Monday, November 17, 2003

Ireland's Public Private Partnership We just met with Aideen Foley of Ireland's Public Private Partnership Unit.  Aideen is meeting with various agencies around the U.S. to look at best practices in public procurement.  They are working cooperatively on quite a few initiatives with other national agencies as well as with local and European bodies.  One of their challenges is adopting to standards put out by the European Union on issues like e-procurement and digital signitures. 5:45:17 PM    comment []

Utah's UTOPIA Paul Morris is touting UTOPIA in this morning's  issue of the NY Times.  "It's an essential economic growth issue," he says. "The best network in the U.S. will be in Utah - not in New York, not in Chicago, not in Los Angeles."  Qwest responds, "Why provide a Rolls-Royce when a Chevrolet will do?"  I guess we'll eventually find out who wins that argument. So far, the major push for home broadband has been focused on entertainment.  More stations, more online gaming.  I would love to see a reculturization that builds interest in other areas where broadband makes sense.  Science, education, enhanced collaboration are all areas that will also benefit from the enhanced connectivity.  To what degree depends on culture and what we value.  What is our future? Last month, Allied Telesyn  was selected as the customer premises solution for UTOPIA's phase I fiber rollout.  Joel Sybrowsky states that UTOPIA is the largest last-mile fiber project in the world.  The South Korean government is investing 2 billion won to build an integrated broadband network. I like Centerville City's new GIS application.  You can drill down to individual lots in the city and then get information like garbage pickup day, address, and tax ID for any given lot.  Centerville is one of 17 municipalities that have joined UTOPIA. An article in yesterday's Times, "The Race to Wire America," discusses some of the other high-speed fiber and wireless networks that are being built along Utah's Wasatch Front. David Sucher, who pointed me to this morning's article in the Times and is the author of the excellent City Comforts blog, refers to a nice interactive map of the Ground Zero area, as well as Chris Corrigan's Maps and Territories blog. There are some very interesting Japanese blogs on Blogpeople.net. 8:02:26 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.