The concept of a ‘wireless city’ has been developing in various guises for a number of years, including high-profile projects such as the Google/EarthLink project across 49 square miles of San Francisco. The idea has also been embraced by numerous towns and cities in the UK and Europe, many with a noble social goal of inclusiveness – allowing everyone to have free access to the Internet.
However, as with the San Francisco project, major announcements and media coverage have often failed to deliver, with projects stalling or failing to get off the ground.1
What is a wireless city…
Free Internet access for public use, funded by a municipality or local authority for its citizens, is one of the services a wireless city might deliver.
However, for many local authorities, a wireless city solution is one that helps it deliver its services, for example using wireless technology to deliver a city’s CCTV scheme and remote access to an authority’s servers and systems for mobile council workers.
These are two very different definitions: one provides a commercial service that can be considered to compete with existing providers (‘externally’ focused), the other supports a non-commercial service, which is part of the council’s public service remit and is not provided in a competitive market (‘internally’ focused).
… and should it be a ‘digital city’?
It is also the case that for many local authorities, the use of the name ‘wireless city’ conjures up the wrong vision. There is a presumption that a pervasive wireless ‘cloud’ over a city is a requirement, but this is the wrong starting point – a wireless ‘cloud’ may be one of the outcomes, but it is not a requirement.
From a local authority perspective, the starting point should be to set out clear objectives, and the scope of services required. At a strategic level, the local authority has to decide if it intends to own, operate and manage a network or simply define the required outcomes, and let the supplier market determine how they can best be delivered. The outcome may involve the use of both wireless and fixed-line technology solutions. It is therefore appropriate to use the term ‘digital city’. This is particularly important for ‘externally’ focused initiatives which need to be technology neutral to help avoid issues around EC state aid regulations. In January of this year, plans to provide city-wide wireless broadband in Dublin were scrapped because of state aid concerns.
Success factors
So to succeed, such projects need to be clear about their aims, and what type of service is to be delivered. A typical local authority digital city initiative, with an ‘external’ focus to provide Internet access for citizens, will have to consider issues such as commercial sustainability, investment risk and state aid.
Analysys Mason’s experience of working on similar projects indicates that success is achieved by a local authority:
- being a facilitator
- remaining technology neutral
- sharing risk with the commercial market.
This is particularly important because of rapid change and complexity in the market. There is a multitude of wireless broadband technologies available (see Analysys Mason’s report, Wireless broadband forecasts for 2008–2015: HSPA, HSPA+, EV-DO, LTE and WiMAX) and wide-ranging interest in next-generation access initiatives (see Analysys Mason’s report for the Broadband Stakeholder Group, The costs of deploying fibre-based next-generation broadband infrastructure).
For the ‘internally’ focused project there is no state aid issue; our experience indicates that the public service remit gives the local authority greater flexibility to specify the technology, design the solution, and operate a services network that delivers solutions for multiple public services.
Key messages
- A wireless city is a feasible outcome for a well designed project, but a digital city is more likely to achieve success because it can construct a solution around the most appropriate technologies.
- The use of ‘digital city’ in place of ‘wireless city’ is especially important for initiatives that deliver a commercial service, where funding can rely on technology neutrality.
- Technology solutions for digital city commercial services should be determined by the market, in response to a local authority’s defined requirements.
1 This was awarded to Google and EarthLink in 2006, but the project was scrapped in September 2007.
