One of the challenges facing local authorities is how to understand and differentiate between the multitude of wireless infrastructures and transformative solutions available to them.
Transformative solutions must be transferable, scalable, affordable and replicable. But what does that mean to a local authority trying to make its organisation more flexible and service oriented, while attempting to deliver shared services and transformative government.
Wireless Virtualisation and Integration
Technologies that support virtualisation and integration are necessary for executing transformation agendas:
- Virtualisation allows you to put your computing power and connectivity where you need it.
- Integration is at the heart of transformative government and shared services. Integration of resources allows you to connect data repositories, departmental systems and customised business processes both inside departments and outside in co-existing organisations (such as the National Health Service).
Wireless networks extend your corporate network allowing you to have network-like capability so long as you are within reach of a wireless access point.
Regardless of whether your resources are in government buildings or out on the streets interacting with citizens, wirelessly integrated applications deliver real-time transaction processing (such as bill pay), data-mining (such as calling up housing benefit applications) and decision-support systems (such as determining eligibility for benefits).
Why do I want Scalable Architecture?
Scalable architectures allow a communities infrastructure to grow in line with its needs. It allows for capital investment over a period of time that caters for value based decision making.
Wireless architectures are extremely scalable, being largely a matter of adding more access points to cover larger geographic areas. Extending a wired network typically involves invasive rewiring of internal buildings or disruptive road works to lay new fibre connections between network points.
What does Replicable Mean?
Replicable means that local authorities can deploy technology solutions and know what the outcome is going to be, because it has been done before. Wi-Fi and 3G solutions have demonstrated successes and huge benefit to authorities in locations ranging from the City of London to Taipei, Taiwan. WiMAX is another complimentary standard that is emerging from successful trials in cities like Bristol. These solutions are replicable because of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics) standards they are built upon and also because of the lessons learnt by operating them.
What is a Transferable solution?
Transferable solutions are those that have taken into account the needs of different geographies and authority requirements. Throughout the UK, over two million people are employed by local councils and undertake over 700 different functions. Each of these functions is built up over many years of experience to meet the needs of a particular council so will not exactly meet the needs of another council.
The degree of commonality between councils will help determine how easily some or all of a wireless solution can be transferred. Solutions should be considered in terms of their ability to mobilise as well as their ability to transform. Mobility solutions are closer to the network and deliver messaging, video, voice and data transfer capability. Transformative applications are more difficult to transfer as they are integrated with back office systems. These are however necessary to support shared services and transformative government.
How affordable is Affordable?
Affordable solutions have become a reality through wireless technologies. Wireless technology also allows you to move your capital investment (that is the wireless devices at the edge of the network such as CCTV and noise monitoring devices) to where they are most needed. Trying to move equipment that is build on a wired connection may require significant road works, long lead times and network disruption.
Wireless technologies make it a simple matter to deploy new solutions without the need to engage in expensive environmental or street works projects. A wireless camera can be deployed for £8,000, most of that cost being the price of the camera. To deploy CCTV in a traditional fashion would, in general, require expensive street works, possible consultation with environmental groups, disruption to the street environment and so forth.
The affordability also comes because there can be multiple business cases for the same infrastructure, each sharing the capital cost and each deriving a benefit. A wireless CCTV can be used to manage traffic congestion but at the same time can also be used to manage the street environment as well as improving the safety of council employees and citizens. Rather than each organisation having their own infrastructure to invest in and maintain, they can share a common infrastructure, significantly reducing their costs and improving the quality of service that they deliver.
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Local Authorities were encouraged to bid in consortiums with other councils and with private contractors. (E.G. Halton council is leading a five borough bid on Merseyside). Seventy-nine entries were submitted to the Digital Challenge. The consortium nature of bids suggest that 36% of authorities participated. 
In this month's issue of the Nomad Wireless Briefing - June 2006: