San Francisco - EarthLink's bid to link U.S. cities to the Internet with Wi-Fi came closer to an end on Tuesday as both Corpus Christi, Texas, and Milpitas, Calif., agreed to take back networks owned by the struggling service provider.

EarthLink built networks in a handful of U.S. cities and proposed deals with several others, saying it could put up the networks without tax dollars and make money through advertising or subscriptions. As that business model started to look shaky around the middle of last year and