My guess is that many of these 455 cities are going to catch on to the fact that there's no business model and, in the wake of impending citywide WiMax, no real motivation, and will similarly ditch the plans. This quote from EarthLink chief Rolla Huff about says it all:

"We will not devote any new capital to the old municipal Wi-Fi model that has us taking all the risks. In my judgment, that model is simply unworkable."

UPDATE: Check out the comments — apparently, a lot of small cities have pulled this off. [AP/Yahoo]

Two different prototypes were submitted for the test, both from the Coalition. (I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, judging from the gallery below, Dell had more sway than HP.) The testing didn't focus so much on how well the devices could transmit and receive broadband signal, although Prototype A could do both. The real focus was how well they could "listen" before they "spoke."

The danger is that licensed high-powered devices and unlicensed low-powered devices operating on a crowded frequency band need to know how to be polite and share the space. Prototype A, the more complete package, was pretty miserable at this, failing to recognize active NTSC signal 20% of the time, and strong digital TV signal over half the time. Even when there was no signal present, 15% of the time Prototype A said that there was.

Prototype B, the slimmer box shown below, had an updated receiver but could not transmit. It was able to score a little higher on the tests but also failed. The other test was to determine interference with wireless microphones that use the same frequency band. The FCC determined that both prototypes failed this as well. Prototype A was "generally unable to sense wireless microphones," Prototype B's performance was "mixed."

The Coalition isn't exactly throwing in the towel, according to the UPI:

The White Spaces Coalition said in a statement it was encouraged "that FCC engineers did not find fault with our operating parameters and remain confident unlicensed television spectrum can be used without interference."

This agreement to bring free universal wireless internet access to San Francisco is a critical step in bridging the digital divide that separates too many communities from the enormous benefits of technology.

San Francisco finalizes Wi-Fi deal with EarthLink, Google [SF Gate]

This faux pas, especially at an event heavily attended by the press, doesn't bode well for Google's plans to set up a municipal WiFi network in San Francisco. If they can't get a simple thing like wireless access working on their own campus in a controlled environment, Google and Earthlink may have some tough times ahead.

Google Goes Wi-Fi, WHY!? [eWeek]

Google Inc.'s nefarious scheme to fog San Francisco with a warm, milky shroud of Wi-Fi proceeds apace, with city fathers recommending them and Earthlink as the best candidates for the job. The anointment follows a six-week review and was a required prelude to opening negotiations with the two companies, which joined forces earlier this year. The AP says the companies will build the network on their own dollar, with the network expected to cost $15 million.

Frisco Wi-Fi announcement [AP]

Virtually Yours

ESPN is synonymous with sports in America. And while the cable net has made some slight forays into the wireless space with a mobile version of its website and some games and applications, its Mobile ESPN service is looking to translate the SportsCenter experience onto a phone. Mobile ESPN is launching on a Sanyo handset that features a custom UI built around the data services that will deliver pretty much anything a sports junkie needs—live scores, news, video highlights and more.

But ESPN and other big brands don't want to take a backseat to mobile operators, and they certainly don't want to get into the business of buying spectrum and building out their own wireless networks. Their strengths are in content and marketing, not setting up and maintaining a cellular network. So they become a virtual operator—they buy airtime wholesale from a traditional carrier, then package it, market it and sell it however they want.

The idea of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) isn't anything new, with companies like Virgin Mobile or Tracfone having operated in the US for a few years. Typically MVNOs sell service with features and add-ons than you might get from your normal carriers, albeit at a lower price. But a new breed of MVNOs looks to change that, using incumbent carriers' new high-speed networks as the launching pad for an array of content and technology quite unlike anything previously available in the US.

ESPN's approach reflects that of many MVNOs: pick a niche and doggedly attack it. While this can be useful for general demographic groups, focusing on something like sports can be problematic, because while there are plenty of people that would love to have sports content on their phone, how many want just sports content and nothing else?

Another new-model MVNO launching soon is Amp'd, which is headed by the guy that started Nextel's youth-centric Boost brand. Amp'd is going after the 18- to 35-year-old market, leaning heavily on video content from partners like Comedy Central and Adult Swim, as well as viral-style videos and adult content. It's also developed a huge catalog of games as well as a music download service.

Amp'd, which plans to launch in November, is following an interesting strategy: look at what the traditional wireless operators are doing, then do the exact opposite. So things that people hate about their existing wireless carrier—devices with features removed, restrictive and expensive data plans, clunky user interfaces and so on—are gone. Statements like "We don't want to ask people to change the way they do things," reveal how diametrically opposed Amp'd and other MVNOs are to traditional carriers. "We don't have that telco mentality," says Amp'd chief marketing officer, Don McGuire. "We're an entertainment company."

Then there's SK-Earthlink, a joint venture between South Korea's leading wireless carrier, SK Telecom, and ISP upstart Earthlink. The basic idea here is to take SK's bleeding-edge technology from Korea and meld it with Earthlink's knowledge of the US market and its customer-service operations. SK-Earthlink, which should launch in the spring under a new brand name, is still remaining quiet about exactly what services it will have and handsets it will sell, but judging by the CDMA EV-DO handsets SK sells in Korea, it could make the gadget writer's often-used tagline—"you'll never see that here"—an endangered species. "We're going to offer access to technology that people may have been disappointed they couldn't get before," says SK-Earthlink's director of corporate communications, Julie Cordua. "We will deliver something this market has never seen before."

SK Earthlink, like the others, is also targeting a narrow niche: 18- to 30-year-olds that are willing to pay a premium for advanced handsets and data services. A traditional carrier simply couldn't take that narrow of a focus and remain a viable business. "It's hard for carriers to shift their brand," Cordua says. "Since we're starting from scratch, we can start something different."

The real potential impact of these latest MVNOs, though, isn't just their content and services as an end in themselves, but rather as disruptive forces to the wireless service business as a whole. While a lot can change between now and the time they launch, the MVNOs are saying all the right things in terms of the services and experiences they'll provide, reflecting the dissatisfaction many of us have with our wireless provider. Mobile ESPN, for example, put out a press release saying how great its customer service will be.

Most of these lessons aren't specific to the narrow target markets they've defined—while everybody might not be interested in baseball highlights videos, most people are interested in getting good service at a fair price, something traditional carriers still struggle to deliver. The content offering can always be reconfigured to address another niche, or even, perhaps, the mass market. But while it might be that flashy content that gets all the initial interest, it could be the way these companies treat their customers in delivering all these cool services that keeps them going, and causes the most problems for their physical-network rivals.

Carlo Longino is a writer and analyst that follows the mobile industry. He's co-editor of MobHappy, and also an analyst for Techdirt. He can be reached at carlo@mobhappy.com.

Read more Airtime. The column appears every Tuesday on Gizmodo.