The sad part is that this same design is being fostered on other cities by the same team. St. Cloud was heralded as their trophy example. I applaud Donna Hart for being truthful about the actual results. I hope other cities attempting to use the same design critically review what is happening in St. Cloud. If the city has to shut it down because of cost and poor performance after spending 5 million dollars, that’s going to look pretty bad for the people who voted to put the system and the consultant who recommended the design.

There is a better way to engineer a system for a city that is cost effective for the city, provides all the services residents need, and reduces future upgrade costs to something manageable. However, getting past the hype has been difficult for non-technical government personnel. They rely on consultants who don’t have to pay for the system, don’t understand the engineering from an RF standpoint, network engineering, support standpoint, or a technology obsolescence standpoint. Cities should demand more complete long range planning and better data from these consultants instead of buying off on the idea they will simply need fewer employees and will be more efficient.

Donna Hart, Mayor City of St. Cloud

Marty – These stats cover the entire first year. Visitors and businesses are part of the overall number of devices registered (4.9% and 6.1% respectively).

The number of handhelds is relatively small but that number should grow exponentially over the coming years. In the systems we are currently developing for other cities hand helds will have their own specialized registration pathway and the content from the portal will be delivered in a format designed for them. In 3 years time I fully expect that 50% of all users for Muniwireless systems will be handhelds.

Daniel – Municipalities save money (or create new revenue) basically in three ways.

1. Cash savings to operations through a variety of methods including cell phone replacement, mobile data card replacement, Internet connectivity to facilities etc. In many cities the conversion from cell phones to mobile VOIP phones can save a small city $100,000 a year or more.

2. Productivity savings. i.e. in Corpus Christi the remote meter reading has allowed them to go from 29 meter readers to 5. A savings of over $1,000,000 per year

3. Advertising revenue – This can create new cash flow for a city through portal and other types of advertising.

I hope this helps

Taylor – Based on a user survey 68.3% of users had either dropped or were planning on dropping their existing service and using the Cyber Spot as their primary Internet access. 37.6% of users were digitally disadvantaged meaning that they previously either had no Internet access or only dial-up.

As far as duplication elsewhere, while not as broad as it should be there are actually significant numbers of communities, both large and small that are seeking to deploy free models. They recognize that the economic, educational and social benefits are significant in the free model.

Ken – You are correct in that there is no other wireless broadband. The majority of St. Cloud (almost 100%) is serviced by either Cable DSL or both.

If so, I am curious how visitors/non-resident users are counted on the network in terms of registrations/individuals since it seems the HH penetration number has remained basically static.

Performance is modest – entry level DSL – but the price is unbeatable and the system is very easy to use anywhere in the city.

What is also interesting about St. Cloud is that there is effectively no other high speed wireless service – we found effectively no 3G service from Sprint, Verizon or Cingular available.

We also found very little other Wi-Fi suggesting little uptake of DSL or cable broadband in the city. That is question to Jonathon about the penetration of DSL and cable in St. Cloud.

In our survey, it seemed clear that the city provided network was the major source of broadband in the city – commercial providers did not seem highly evident.

Has a study been done that shows any direct economic benefit to the city from these estimated savings of residents?

It looks like your model is working. I don’t know why your success hasn’t been duplicated in more places.