Mayor Nutter will discuss Wireless Philadelphia during a City Hall news conference at noon today, according to his daily schedule.

EarthLink, the Internet provider that built the network covering about 80 percent of the city, asked a federal judge last month for permission to dismantle it. The company, which says it was losing up to $200,000 a month on the network, wants out of its 10-year contract with the city.

Talks with a Cleveland-based nonprofit agency to take over the network collapsed last month.

EarthLink did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.

Wireless Philadelphia's chief executive, Greg Goldman, confirmed last week that the city was negotiating with a group of local investors to take over the network.

EarthLink, which values the network equipment at about $17 million, has offered to turn it over to a new owner for free in a bid to get out of its contract.

Customers of Wireless Philadelphia, a nonprofit entity set up by then-Mayor Street's administration in 2005, connect to the Internet using computers receiving wireless signals from transmitters attached to city streetlights.

EarthLink, which had anticipated drawing more then 100,000 customers in the city, had fewer than 6,000 as of last month.

Tomorrow, Temple University will hold a forum to discuss Wireless Philadelphia. The discussion - "The Future of Philadelphia's Wireless Internet Initiative" - starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Tuttleman Learning Center. It will be co-hosted by the Media Mobilization Project.

The university, in an e-mail to reporters yesterday, said: "This will be the first time that the new owners of Earthlink's abandoned broadband system will be available to address publicly their plans for the new system."

Gwen Shaffer, one of the forum's organizers, said that she hoped to spark a conversation on how to make sure everyone in the city has access to the Internet.

"If we want to avoid the mistakes of the past, we really need to have a public conversation about how Philadelphia residents can benefit from this network," Shaffer said. "And [this forum] is going to be the first chance for people to interact with the new owners. So people should be asking questions." *