Municipal Wireless

The growth of municipal wireless in the US is a rather interesting development on many levels. You've got the policy side, the competition side, the technical side, the business model side, the services side, and the consumer side. How all these interact and play out in the US should make for some nice fireworks.

And it's not just the big cities that are getting into the fray. An organization in Vermont and New Hampshire is working to use wireless technologies to get to places that the traditional phone and cable companies won't reach with broadband. As they declare it, Cloud Alliance is the "Dirt Road Wireless" company.

Some folk believe this is just the beginning of the muni wireless boom -- well yeah, it's barely been actually deployed with some 320 cities that have or are planning on deploying broadband wireless networks in 2006. According to Demographia, there are about 1300 cities in the US with population over 25,000 people. And the Yankee Group projects spending on these networks to reach $400 million in 2007 (up from some $171 million this year) according to an article in Network World.

Beyond the US borders, though, wireless networks have some great potential to impact the reach of the Interenet in developing countries. How this can be realized is a much greater challenge than deployment in the US where the consumer base has such a large base with both the technical means (computing devices) and the financial wherewithal to take advantage of the network connectivity and services offered via the network.

I believe this is fertile ground for me to continue my research in wireless networking, policy, international development, and location based services. I'm meeting with Abe Kani, the CIO of Atlanta next week to discuss these topics and more. I'll let you know how that meeting goes and as I (hopefully) gain focus around these ideas.