By Alexandra Berzon

Stuck in a political quagmire in San Francisco, an EarthLink executive said Tuesday that the company is unsure whether it has the votes it needs to build a municipal wireless network in the city.

After seven months of negotiations, the Atlanta-based EarthLink signed a deal with mayor Gavin Newsom January 5 to offer wireless, broadband Internet service throughout San Francisco, but the ordinance still has to go to the Board of Supervisors, where a tough vote looms. Don Berryman, who heads EarthLink’s municipal networks unit, said he’s counted four to five supervisors in favor of the proposition, three against, and three to four who are still undecided. The ordinance needs six votes to pass.

The stakes are high for EarthLink. The company has seen many of its dial-up customers depart for DSL and cable, and its only ability to compete there is to use existing networks and charge a premium. Looking for an alternative, the company entered municipal WiFi - an area fraught with political difficulties and increased competition from cable and telecommunications operators and municipalities favoring a go-it-alone approach.

“We’re in the infant stages of this,” said Mr. Berryman, sitting on a panel at a Wireless Communications Association conference in San Jose Tuesday.“EarthLink is a company who really needs this to work.”

But it’s got a tough battle on its hands in San Francisco. “In the six cities we’ve gone into, we haven’t had a single dissenting vote. I’m sure that will change in San Francisco,” said Mr. Berryman.

San Francisco’s dissenting supervisors demand that the city retain ownership over its wireless network. A recent report from the city’s budget analyst office agreed this would be a fiscally feasible option for the city.

In response, Mr. Berryman is making public appearances around the city to raise support for EarthLink’s involvement in the project, and to reassure naysayers. On Tuesday, he appeared at BalboaHigh School with Mayor Newsom, and on Wednesday he is set for a talk with reporters.

The Board of Supervisors vote is scheduled for February. If the vote passes, construction on the network will begin in March or April. EarthLink plans to commit $7 to $8 million to build a network covering 49-square miles. Users would pay $21.95 a month for high-speed access, while Google will offer a slower-speed free option, using EarthLink’s system. The network could eventually cover 90 percent of the city outdoors and 85 percent indoors (but not above the third floor of a building), said Mr. Berryman.

The company has 17 contracts either secured or in negotiations, with 250 miles of network already constructed in four cities. But nationwide municipal wireless is not where it was supposed to be by now.

“I think clearly there’s a lot more hype to WiFi in the municipal models than fact today,” said Mr. Berryman. “There’s a lot less models built out than what had been promised or won.”

EarthLink is currently testing a 15-mile network in Philadelphia. Mr. Berryman said he expects to have 400,000 households covered in the first quarter of 2007, and three million by the end of the year. The company is expecting to hear soon on a contract it bid for in Chicago. There, they’re in competition with two other companies, including AT&T.

Speaking to a room full of wireless geeks, Mr. Berryman had some lessons to impart Tuesday.

“The politics involved took longer than we thought and getting leases on rooftops took longer than we thought,” said Mr. Berryman. He said the company also learned that it takes a lot more nodes per square mile to install a wireless network than it had realized.

But it might just all be worth it. Although the political and technological hurdles are becoming more clear, municipal WiFi is also an area that’s now seeing a surge in interest, said Dianah Neff of municipal wireless consultancy Civitium—also on the panel Tuesday. She was the public information officer for the city of Philadelphia as it developed its wireless network and now consults with cities interested in doing the same. Over 300 municipalities are looking at building networks in the U.S., said Ms. Neff.

“I expect 2007 will be a major deployment year,” said Ms. Neff. “At the start of the hype cycle, everybody gets excited, and suddenly it goes dormant and people forget that it’s not going to be perfect out the door.”