The Vital Role of Local Governments in Wireless Broadband

"Mobile Internet ... will not just be a way to do old things while moving. It will be a way to do things that couldn't be done before."
-- Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs

When the Center for Digital Government coined the phrase Untethered Nation through the release of an original wireless strategic planning guide in 2005, the paper served as recognition that broadband wireless extended the value of public networks. Moreover, the guide was based on the modest proposition that broadband landline and wireless networks have earned a position alongside roads, bridges and ports as key public infrastructures that support commerce, education, recreation and government in communities across the nation.

The Center's intention with the original guide was to capture pioneering local governments' emerging practices for the benefit of those jurisdictions that follow their lead. Some success factors from the original Untethered Nation include:
- Coming to terms with a public entity's responsibility for ensuring success.
- Understanding the responsibility of a provider (including fiscal stability).
- Committing to a long-term view of wireless deployment.
- Deciding whether public entities will be providers (utility), brokers or customers of wireless infrastructure.
- Reflecting infrastructure choice in architecture.
- Pursuing meaningful pilots in limited geography.
- Reviewing and learning from proof of concepts.
- Developing a funding model that accounts for vendor solvency and fiscal sustainability of wireless deployment.
- Building out full deployment based on newly earned and learned competence.

The original release was, and continues to be, one of the most popular downloads from the Center's white paper repository. Over time, readers have asked for follow-up work to address issues that were beyond the scope of the original, particularly in the area of when, whether and how to invest in this new public infrastructure. Enter Building the Untethered Nation II: Understanding the Vital Role of Local Governments in Wireless Broadband Implementations, the second paper in the series.

It begins by exploring the "Great Untethering," discussing the campaign thus far and looking for answers about where we are going. The paper examines widely divergent opinions regarding the role governments should play in enabling wireless broadband, from the municipal utility builder to a broker or buyer of wireless broadband.

In that context, the sequel guide discusses:
- The major role public safety plays and will play as the government's wireless anchor tenant.
- Business models that may be most appropriate for governments to pursue.
- Competing technologies and standards, and what's on the horizon for wireless.

Extending the Network to Where the Public's Work Gets Done
A new platform is under construction. This build-out is leading to an untethering of activities that had long been placebound due to the physically connected network cable. The rise of the mobile Internet extends the reach and value of the nation's network infrastructure.

It brings the promise of fulfilling Marshal McLuhan's famous 40-year-old prediction about the network becoming an extension of us and how we live. The new infrastructure will contribute to more mobility, and to a more interconnected network -- more denseness than has previously existed. The clarion call of "chips everywhere" is made more feasible with the addition of a broadband wireless infrastructure. Like the brain, these denser pathways with greater connections can support a vast expansion of new knowledge across all human activity.

The untethering will connect a vast swath of the nation's information and human resources. It will also wirelessly connect hard assets such as roads, buses, police and emergency vehicles, and military equipment. Ultimately, it has the potential to lessen the impact of catastrophes and to save lives.

Examples of new uses for this chip-embedded and wirelessly