No-go for Yuma Wi-Fi

Citywide Wi-Fi won't be online in Yuma anytime soon. Corporate unrest within the firm trying to bring a citywide wireless Internet network to Yuma has stalled the project indefinitely.

"The company and the implementation are not doing well financially and the outcome is doubtful," said Greg Wilkinson, the city's assistant information technology services director.

The city has been working with Kite Networks, a private firm, to bring Wi-Fi access to Yuma for more than a year. The Wi-Fi system was a private project being built, operated and funded by Kite.

Wilkinson said the city has the contracts with Kite sitting in place, but the company's current erratic situation makes dealing with them much less attractive. While backing away from this does not cost the city any money, Wilkinson said he is frustrated to see the project go nowhere.

"We didn't spend a lot of money, but we spent a lot of people's time," he said.

Kite, a Ridgeland, Miss.-based company, deploys citywide wireless networks to municipalities around the country. It had previously told the city they could have a Wi-Fi network up by May 2007 for paid subscribers.

That never materialized. The roll-out date was pushed back repeatedly and then stalled altogether when Kite itself changed hands. It was sold off by its parent company, MobilePro Corp., and acquired by Gobility Inc. in August.

Kite representatives had discussed working with local Internet providers to maintain whatever system they set up in Yuma. But those deals never came to fruition either.

"We haven't heard from them in months," said Carter Hendrick, one of the owners of Yuma's Beamspeed Wireless Internet, 2481 E. Palo Verde St. "We actually never even had a contract. Kite promised to negotiate with us to give us a subcontract to install and maintain the equipment but they never followed through."

Wilkinson said citywide Wi-Fi is still something he'd like to see in the community. But it is unlikely Kite and Gobility will be part of making that happen.

"It's something that we're always open to but right now we're just sitting back and letting it run its course and see what happens," he said.

Now Kite is facing more corporate unrest. California-based Telscape recently purchased the network from Dallas-based Gobility. This disruption caused servers to shut down in Tempe recently, leaving 400 to 500 people without service.

Tempe is one of the municipalities that had its Wi-Fi service provided by Kite.

Kite shut its servers down Friday in Tempe and didn't warn its customers, the city or the company it just sold the system, said Dave Heck, Tempe's information technology director.

Kite could have left the servers on while California-based Telscape prepares to take over the system, Heck said, but instead decided to just shut down. "I don't think they even cared, to be honest with you."

The system could be back up soon - possibly Tuesday, Heck said.

Kite's Web site has been taken down and the company did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment Monday.

Three years ago, Tempe and Kite celebrated the network's founding as a major technical innovation.

The system has since generated little excitement and lots of complaints.

Blaming little marketing and bad customer service, only 400-500 customers signed up, city officials said.

Signals didn't get into many homes at first because Kite underestimated the number of transmitters needed, city officials said.

Eventually, the number of transmitters was tripled.

It's good technology, Heck said, despite problems with customer service.

"At a time they were very interested in making it all work and happen, but the last several months they let go of most of their staff and were kind of in a shutdown mode,'' Heck said.

Telscape has promised improved service and better marketing.

A Telscape official did not return a call for comment Monday but previously said it hopes to get 10,000 customers in Tempe and eventually expand to other cities.

"I really like this Telscape operation and what they are planning to do,'' Heck said. "I think they'll make a good improvement in service.''

According to reports in a November 2007 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing from Kite's former owner MobilePro, "Gobility has been unable to fund its operations including the payment of amounts due under a series of capital equipment leases and other equipment-related obligations."

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Sarah Reynolds can be reached at

sreynolds@yumasun.com or 539-6847.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.