Investment in Infrastructure
Who’s putting their money where their mouth is? There are many organizations looking at various solutions for upgrading network infrastructures and most are in the planning stages. Where is the real investment and implementation presently?
Though not a definitive study because it only tracks its customer base, CDW has come up with snapshot of activity. This is an excerpt from the Rocky Mountain News:
CDW Government, Inc. (CDW-G), a subsidiary of the $6.3 billion CDW Corp., examined the purchase records of several thousand of its public-sector customers from 2000 to 2005 and came up with a ranking of states. Colorado came in third in wireless investment behind Rhode Island and Ohio. CDW-G characterized Rhode Island as a “lead investor” and Ohio, Colorado and five other states as “early investors”.
Wireless Investment Index
- Rhode Island
- Ohio
- Colorado
- Utah
- California
- Oregon
- Washington
- Wyoming
- Florida
- New York
Where is Illinois?
The big news that stunned some people was last week’s announcement that AT&T is going to provide Springfield, Ill. with a wireless solution.
In its first such deal, the country’s biggest phone company [says it plans] to build a Wi-Fi network for Springfield, Ill. to offer a free, ad-sponsored service of limited speed of [about 250 Kbps] as well a paid service with a faster speed of up to around 1 [Mbps].
While that really surprised some people, it didn’t surprise me.
The old design concept for what is now referred to as the public switched network (PSN) was to never “put all your eggs in one basket”. Using various types of transmission media was always a basic design concept going back to copper, coaxial cable, microwave, satellite and when fiber-optics first came into the mix years ago.
Maybe the surprise was that AT&T announced its entry into a market that it was fighting in the past. Maybe it’s like the old adage: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Will this be good for Springfield? It should be it it’s done right. Still, it’s no offering of lightning speed to the basic consumers. A speed of 250 Kbps to 1 Mbps is more like stagecoach speeds.
Other Amenities That Should Be Measured
The Projections 2007 report that was commissioned by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) is scheduled to be released on Wednesday. Some of its findings conclude that Raleigh-Durham, Seattle and Denver rank as the top three technology hubs in the U.S. Here are some other observations that rated Silicon Valley and other technology hot beds:
Silicon Valley is one of the few global tech hubs that dominate both the technology and life-sciences industries. [It’s] above international tech hubs such as Basel, Switzerland; Bangalore, India; Prague; Dublin; Berlin; Tokyo; and Shanghai. Only Singapore rivals Silicon Valley in both segments. The concentration of venture capital and tech companies there is far smaller than in [Silicon Valley], SVLG reported.
The survey said that North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham area [is] the best in the U.S. It has cheaper housing and a thriving job market. The region has the best scores for eighth-grade math tests, low sales taxes and affordable utility bills.
The kicker in the study? Even though larger metropolitan areas like Chicago and Philadelphia scored higher than Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley still attracts a lot more venture capital:
Despite its dismal finishing, [Silicon Valley] remained dominant in one key metric: It attracts nearly $8 billion per year in venture funding, [which is] four times more than its closest domestic rivals. That includes $1.6 billion venture funds to “clean technology” and alternative-energy companies.
The Recipe For Success
Everyone looks for the “universal solution” when they first set out to change network infrastructure for their municipality. What works for San Francisco will probably not work for Springfield and vice versa. While there are some attributes for each community that may be common, more attributes are unique to each city.
Everyone looks for a cookie-cutter approach and many vendors like to think that a one-size-fits-all approach is the most lucrative to market and sell. Beware of the snake-oil salesmen as it is much more complex than that. Are some municipalities going to do the wrong thing? As P.T. Barnum said: “There is a sucker born every minute.”
Carlinism: There’s no such thing as a universal solution to many complex issues that must be resolved on a case-by-case basis.