The New York Times agrees with me: The Times unsigned editorial says that the FCC’s failure to adopt a resale requirement for the 700 MHz nationwide unencumbered commercial licenses (22 MHz of prime territory) wasa big failure: “American consumers have once again been denied a truly open and competitive cellular market.”SF Bay Guardian editorial says buh-bye to EarthLink: The local weekly writes in an unsigned editorial that there’s no likelihood of EarthLink agreeing to SF’s terms, and no chance …

The Bush Administration declined to use its veto to overturn a trade ruling that will prohibit the import of cell phones and devices that use Qualcomm third-generation (3G) chipsets: The ruling, in which Broadcom’s claims of patent violation were found to have merit, prohibits the importation of any model of device that wasn’t already being imported before June 7.Verizon sidestepped the matter by agreeing on a fee schedule with Broadcom, that included Verizon withdrawing its support for Qualcomm’s lobbying and legal efforts. Verizon will pay Broadcom $6 per phone with the infringing …

Minneapolis’s Wi-Fi provider made three great choices in the wake of the bridge disaster, Julio Ojeda-Zapata writes in the (St. Paul) Pioneer Press: The made it free, expanded it, and added full zoom/pan/tilt Web cameras. Meraki gets a long, positive write-up in Scientific American: The magazine does a great job of hitting the high spots about why Meraki’s idea of cheap, mesh routers that self-organize and can take multiple injection points without configuration have had such positive early impact. Most of their …

I wrote the first of these stories two years ago about cafes turning off Wi-Fi or changing their model after being deluged with barely- or non-paying laptop table campers: The latest installment looks at a few places in New York, where store owners are a little more than frustrated. Waltz-Astoria is charging $2 per hour for Wi-Fi or electricity, offering it free to regulars who sign up for their email newsletter. The Roebling Tea Room and another shop, Aroma, have covered their electrical outlets. Aroma shuts down Wi-Fi during lunch.These campers spend from $0 to $3, stay as long as eight hours, …

Ricochet has gone through more lives than a cat stuck in a rotary press (I’m no Dan Rather): The first city-wide wireless networking system has changed hands yet again, the fourth time in six years, and shut down its San Diego operations in favor of focusing in Denver, where it has 6,000 subscribers. Ricochet’s latest move announced today is that the company’s parent has sold it to Civitas Wireless, a company founded by Ricochet Wireless’s president (since 2005), Judi Evans. She is the president, CEO, …