behalf of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (which has been overseeing the project) said that the network’s rollout has stalled “in the shadow of comments,” made last week by Rolla Huff, the internet provider’s CEO, who expressed reservations over municipal wireless deals. Breaking points in particular seem to be the city’s request for changes in data speed and privacy controls, and its desire to downsize Earthlink’s contract on the network from 16 years to eight (significantly reducing the company’s time to earn a profit). The internet provider now claims that they are doing a “detailed review,” of their business model regarding the project, which the company says will not provide “an acceptable return.” Obviously a lose-lose situation for the laptop-toting citizens of the City by the Bay.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: Joshua Topolsky

written by