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Quote:Shares of EarthLink surged almost 8 percent Tuesday after the Internet service provider said it would cut 900 jobs -- or about half its work force -- and close four offices in an effort to reduce operating costs. The restructuring will begin immediately and be completed by the end of the year, said Rolla P. Huff, the Atlanta-based company's president and chief executive...

The company will close offices in Orlando, Fla.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Harrisburg, Penn; and San Francisco. The restructuring should save the company between $25 million and $30 million through the rest of the year...

Quote:EarthLink's scaled-back municipal Wi-Fi business has jeopardized many cities' plans to bring free or low-cost broadband to low-income residents.

A day after EarthLink announced a massive restructuring that would essentially put almost half its employees out of work, the company wriggled its way out of contracts with Houston and San Francisco to build their citywide Wi-Fi projects. For each of these cities, providing free or low cost wireless broadband was the main reason for building the networks.

Over the past few years, blanketing cities with unlicensed Wi-Fi signals has been viewed as a cheap solution to bringing affordable or even free broadband access to cities. Politicians and community leaders have rallied around the technology as an economic development tool that could help bring low-income individuals into the bustling economy of the 21st century...