Dr. Costis Toregas, President Emeritus, PTI
Many mayors and county commissioners are getting the bug these days... a snippet of conversation at a conference, an article clipped and sent by a friend -- there are many ways to catch it. And the results are the same! "Let's look into this municipal Wi-Fi and decide whether it is right for our community."

Dreams of antennas at corners and on rooftops dance in the minds of policy makers and "Internet for all" is heard at commission meetings. Invariably voices rise in opposition. The proper role of the telecommunications industry, stranded investments, market forces and the ultimate voice of state capitol grumblings all confuse and confound the situation, leaving a lot of enthusiasm unfulfilled and a lot of rare excitement for technology stranded like runners on the bases of the local government baseball diamond.

What is wrong? How can we approach this absolutely stunning opportunity from a fresh perspective which would have both business and government happy and moving forward? To solve it we need to think in computer terms. What do we do when our computer screen freezes or an application refuses to respond? After a certain point we do not continue to hit the Enter key (even though we may have invested much pain and resources in the prior activity), but seek the Reset button and restart the entire application. This is what we should do with the debate on Municipal Wireless: move away from long fought high grounds, find and hit the Reset button, and enthusiastically attack the opportunity as a chance for both government and industry to thrive under a Cloud of connectivity!

We need a few Guiding Principles though, lest we settle back into familiar and unproductive debates. Let's try a few for size:

1. The broadband wireless revolution is here and it presents capabilities at price points very different from those we have seen before. This new cost plateau has to be approached from a revolutionary, Re-Engineering context in order to be fully utilized.

2. Instead of using traditional "win-lose" words and concepts, the Cloud demands we use win-win vocabulary and syntax. A simple example: when Corpus Christi, Texas issued a "Call for Partnership" to help them leverage the investment they have already made in a Wi-Fi cloud throughout their community, almost 20 companies responded with interest. The city's intent is not to select one, but to encourage individual companies and groupings of respondents to create partnerships with the city and each other and to see all willing investors in the process thrive.

3. The ecosystem of the Cloud is conditioned on the existence of public/private partnerships, and the rules of the game which drive them forward are changing. Since participants depend on each other for their success (for connectivity, security, interoperability and a whole host of other issues), it is more the net philosophy of joint revenue production rather than the bricks and mortar philosophy of competition which should drive the engagement process.

4. The Cloud is fed and driven by multiple technologies and platforms. Although the 802.11 family is driving the pricing and robustness arguments forward as in any new deployment, when things settle down, we will look around and see a whole variety of network topographies, broadcasting techniques (wired and wireless) and hardware/ software combinations defining and empowering the Cloud. The key word will be an agreement for interoperability which must be struck between the ecosystem partners, and that will require trust and a collaborative spirit that has to be invented anew in many communities.

5. It's the applications, not the Cloud itself which will drive the enthusiasm and pocket books forward! The sooner we understand that and organize the investments necessary to create the