Sunday, December 18, 2005

 

WiFi Technology in my own hometown

Many municipalities are eschewing ISPs for internet access and starting to provide better service to their citizens by doing it themselves. As a technologist, several positive thoughts appear in my mind when thinking about the possibility of my town dropping our current cable company and providing Internet access to every home for a low monthly fee.

The harder part of the conversation though is when I put on my enterprise architect hat and think about stewardship of my own town and I think I arrive at a different conclusion...



Here are several questions I have asked myself:


If one were to equate the town with a business, we may rationalize that having high-speed internet access can assist in economic development and make our children smarter, but we all know that Rationalization is a trap! Internet access as an enabler to economic development is a panacea.

I guess I have to be the pain point in my own town kinda like I am at work. Maybe the better answer is for the town to change its charter and to create a newly elected position of Town Enterprise Architect. Of course, I will run for the position.

Sadly, I will probably fail as most town governments operate under the notion of Design by Committee which makes real EA difficult. Actually, I am being too polite. I should really say Blowhard Jamboree. Anyway, the other aspect that I will struggle with is in arming myself with industry analyst reports outlining this space as a bad idea. There is simply no coverage on municipality technology in the analyst space. I will drop a note shortly to Jamie Lewis of the Burton Group to see if this is a business opportunity for him...






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