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October 2006 Archive

Share What You Learn

Municipal Wireless Broadband has been around the block a few times by now. We've come a long way from three years ago, when this fledgling technology was taking its first baby steps. Not to say that it doesn't have a long way to go, but the very idea that MuniWireless.com can predict that $3 BILLION will be spent on public wireless projects in the next four years is astounding!

About a year ago, MuniWireless.com hooked up with MicroCast and began having conferences on municpal wireless. It's been a couple of years that the World Internet Institute's Digital Cities conferences have been offering a chance for interested parties around the globe to learn more. Papers from your daily local to the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal offer the semi-regular review of this new municipal wave of technology projects. Heck, I've been blogging now for 18 months - hard to believe. There is no shortage of information or resources for the interested party who seeks to learn more on metropolitan broadband these days.

So with some confidence, we can assume that there is an IT Director, a Finance Director, a Police Chief, a Fire Department IT guy or gal, a utility department head, a City Manager, or a Mayor in your own city government who has taken an interest in this new way of doing things and pursued an education sometime in the last year or two. But - here is the rub - how widespread is the knowledge of broadband and the awareness of the potential in your city or town? We still have a long way to go to get our city governments to change the way they look at things.

For truly transformative change, we need to teach each other about the possibilities of new technology, and move beyond generalities that have "some day" written all over them, to practical approaches that realistically consider the steps that such change would require.

A first step to enacting change has to be a community dialogue - start hosting meetings or brown bags in your department in order to pool knowledge on new possibilities and discuss potential changes. This is a creativity exercise at first. Stretch your collective brains around the new possibilities.

I'll be attending several regional roadshows sponsored by Cisco in the next few weeks here in Central Texas, where city officials will have a chance to experience first-hand a wireless network and see applications in use. Any number of Cisco Solution Partners will be on hand to talk about how the business of city government can be transformed with mobile applications, and to show attendees a glimpse of the future of providing service to citizens with the latest tools and revised business processes. I'll be there to catch those who are ready to go and help them to get a project started with a MetroNetIQ Starter Kit.

"Anything interesting starts with a conversation." I like this phrase because it represents a deep truth. The first step on the road to change is sharing viewpoints with another on how things are and how things could be better. Solving problems is what we do as human beings. I commend Cisco and participating vendors for starting the conversation. Now its up to city officials and staff to pick up the ball and run with it. I urge all of you readers to start a conversation today and spread the word about the changes on the horizon and the potential to do better for our citizens.

Posted on October 27, 2006 at 05:49 AM | Comments (0)

Taking that First Step

So, you've been reading about this Municpal Wireless stuff for some time, and now you're thinking its time to take a more active role? Figuring out how to get started with something new is often the biggest challenge in any new major endeavor, whether its a diet or exercise regime, job change, or new business project.

I would argue that your organization, whether it's a city government, city council, county government, or private sector entity, should make an internal project be that first step on the road to enhanced access to wireless broadband. If you're typical, your organization probably has one or more individuals assigned to this task over the past few years, monitoring events, maybe attending one or more conferences, and maybe even providing regular briefings to senior management.

Taking a project focus will add momentum and bring order to your desires to move ahead. By raising internal awareness, getting consensus, defining an objective and putting it into writing, establishing milestones, assigning a budget, hiring a consutant - all those steps one takes when one gets serious - your organization will send a signal to its constiuents and to outsiders that you are ready and serious, and your odds for success will rise accordingly.

One headache with Municpal Wireless is that it's a many-headed Hydra, a beast that requires some time to get to know it in order to figure out the best strategy for your particular set of circumstances. Another headache is the rapid change that characterizes this new industry. Perhaps it's not unusual for any new industry to have a shifting deck of options that make market entry difficult, but that's no reason to back away from Municipal Wireless Broadband and all that it offers you. I haven't seen a better time than now to jump in, and those who waited have been rewarded with a much beter set of options than they had even one year ago.

Keep an eye on this space as I outline several opportunities to move ahead. I will be engaged in a series of activities in Central Texas in the coming months that will highlight what we all face in the near term. If you're nearby, I hope you'll contact me and we can make an appointment to meet in person. If you're distant, keep an eye on the activity and discussion in this space and see if you can use it as a model for your own area.

Most importantly, make a resolution to move ahead with plans in the next six months. There has never been a better time, and that assessment has been confirmed by conversations I've had with a variety of industry experts, from hardware manufacturers to service providers to city government leaders.

The starting gun has gone off on this race. Strap on your sneakers and tighten your laces! Warmups are over and now the real race has begun! Your actions in the next six months will go a long way to determine whether your organization and its constituents are on the front wave of beneficiaries from these new technologies and new industry changes.

Posted on October 23, 2006 at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)

Staying Focused, Within Your Circle of Control

How does one act when all about oneself, things are swirling and turning, changing daily? What to do amid chaos?

When does one act, when there never seems to be enough information to make a good decision?

I would argue that there has never been a better time than now for those in leadership positions in cities - be they mayors or council members, city managers or finance directors or IT directors - to take a long hard look at how they fulfill their responsibilities and how they use technology and telecommunications.

This is a time for cities to borrow a phrase from Greek wisdom: "Know Thyself." That phrase is inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and the essence of that ancient wisdom is to emphasize the value of spending time contemplating your belly button. Cities have a tremendous opportunity to take advantage of these new winds of change in telecommunications and wireless broadband that I wrote about earlier today. But to run at the same pace as private sector providers in this world of rapid technology change, cities need to get a good grasp on what is within their Circle of Control. Only then can they hope to be successful in a Public Private Partnership.

Those who read this blog no doubt realize that I often refer back to Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Staying within one's "Circle of Control" is an admonition to focus on what you can control and let the rest fall by the wayside. Too much time is spent worrying about things over which we have no control. This concept enables people to maintain focus on values and principals that align with their priorities, which helps them to manage their time and resources to do First Things First, the Third Habit of Highly Effective People. Cities have a great opportunity, but they need to know how to play the game in order to partner with private sector providers who will have more and more choices on which city to partner with.

Cities that spend the time to take a long hard look at what they do, how they do it, and most importantly, why they do it, whether they work with consultants or do it on their own, will be in the best position to engage with private sector partners to take advantage of opportunities coming down the pike. Those who do not do their homework or spend time in such belly button gazing will take what fate throws their way, and I think that will be the case with most cities.

The special elite few cities will do as I suggest herein, spending time and energy and resources to get it right. Others will do as they are used to. Some will get lucky and hit a home run and feel pretty good about themselves, many will dink out singles and feel like they did well enough, and many more will strike out. And there will be those cities that sit outside the stadium wondering what all the fuss is about.

For all those in city government who have day dreamed about what they could do with a wireless network, now is the time. I would recommend that you take the bull by the horns and take the first step: lay out a plan to take advantage of any opportunity in the near term. Diagram your strengths and weaknesses, and map out your possibilities. The winds of change are blowing, and now is the time to understand what makes your city tick, and how your city is different and unique - special - when compared to other cities. Now is the time to Know Yourself and thus, separate your city from the pack of cities who carry on with business as usual.

When the opportunity arises, those cities that know themselves will cut the best deals with private sector partners, because they are a Joy to do business with, providing profitable results and low risks and minimal hassles. Those are the cities that private sector providers want to do business with.

Posted on October 17, 2006 at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)

Watching for Changes in the Prevailing Winds

From my perspective inside a city government the past three months, I'm noting winds of change starting to blow through the muncipal wireless industry. But is this just a new perspective for me - my own personal epiphany? Or is this really a potentially signficant change we are witnessing?

The change I'm talking about is the entry by large telecom firms into this budding industry. It has been an exciting time for the past three years, as the pioneers bravely forged into the woods, creating a new path to connectivity and municipal possibilities. So what does it mean now when BT, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint begin to get engaged in municpal wireless? Will they compete by the same rules, or will the name of the game change altogether?

Long written off by the pioneers of municipal wireless as opponents to change, large telecoms were even villified by some as evil incarnate, by others as sluggish dinosaurs on their way to extinction. The view of these struggling entrepreneurs and consumer advocates was understandable, given the battles they fought in state legislatures in 2005 over the rights of municipalities to determine their own connectivity destinies. In that worldview, telecoms were aging behemoths incapable of change and resistant to ceding of any power to municipalities. But we should all beware of holding onto worldviews challenged by change in a dynamic environment.

The winds started to shift with the passage of a statewide franchise bill in Texas in the summer of 2005 (and the failure of muni wireless opponents to secure a municipal ban). In Congress last fall, we detected a shift in perspective at telecoms, away from such municipal prohibitions. And that change in perspective was certainly helped along in 2005 when the Public Private Partnership emerged as the dominant business model for these new municipal deployments. No longer was the focus on whether or not municipalities should be able to own and operate their own networks.

Now it is apparent that these large telecom companies have taken a new look at the municpal wireless industry, or that their plans are unfolding so that this new perspective is becoming apparent. Either it's an evolving perspective or they've been looking at this arena all along as having promise, but have just been biding their time for the right moment to enter the fray. I would argue for the latter, which is borne out when we look at this timeline of events regarding AT&T and municpal wireless, over just the past five months.

May 10 ATT / IBM not selected by Waukeshaw, WI - rationale for not picking ATT

August 29 comment and analysis on ATT win in Springfield, IL

October 6 update on Sacramento, CA reissue of RFP, with ATT / MetroFi as one of four respondents

October 14 comment and analysis on ATT / MetroFi win in Riverside, CA - estimated completion in 2008

October 15 ATT / MetroFi make Sacramento ATT's second municipal wireless win - its official, they're players in muni wireless

The coming months will no doubt see more activity by AT&T, and I'm thinking other large telecom companies as well. It is inevitable that the entry of these large companies into this still relatively new industry will change the landscape. The challenge for all of us who have put so much into this industry to date will be to adapt and ensure that such change results in improvements for the cities and citizens of the US. For cities, this should be seen as yet one more sign that they should move these projects up on their agendas and begin to devote serious attention to their readiness to take advantage of any new opportunities the winds may blow up on their doorsteps..

Municipal Wireless is for real, and woe to the cities caught napping and unaware, lest these winds of change blow right by them and leave them in the dust.

Posted on October 17, 2006 at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)