Cities and Towns Must Fill the Broadband Void

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Municipal Wi-Fi, Community Broadband - this is being discussed in communities around the world. And Normal, Illinois, is talking about it, too.

There is a growing awareness of the importance of high-speed Internet connections, referred to as broadband. The path often starts when cities recognize a business reason to have a reliable, economical network to link their departments. Sharing complex information mandates a well-planned secure system with flexibility for upgrades that are coming at lightning speed.

In a typical city, close to half of the employees are mobile. Police, fire, public works, parks and inspections departments are out daily and need to access information. So cities are setting up networks to allow wireless connections. The benefits are only limited by our imagination.

The methods for deploying broadband vary. Wi-Fi uses repeater boxes placed on existing poles and buildings across the community and even in police cars and city trucks to form a mesh network. Fiber optics circle some business districts. Fiber-to-the-home is a construction standard in some communities for new residential developments. Combinations of these are often used.

Sometimes the story stops there. Communities, however, may have excess capacity to share with schools and agencies. Some cities choose to offer services directly to citizens and businesses. The need for planning is essential, and there are lessons to be learned from those who have already moved ahead with community broadband services.

Should a government body even be in the business of providing Internet services to the private sector? There are several answers. Most cities prefer that these needs be met by the private sector. But there are times when the market does not (and indeed cannot) address everyone's needs and/or problems. Not every solution provides the necessary return on investment. Government's role is to let the market meet whatever needs it can, work with the market (public-private partnerships) when appropriate, and fill the void when the private sector offers inadequate solutions.

Broadband is widely recognized as a key driver of economic competitiveness. Community wireless and fiber broadband initiatives are based on a growing concern that there is insufficient broadband infrastructure, competition, and availability in individual communities, and even in significant parts of the United States. Indeed, the United States has slipped to 16th in the world in per-capita broadband penetration, compared to our ranking as 4th just six years ago. Because of the private sector's failure to keep up, local-government efforts to promote broadband deployment are under way in hundreds of American communities.

For communities such as Normal, Illinois, affordable and dependable broadband can facilitate economic development by:

• Enabling small-business creation and growth.

• Supporting very high bandwidth needs, such as media and software development.

• Enabling workforce education, telework, distributed work and home-based businesses.

• Promoting major development initiatives such as revitalization zones, technology parks, and bids to attract and retain major employers.

The need for affordable access is one reason cities promote community broadband. There is a growing "digital divide" between homes with high-speed connectivity and those without.

Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps summarized the sad state of broadband deployment in the United States: "America's record in expanding broadband communication is so poor that it should be viewed as an outrage by every consumer and businessperson in the country. Too few of us have broadband connections, and those who do pay too much for service that is too slow."

Ken Fellman, mayor of Arvada, Colo., says, "If free enterprise doesn't deliver enough to make us competitive with the rest of the world, we are making a terrible mistake for our collective future if we simply wait for the market to get around to serving us."

As we continue to wait for Washington to develop a national broadband strategy, cities must fill the void and plan for our technology needs. Normal, Illinois, has a five-year plan. A wireless mesh will connect the Town's mobile computers and handheld devices for paperless work orders, data collection, inventory and traffic management, and more. Digital in-vehicle video recordings and live video streaming will be powerful public safety tools. Sophisticated mapping applications will be enhanced in its Geographic Information Systems. Wireless service should start in Uptown in 2008. If need and grant funding both exist, expanding wireless access would be considered. Meanwhile, Normal will participate with neighboring municipalities and the county in planning for community-wide access. (See the technology plan at www.normal.org for the details.) Just as there are plans for land use, roadways, water systems and parks, there is a technology plan for our future.

Sonja Reece is a councilmember and mayor pro-tem for the Town of Normal, Illinois. She is active with the National League of Cities (NLC) where she chairs the Information Technology and Communications Steering Committee.