Resisting municipal broadband is futile, as deployments set to double in 2006

Visiongain: There are over 400 cities worldwide planning to deploy municipal broadband networks and the number will double in 2006, making community broadband initiatives a very real and significant trend. Despite legal opposition and intense lobbying from incumbent telcos and cable companies, municipal broadband is coming and is here to stay. As of Q1 2006, there are over 100 city and regional wireless broadband networks operational worldwide, more than 40 of which are in the US.

Small town rural deployments were the beginning of the wave, but the tide is now embracing large urban metropolises. New York, San Francisco, Rome and Paris are among the major cities planning wide-scale deployments. While these networks present yet another new competitive threat to the broadband market landscape, there are opportunities to be grasped for service providers, whether fixed-line or wireless, if these companies play their cards right. Major vendors, such as Motorola, Cisco, HP and IBM are already reaping cumulative contract awards running into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Generally speaking, we believe resistance towards Muni networks is futile. Finer points of the debate aside, it is fast becoming a city or state government duty to provide at least the means for widespread broadband service to the citizenry. By 2010/2011, we believe the majority of cities and townships in the US will have a municipal wireless network in place and the focus then will be in uniting them into a seamless, if not centralised, national network.

New and emerging applications such as digital libraries, virtual laboratories, distance-independent learning and tele-immersion will require broadband speeds and reverse the digital divide. In addition, applications such as LBS and gaming over city-wide networks could seriously threaten existing carrier business models

For a large number of reasons, municipalities are considering the concept of a Municipal Broadband Network as the fifth utility. These communities are choosing between deploying fibre and a wireless broadband network using Wi-Fi hotspots, mesh networks or pre-WiMAX technology. There will be a significant build-out, blending technologies and building on existing service, both wired and unwired.

However, many technological and business factors need to be considered, any one of which can better or worsen the outcome for any given municipality. Often, cities lack sufficient experience and knowledge of technologies to make the best choices and compound the problem further by inadequately funding the effort or by employing a business model that can not sustain the endeavor.. Municipal Broadband Networks: Market impact and implications, 2006-2011 Publ 20060126