GigaOm just, you know, asked MetroFi about its funding: I suppose I could have done the same, lazy me. Katie Fehrenbacher at GigaOm checked in with MetroFi on the occasion of that company winning the Riverside, Calif., network bid in their proposal with AT&T. This will be AT&T first municipal network, and it's a rather large footprint--80 square miles. I've pondered with many colleagues over the last few months about how MetroFi was doing on the funding side, as they're rather quiet on that front.

(The press release trumpets this as the "largest Wi-Fi network that is designed for both public and municipal use," but I'd have to see their definition to believe that. Philadelphia will cover 135 sq. mi., so perhaps it will be the largest network at the time it is finished in what they describe as early 2007. Note that MetroFi is mentioned in only the last line of this network, even though MetroFi will, from what's been discussed publicly, build the network.)

Fehrenbacher notes that while MetroFi's main funder, the Sevin Rosen Fund, was cashing out its latest fund, MetroFi received $6m from Sevin Rosen Fund and August Capital back in June. MetroFi's CEO explains that the funds came from a previous Sevin Rosen Fund, not the one that was just terminated. The company plans to raise more money next year. They've taken in $15m in funding so far. MetroFi has partnered with SkyPilot as its metro-scale equipment vendor, which means that quite a lot of that $15m will go, in turn, into SkyPilot's pockets given the scale of networks being built. EarthLink uses Tropos equipment paired with Motorola for backhaul. MobilePro uses Strix gear.