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05/29/2007Beyond Free Internet: The Promise of Government Service Models
The inaugural Roundtable on Business Process Reengineering at the Chicago Digital Cities Convention was a chance for local-government leaders, industry representatives and other stakeholders to consider the proposition of governmental service delivery driving broadband deployments. This came at a very opportune time, as the month of May brought some blistering, negative writeups in the mainstream media about broadband and local governments. BusinessWeek led off in mid-May with an article titled “A Failure to Communicate: Municipal Wi-Fi networks don’t quite deliver on the promise of wide-ranging access” http://aol.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_21/b4035084.htm . TIME followed suit with an equally disturbing headline “Cities struggle with Wireless Internet” http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1623649,00.html If the business proposition behind broadband deployment was limited to the single objective of Internet subscriptions from consumers covered by this media eruption, many municipal leaders would be furiously thinking of quick exit strategies. Instead, they found themselves in Chicago under the tent of W2i's educational Convention, exploring different funding models and a rationale for deployment based on a totally different, evergreen preposition: governmental service delivery! In order to set the context, the discussion focused on a small number of slides that will be posted on W2i.com soon under the Chicago Convention material; they construct the framework for the government service model, and provide examples from one of the biggest success stories currently operational — that of Corpus Christi, Texas. Their Wi-Fi mesh network covers almost 150 square miles and is operational today. The discussion ranged far and wide responding to this information, and one of the surprises was that many attending government officials shared a common pressure point: Their elected officials had heard of "free Internet" and had asked for this model to be explored. The Roundtable explored the theme of service delivery enhancements possible with broadband networks, and how cost shifts in the way governments deliver specific services such as water meter reading, parking-meter support and other similar applications could indeed provide a financial foundation for the deployment of the network itself. Multiple funding models are therefore possible, a finding which should give pause to the rush to "free Internet" now heard in many jurisdictions. It is important to reach elected officials and make sure they understand that there exist many models to fund network deployment, and that the governmental service model based on business process reengineering could indeed be the one that works best in their jurisdiction. A summary of the Roundtable findings will also be available very shortly on this W2i portal. My hope is that this blog will provide information, models and experiences that will help such discussions reach consensus and decisions to move forward. In upcoming articles, I plan to lay out a strategy roadmap based on business process reengineering, and to engage thought leaders from government, industry and academia into explore the important contribution Broadband Networks can play in governmental productivity. I hope you the reader use the feedback features of the blog to raise questions regarding this important topic, and to let all of us know what policy drivers are confronting you today, and how our collective discussions can help you find a good answer to your concerns regarding successful deployment.
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