NOAH ADAMS, Host: From NPR News, it's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Noah Adams.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, Host: Joel Rose reports.</s>JOEL ROSE: The Philadelphia network was supposed to help the city bridge the digital divide between rich and poor while at the same time bringing in thousands of paying customers for EarthLink. But company vice president Chris Putala says the network never delivered on the second part.</s>NOAH ADAMS, Host: When there's expectations of more than 100,000 consumers signing up for a service and fewer than 6,000 show up, we clearly have a network that has not met the real world proof, despite what all the predictions were a few years ago.</s>JOEL ROSE: From the beginning, the Wi-Fi network was plagued by spotty service and cost overruns. Putala says EarthLink spent $17 million building a system it was willing to give to the city for free. But the mayor's spokesman, Doug Oliver, says maintaining that network could have ultimately cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year.</s>NOAH ADAMS, Host: It's not just the city. No one has been willing to assume that wireless network and the perceived risk.</s>JOEL ROSE: For NPR News, I'm Joel Rose in Philadelphia.
Earthlink notified Philadelphia subscribers that it will dismantle its WiFi network in the city on June 12. Negotiations to transfer the network to another operator broke down. Earthlink is giving subscribers 30 days to find other paths to the Internet.