[1st-mile-nm] Top 50 Trends in Municipal Wireless: 10-1

[Richard Lowenberg]

Top 50 Trends in Municipal Wireless: 10-1

www.muniwireless.com/article/articleview/6566/1/23/

>From MuniWireless, here are the Top 10 Trends in Municipal Broadband.
See the web posting for all 50.

10. Maturing Ecosystem: The municipal broadband ecosystem still has a few
holes -- including a need for more qualified and trained integrators. But
the pieces for a comprehensive ecosystem are beginning to fall into place.
Wireless mesh equipment has matured; traditional applications like CRM and
ERP are moving onto municipal broadband (example Granbury, Texas);
equipment providers like BelAir Networks continue to expand their partner
programs; and service providers continue to evolve their business models
around paid, advertising and anchor tenant models.

9. One Size Doesn't Fit All: Most speakers and attendees focused on
applications for municipal broadband networks. But Joanne Hovis, president
of Columbia Telecommunications Corp., provided a timely reminder. We must
guard against hyping applications, she noted, otherwise this new chapter
of the municipal broadband movement could suffer from another round of
missed expectations.

8. Youth Movement: What applications will move onto your municipal
broadband network over the next few years? Several speakers pointed to
Generation Y for answers, noting its penchant for sharing, publishing and
reformatting information. To Gen Y, noted Intel's Chris Thomas, online
collaboration is the norm and software truly is a service -- rather than a
closed source, monolithic program.

7. Mobile Masses: The iPhone is the rare device that lives up to its hype.
In some regions, 6 percent to 12 percent of the devices connecting to
municipal broadband networks are iPhones, according to various estimates
from Google, JiWire, MetroFI and other organizations. When consumers load
up on more WiFi-enabled handhelds this holiday season, demand for
anywhere, anytime WiFi access will surely rise.

6. Think Locally: Chris Thomas, chief strategist for Intel's World Ahead
Initiative, noted that municipal broadband networks don't necessarily need
a big pipe out to the Internet. Instead, think of municipal broadband like
a local area network -- where local businesses, residents and
entrepreneurs can share ideas and content that stir economic development.

5. Small Cities Are On the Map: Throughout the event, we heard about
successful deployments in Armory, Mississippi; Granbury, Texas and other
small municipalities that had targeted needs.

4. Big Cities Move Forward: Yes, there were some big, painful setbacks
this year. But Chicago is now embracing public safety applications,
Houston has deployed automated meter reading; Tucson has mobile
tele-medicine applications in its ambulances and other cities are coming
online regularly.

3. Digital Inclusion: While "free" city-wide WiFi isn't a realistic goal
for most municipalities, we often forget that hundreds -- perhaps
thousands -- of digital inclusion initiatives continue to move forward.
One prime example: Houston has set aside $3.5 million for potential DI
efforts. The money is part of a $5 million settlement that EarthLink paid
to Houston after the ISP pulled back from the municipal broadband market.

2. Applications: This was the number one word repeated over and over at
the conference. Speakers and attendees discussed a range of real-world
applications that are now running on municipal broadband networks.
Automated meter reading in Burbank, Calif., tele-medicine in Tucson,
Ariz., and video surveillance in Granbury, Texas, were among the
highlights.

1. Growing Market: The days of irrational Muni WiFi exuberance are over.
But the municipal broadband market is growing. Real networks are now live
(checkout our deployment HotList), and US spending on municipal broadband
systems will rise 35 percent this year, according to the 2007 MuniWireless
State of the Market research report. Some pundits think 802.11n, the next
WiFi standard, will further accelerate spending on municipal broadband
networks.


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Richard Lowenberg
P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110,  505-603-5200 cell

New Mexico Broadband Initiative
www.1st-mile.com/newmexico
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