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...
| | View blog reactionsThe 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:
- Is it responsible for a municipality to commit its taxpayers to one technology?
- Technology is always improving. How can these future technologies be integrated and will we have a "we did that already" mindset?
- We understand the estimated costs per household but realistically how long could the town support these fees? We all know that most governments don't practice fiscal responsibility
- Most towns do a lousy job of estimating the costs of things that are simple such as building a new school. What confidence do I have in their ability to properly estimate the cost projections for new technology?
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...