By Mary Jane Irwin, 4:01 PM on Wed Sep 19 2007, 239 views (Edit, to draft, Top, Slurp)

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Free wireless access is a pipe dream. San Francisco quickly learned that lesson after EarthLink dropped, punctured, and then torched the ball. The SF public Wi-Fi project is still reeling from the toxic fumes of that flameout. Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network's more ambitious Wi-Fi project, which, as the name suggests, aims to blanket Silicon Valley with free Internet signal, is no longer confident it can pull it off. "We're prepared to scrap the whole project," said Joint Venture CEO Russ Hancock. Like San Francisco, it's no longer confident it can pull together enough advertising dollars to make it work. It's also lacking essential elements like leadership and a business model. And so ends another pie-in-the-sky vision.