« Let's Get This Party Started! It's Time to Begin Regional Collaboration | Weblog | Gettin' Ta Know Austin - Howdy, Y'all »

Change Starts at Home: Austin & Central Texas Get their Broadband Act Together

I've called Austin and Central Texas home for almost 36 years, and like anyone or anything you've known that long, I love it, but I can also get so irritated and impatient with it that my eyes could pop out. And that impatience applies in spades to our lack of cohesion and vision when it comes to broadband infrastructure and regional planning. Our fragmented political and social climate give us a diversity and energy that makes us the envy of many more stable but less exciting metropoitan areas. But that fragmentation has to date worked against us in forming a vision for regional broadband infrastructure. I started a campaign here two years ago to talk about new wireless technolgies and what they could do for our city, and you would not beleive the number of blank stares I received. It just was not on the agenda at that time.

It is now. I've launched this site, and in less than two months, we will have wireless Hot Zones in both Austin's downtown area AND in Round Rock, the suburb to our north and home to Dell Corporate Headquarters. I have a pivotal role in each project, and that's a huge victory. I'm also mobilizing a Regional Wireless Roundtable Breakfast, comprised of regional government stakeholders (35 attendees so far, representing 10 cities and counties), where we will have our first truly regional discussion on the impact and potential of broadband. The conference is sponsored by Cisco and organized by MicroCast with collaboration from MuniWireless.

I'll be blogging about these events in Central Texas with an eye towards creating a model for regional collaboration and organization. I'm not convinced that the present model of municpally led RFPs will survive as the way our nation gets broadband. While I applaud the initiaive and support the goals of muncipal RFPs, I believe that regional collaboration such as we have seen recently in Silicon Valley and as I am promoting in Austin and on this website is a more rational and practical approach, which in the long run may take more time, but will result in a more lasting and efficient regional impact.

Read On for some background on Austin, and stay tuned to this blog for the blow-by-blow of our activities in Central Texas.

Posted on February 04, 2006 at 09:09 AM

Comments


Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)