David H. Deans, founder of the Economic TeleDevelopment Forum is presenting a paper on what we can learn about broadband deployment from the building of the US highway system. (The conference is in Barcelona, the lucky devil.) In an email, David explains why he thinks local governments should be added to the list of the clueless:

A case in point — I received an email from an leader in a fourth-tier municipality in the U.S., he told me that his staff was concerned about the implications of WiFi hot spots, and wanted me to recommend some non-technical online resources so he could inform himself about this issue. I gave him some sites to visit, and I asked if his staff was anxious about a lack of hot spots in their local community (the Digital Divide is still a hot topic, especially within inner-city and rural areas). To my surprise, he told me that this was NOT their concern, instead they were concerned about the potential loss of revenue — how would they tax WiFi services?

Here, from the paper, is a table of the cost per kilometer of deplying infrastructure:

Road: $550,000
Water: $195,000
Electricity: $145,000
Gas: $85,000
Fiber Optics: $22,000 – $35,000
Coaxial Cable: $12,000 – $20,000
Copper: $7,000 – $15,000
Wireless: $3,500 – $15,000

You can read the paper here, although it’s in Word format.

Categories: Uncategorized dw