Costis Toregas Business Process Reengineering Subscribe to Newsletter Tell a Friend Print this Page 08/31/2007 Mark Twain Rides Again on Municipal WiFi A search of The Wall Street Journal Web site using "Wi-Fi" as the search word produces a citation of an article titled "The death of municipal WiFi," and I heard the spirit of Mark Twain chuckle.... As he was surprised to read in a New York newspaper that he was dead, so must be many public officials and technology leaders as they read this and other similar news articles recently. Arlington and Alexandria in Virginia, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco are all being quoted as being anxious regarding agreements that may not be honored or expectations that may not be met about their broadband deployment plans. A more precise title for the The Wall Street Journal article might have been "the death of a particular model of municipal Wi-Fi under which industry and the government agree to a particular way to share risk and reward...." But I fear that people who like to skim headlines and move on may form the wrong impression and walk away from one of today's more promising technology platforms. Where, you may ask, is the positive spin on the gloomy forecasts about Earthlink's recent announcements that they may not support their pioneering assumption of up-front costs for their municipal clients? Well, before this model of financing Wi-Fi networks came about, the market place had other models. Local-government broadband-wireless networks were being built, and people were enjoying pervasive Intenet applications in literally hundreds of cities and regions. So it will be in the future as well. A way to interpret the recent actions may be to consider them corrections of the marketplace of only certain models and assumptions behind them rather than a rejection of broadband deployments. What will remain will be many other models that are proving themselves viable and desirable. Anchor tenancy, application-first deployments and purely governmental networks may show the way to practical, doable deployments. Areas such as public safety communications where Homeland Security issues have created significant funding sources may indeed be a great new way to look at deployments, especially if public-safety officials agree to allow non-uniformed staff and the general public to have access to the capacity of these networks. Economic-development projects aimed at attracting tourism (see my recent W2i blog on Piraeus) could provide equally compelling justification, and transportation, health, water-management and construction management may also spur the next waves of Wi-Fi strategies. All these ideas share a common characteristic: They enable government, commerce and the general public to connect to one another in an affordable and not a proprietary manner. There is where the promise of local-government broadband-wireless is at its peak. Giving Internet access to the consumer market through a subscriber services model is, I have felt for a long time, an application facing much competition and does not let Wi-Fi shine at its best. So it may be a positive development that this consumer-oriented, "free Internet" movement is pausing for a bit of calibration. And Mark Twain would approve and remind us to keep paddling, and reach round the next bend of broadband deployment rather than to pull the raft out of the waters. That's where the promise of the future lies! Costis Toregas is President Emeritus, Public Technology Institute, and a lecturer at George Washington University. He chairs the Business Processes reengineering Roundtable at the W2i Digital Cities Convention.  back Related Items: • Groningen • W2i Finalizes Program Agenda for Digital Cities Convention in Washington, DC • City Services Drive Network in St. Louis • New-Technology Rollouts: Avoid Putting Lipstick on the Pig! • Doug Townsend, IT Director, Medford (OR) - Part 2 Comments Previous    1     Next    (Total records: 1) Jim Aimone Nice piece: Metro Area wide Wireless Mesh Networks using WiFi and other 802.11 varients will prove both profitable (to Service Providers) and cost effective to users in the next few years. The main issue with these Muni Nets most analysts are missing is not the Business Case per say, it is the fact that most systems that have failed or are failing used the wrong technology day one and in some cases contnue to use the same products. Example, I would imagine Earthlink planned their deployemnts based on a simple 20 node/Sq. Mile and ended up after deployment having to upgarde the network to 40Nodes/Sq. Mile and a Motrola Canopy Gateway every 3rd or 4th Node. This would kill any business case. One only need watch the new Belair (2-4 Radios/Node) and Strix Systems (4-6 Radios/Node)mesh deployments in Mpls and Boston area to see what a Carrier Grade Wireless Mesh network should look and operate like. The Muni's must put equal emphasis in selecting the right technology as they do their Providers, especially if they are a major metro market. They (and their consultants) can develop an RFP that addresses and demnds these new technologies. Jim 07:42 PM, 08/31/2007 Previous    1     Next    (Total records: 1) Post new comment: Only registered users can add comments. Please Log-in

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