This week, EarthLink Inc. (NASDAQ: ELNK) announced its Q4 results. There was a loss of $9.5 million, or $0.08 per share, which included a $31.1 million write-off from its wi-fi assets.

And, yes, now the company wants to offload the segment. So what does this mean for EarthLink, as well as the space?

Well, I had a chance to interview Craig Settles, who is the author of After Muni Wireless Comes to Town. According to him:

Probably the most common question this sale generates is, why would anyone want to buy the business? It ultimately depends on how much is the asking price, and what actual assets come with the deal. If you look back at Metricom, who marketed Ricochet, they didn't get a whole lot when they sold their business out of bankruptcy court.

Continue reading EarthLink puts its wi-fi division on the block

EarthLink puts its wi-fi division on the block originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's been a good week for Wi-Fi startup Meraki. First of all, the company raised a cool $20 million in venture capital. Investors included Sequoia Capital, DAG Venture and Northgate Capital.

What's more, Meraki says it will offer free high-speed wireless Net access throughout San Francisco. No doubt, the announcement is getting a lot of buzz.

But what does this really mean? I had a chance to interview Craig Settles, the author of Good Fight for Municipal Wireless. According to him:

"It is vitally important that people realize Meraki is NOT making this service available for free elsewhere. People have to pay for the hardware and individuals have to step up to provide DSL or some other high-speed landline access for some of these repeaters. Meraki is doing what EarthLink -- along with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) -- should have done, that is, use the big, high-profile city as a marquee account, but sell the service to everyone else. Don't get sucked into the 'free' hype.

Continue reading Meraki's Wi-Fi free-for-all in San Francisco

Meraki's Wi-Fi free-for-all in San Francisco originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Frequently, the difference between a successful investor and one less so is all timing. Making money in the market requires not only picking the right companies to invest in, but also deciding when (or when not) to invest in such companies.

I rediscovered Earthlink (NASDAQ: ELNK) last year while running a value screen. Like many stocks that end up in the proverbial value barrel, this company was once a high flier, trading at a split-adjusted $50, while now trading around $8. There were highs and lows, culminating in Earthlink's founder being charged with fraud and money laundering. I recalled that Earthlink was in the now-dying dial-up ISP business during the bubble days of the internet and decided to dig a little deeper.

What I saw, when I looked under the hood, caught my attention. While Earthlink was indeed seeing dial-up customers dial-out of their contracts, Earthlink was converting a good percentage of these customers to DSL service. It was working well -- while the company wasn't growing much, it was producing a lot of cash from operations and instead of just building a cash horde, like many companies would do in a situation like this, the company was looking to reposition itself with two major, seemingly sexy initiatives.

Continue reading Earthlink (ELNK): Why-Fi?

Earthlink (ELNK): Why-Fi? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Muni Wi-Fi -- a permanent casualty of EarthLink's (ELNK) restructuring?

Muni Wi-Fi -- a permanent casualty of EarthLink's (ELNK) restructuring? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.