Hi -- I'm new to the group, and was wondering to what extent planners incorporate technology and wireless communication infrastructure into their economic development planning and projects.
I've often thought this infrastructure has been overlooked, and should be planned for ED projects much like 'normal' infrastructures such as street/circulation, stormwater mgt. and water/sewer.
what do you folks think?
RES
Ubiquitous wireless access would be nice, but I see so many projects that would be better served with enhanced site planning, building materials, landscape, and architecture.
I was thinking along broader lines/uses for wireless, that would be directly beneficial to business uses, like data transmission, and RF ID, as well as voice, video, security and text. If you plan and installed the 'communication pipes' like you do the water/sewer pipes, you could design the aesthetics up front and ensure a wide range of choices/services for the business locating at the project.Originally posted by ludes98
Ubiquitous wireless access would be nice, but I see so many projects that would be better served with enhanced site planning, building materials, landscape, and architecture.
Some neighborhood planning is now moving to require fiber to the curb, but that's just the beginning, and so much more could be offered to a business development.
RES
"Sometimes you have to get medieval with it...hammer, sparks, sweat, the whole nine yards...so don't forget your asbestos suit."
Aphorisms on Public Hearings, Planning Guild Handbook (2001).
There is a growing trend in economic development to consider telecommunications infrastructure in their planning. Downtowns are leading the way in providing free or low-cost wireless access. A project currently in the works in Boulder will provide free wireless broadband throughout the Pearl Street Mall area. Sun Prairie, Wisconsin took an alternative approach while exploring remote meter reading for its electric utility, it realized that nearly the same installation of equipment could be used to provide wireless broadband. In this case, it is a utility for which residents must pay. There are quite a few rural initiatives to use wireless technology to provide broadband access to small communities and truly rural locations, where other technologies are not feasible.
While broadband is one thing to consider, I wonder if anyone will implement a shared multi-service network in a business district. It would seem to me to be a very innovative use for a BID serving small businesses, such as in a rural downtown or central city neighborhood.
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The Village of Jackson Wisconsin (population under 10,000 I believe) is starting its own telecommunications utility to provide service to its business community. I beleive they are going wifi village wide. Its a great idea that gives them an edge over competing communities.
I think that population density and demographics have a significant influence in the decision to include wireless services into development. For example, the community that I work for right now is a bedroom community (AKA big suburb with a the tile of “city”). We have 45,000 people in about 35 square miles. The amount of population that could use it would be significantly limited. I think that new high density residential buildings should be able to incorporate it into the design, and dense business districts would be able to maximize the possibilities.
However, much like Cell Phones, I think that slowly services like that might have a significant influence on location of major businesses.
When compassion exceeds logic for too long, chaos will ensue. - Unknown
Wasnt there recently a bif story about Philly or Pittsburg (?) or some other eastern city that determined it would be cheaper to build a free city-wide wi-fi than it would be to build a new library? I would imagine there is some great documentstion behind that if you can get it.
Free Wireless Internet is offered as a business attraction tool in the City of Long Beach.
To date, it has been very successful and considered the pioneer model in which other cities are following.
Economic Development manages the program.
http://www.longbeach.gov/ecd/technology/hot_zone.asp
Yes, Philadelphia, and they sound really interested in actually doing it. I don't think they've made any commitments yet, though. They seem to be looking for private investors. They estimate a wi-fi network to cost $60,000 per square mile, so $7-10 millon for the entire city.
The trade press reports this week that Verizon is offering LARGE CITIES new so-called "high speed" wireless service at about DSL speed. So far this service is only available in the 16 largest cities in the US. It's expensive ($70/month +/-) and relatively slow (500 kbs) compared to hot spots at 802.11b/g, but it provides mobility services especially in cars and mass transit.
Here's a Google news search string if you want to read the reports.
http://news.google.com/news?q=verizo...ff&sa=N&tab=nn
This isn't going to do much right now for rural communities or for economic developers outside of the large cities.
More interesting is the near-term development of WiMax which offers 10,000 meters of coverage per tower or a little over six miles. Assuming the terrain is flat, the coverage is a circle with a radius of 3.1 miles from the tower. Get out your GIS and plot overlapping circles this size on your community to see how many towers you would need to reach a substantial portion of the population. Obviously, hills and valleys will require more towers.
WiMax tecnologies in the future may expand available coverage by 10 times this number or a radius of 30 miles from the tower over flat terrain based on the IEEE 802.16 standard. It remains to be seen whether big telcos will embrace it and sell it. The standard will support 1.5 mbs which is the same speed as home service cable modems. Right now the industry and the FCC are struggling with what spectrum to allocate to the standard. http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/09/23/wimax/index.php
Wireless communications and "perceived health risks"
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