Tempe '07

Hosted by the City of Tempe, Arizona

• Dates: February 13–14, 2007
• Location: Mission Palms Hotel

Co-chaired by David Heck, Deputy CIO, and W2i, the Digital Cities Convention in Tempe acknowledged the pioneering role of the City of Tempe in metro-scale broadband-wireless planning and implementation. Planned with a Program Committee of local, state, and national stakeholders—including the Arizona Information Technology Agency, the Arizona Telecommunication and Information Council (ATIC), and the Federal Communications Commission—the Digital Cities Convention in Tempe placed a special emphasis on "lessons learned" in the deployment of citywide wireless infrastructure and applications.

During his rousing keynote address, Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman said: "The market is working out the competing and successful technologies. Somewhere in the array of technologies, there's going to be something that works for you. In every one of those transactions, somebody guessed wrong. That's kind of where you are, if you've not yet gotten off the train and on to the platform. There is an opportunity cost to not making that decision."

A panel of city CIOs from Grand Rapids (MI), nearby Mesa, Minneapolis (MN), Tempe, and Vail (CO)—all in various stages of planning—reflected on the broadband-wireless opportunity for their communities, revealing an increased maturity and sophistication in local authorities' decision-making on the technology and its many uses as well as implementation timelines. A first-ever multijurisdictional planning panel showcased the 10-city Colorado Wireless Communities (CWC) initiative—with representatives from Arvada and Boulder—as well as a State of Arizona border-security initiative at the southern end of the I-19 corridor that also provides broadband connectivity to several rural communities.

The Convention featured industry keynote addresses by Michael Dillon of IBM, Eric Dentler of Cisco Systems, and Brian Carlson of Motorola. The 3rd Digital Incusion Roundtable was hosted by IBM. Special sessions co-presented by W2i included:

• Municipal Wireless Networks & Technologies Training Seminar, presented NetLogix and W2i
• the 5th Service Provider and Local-Government CIOs Roundtable, hosted by rClient and Yankee Group;
• the inaugural Wireless Networks User Experience, hosted by Novarum; and
• a kickoff Wireless in Education Discovery Session.

Several nuts-and-bolts seminars drilled into:

• Metro-Scale Broadband-Wireless for Beginners (OneCommunity);
• Key Questions Behind RFP Concept (Municipal Solutions);
• Design Vertical Assets, Permitting, and Pole Attachments (EarthLink Municipal Networks); and
• funding for broadband-wireless networks (Grants Office).

Exhibitors in the Technology Showcase included Cisco Systems, IBM, and Motorola; as well as CitizenServe, Firetide, GO Networks, LastMile Communications, MultiState Associates, NebuAd, PacketHop, Proxim, Simdesk, SkyPilot Networks, and Strix Systems.