A wireless network can provide a whole new generation of location based and mobile services. This is one of the conclusions of the E-Gov Acadamy on wireless services, hosted by the Municipality of Groningen and Draadloos Groningen.
Wireless Groningen
Robert Janz, Director Stichting Draadloos Groningen was happy to announce the signing of a contract between his organisation and Unwired, the investment company who will roll out the wireless network in Groningen the coming years. (see related article)
In his presentation he described the role of public organisations in terms of creating demand and investing in innovation. The anchor tenant model used in Groningen implies the city and educational instiutions itself do not build the network, but will be the first users.
Groningen made the choice for wifi-technology because of the wide availability, the openness and the capacity, combined with the big user base and wifi-ready-devices. He described all possible services delivered by a wireless network. (see related article)
In the next six months Groningen will finetune the Service Level Agreement with the provider, set up a monitor instrument, connect to the institutional networks and build ten show case projects.
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Health Care
“The silver wave has money to spend and requires quality of life”, was one of the introductory phrases of John van Meurs, project manager of a telecare project of the University of Groningen. In his talk care domotics were described in aspects as contact, information, ease of use, security and economy. In the developed case Koala – www.koalaweb.nl – people got telecare using television sets and a broadband connection. The main reason for the clients to adopt that kind of system was a feeling of security: they felt constantly monitored, which is important for eg cardiac patients and pregnant women.
In Koala the university learned that new systems should be good targeted, expectation management is needed and implementing new systems requires reengineering of internal processes.
The advantages of wireless solutions are the rapid installation, provide mobile care providers with the most recent information, and monitoring at home becomes possible in cases where patients should stay in the hospital. Questions are how to integrate care services with other public and non public services, and how to target better this kind of services.
Educational services
A multidisciplinary team is a guarantee for building good services. Hugo Velthuijsen of the Hanze University Groningen promoted the multidisciplinary composition of project teams inventing services and solutions. He brainstormed with students about the possible services delivered for them by a wireless network. The students came up with an online class schedule, a location finder, collaboration tools, online class participation, finding a teacher with specific competences and absentee registration. A wireless service creation lab should provide open services. At the Hanze University they are also thinking of mainstreaming the Groningen pilots and innovations to a wider area.
Police
Imagine a police officer walking around and being alerted by his pda about a suspect criminal passing by. Not a futuristic dream, but possible in the near future. Elle de Jonge from the Police Region Groningen showed the Smart Cities partnership how a modern police car has build in electronic devices, using data from a wireless network and in real time enforcing safety. A wireless network is usable for applications like numberplate recognition, creating dynamic maps with live events.
Public Transport Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven invested in the past years in mobile portals, infokiosks and information terminals. In the Smart Cities project BIS and BIT Bremerhaven want to develop an information system where buses function as data providers. Buses send and receive data while passing wireless local area networks at bus stops. The bus is in the meantime providing data to people on the bus. This could be a solution for covering rural areas, without to have to cover a whole area.
Challenges in this project are the evaluation of connections, speed, renegotiation and real data rates. Also questions about standards and software and infrastructure should be solved.
More about the Bremerhaven plans can be read on http://www.smartcities.info/bremerhaven
Municipal services
Program manager ICT Barend Vissers explained why the Municipality of Groningen choose to invest in wireless services. Reasons were the big student population, image building, the economical perspective and governmental initiatives. A wireless network can bring services anywhere, anytime and anyhow. Location based services will be possible. Although there is an open network policy towards all kind of initiatives, the wireless project is not intended for home users.
From the perspective of the municipality nomadic workers, mobile use, semi-fixed locations and dislocations with high fixed access costs are interesting users or situations to focus on while deploying wireless services. Examples of local government applications are access to files, reporting, control, tracking, camera surveillance, city tours, parking management and the access to all existing government web applications and standard pc applications.
More about the Groningen plans can be read on http://www.smartcities.info/groningen
Tourism
Consultant Geert Eijkelenboom was asked by Draadloos Groningen to investigate business models for wireless services for touristst, in order to make visits more comfortable and aiming for longer visits. Starting this, he defined some target groups. Trends in tourism are the immediate need of information and entertainment “right here and right now”, individualisation, personalisation, increased use of internet and gps. Visitors expect at least the same service as at home.
Last minute applications, location based services, internet access and digital tourist passes using rfid-technology are some of the ideas which came up at work shops with stake holders of the local tourist industry.
Building a whole range of different services on an open network should be a good combination.
Dealing with fear for wifi-radiation
At some point in a wireless project, you have to deal with people fearing negative impact of radiation. Rogier Brink of The Antennabureau told how to deal with that kind of questions.
Strong electronic fields can cause at least heating. Wifi radiation is far under the EU maximum norm. But people are still worried about radiation, because they see antennas everywhere. You don’t have to underestimate those worries. A bad strategy is doing nothing about this. A good strategy is to try to take control. Inform yourself and start a dialogue. Rogier Brink gave an overview of all possible actions and information strategies you could do as a public organisation.
More information: www.antennebureau.nl
Forum discussion
Smart Cities Project director Filip Meuris led finally a forum discussion with these themes.
“Building an open wifi city network to provide public services is the icing of the cake. Local authorities should get their services and underlying business processes right first.”
The panel agrees, although building a wifi network can be a main driver for starting to work on your back office. It is something which sells. Working backwards is also possible, even as working on two trails.
“An open wifi network is only relevant in a highly built-upon area with highly educated citizens and innovative businesses. Building an open wifi network in a rural area is a fundamentally different ballgame.”
Technically everything is possible, but it is an economical question. How many does an authority wants to invest?
“Internet should be as easily available as drinking water: internet anywhere, anytime and anyhow, and local authorities have a leading role to play here.”
Authorities should have a role, at least in providing freedom of access to services and the internet. But access to the internet itself, this is questionable. Services should be free accessible, and the means to reach them. There could be also a role of national authorities in this. Government should stimulate innovation.
“Current wireless technology is ready to be deployed to cities. The legal context is probably not.”
The technology of a wireless network is not affecting the existing privacy rules. At least applications have to work separate in some cases, so are their databases, but this is just following the existing rules.
“An open wifi network is great for the well-educated young generation. But what about the non-literate, non-connected, lower-income people?”
Devices should be more easy to use. The use of new devices in the described target group is underestimated. But there should be efforts to work on usability.
“The Groningen Formula: (institutional co-operation and trust) + (strong IT partner) + (Innovation system in development of new services) + (Government done its e-homework) + (Political support) = Success”
This the magical formula, but sometimes it is not that easy. The real test will be the use of the network. But at least Groningen has a good start situation. Political support is crucial.
“What is for you the absolute wireless internet killer application?”
There will not be one single killer application. Communication applications could be. You can not predict killer applications.