If you give any thought to municipal Wi-Fi networks, you probably imagine something like the Olney neighborhood portal pilot in Philadelphia. Conceived as a way to merge digital inclusion with local content ("digital inclusion" is the new, shorter term for "bridging the digital divide"), its civic goals are to motivate inner-city young adults into a lifelong appreciation of learning. As Judith Miller, president of NinthWave Media, described during the W2i Digital Cities Convention in Tempe, Ariz., the Olney portal provides relevant local news, links to neighborhood events and e-government agencies, school district information, and a word of the day.

The Olney project is a heartwarming success, and slated to expand to other areas of Philadelphia, but it’s no longer precisely typical. Judging by the presentations at the W2i meeting, municipal governments are expanding beyond end-user community support to enable public Internet access (in which Tempe itself was a pioneer) to roles that are less customer-facing. Among them are telemedicine, public safety, transportation and emergency response. One reason: It’s easier to get funding for those projects, and to create measurable metrics for success.

Mouse Calls
For example, the Tucson city government is creating a medical and first responder network by connecting hospitals with the paramedics in ambulances. A paramedic can use voice, video and data to communicate with a trauma doctor in the hospital emergency room, so she can assist the patient during the critical minutes before the ambulance gets to the ER door.

The test phase of this mobility project was completed in October 2006, during which an ambulance was able to transmit vital signs to the hospital while traveling 15 miles across Speedway Boulevard. ("We discovered that slowing down was worse [for transmission rates] than going faster," admitted Francisco Leyva, COT project manager for the city of Tucson.) The initial phase is set to launch this quarter.

Tucson already had the network infrastructure in place; it was a side effect of the city upgrading its traffic lights. So, while only four ambulances are equipped so far, the 205 node radios will eventually expand to 419 traffic signals in the city of 225 square miles. The project will also expand to connect the medical system with police and fire departments, to the water management system (for well-monitoring data) and to building inspectors.

Another telemedicine project, also in Arizona, exists to facilitate access for diabetes patients. The Amado Wi-Fi project aims to treat and educate people in rural areas, such as Amado, 40 miles south of Tucson, and Tuba City, on the Navajo reservation in the state’s northeast. One way this was made possible was that the Arizona Telecommunications & Information Council had "lit up" the Interstate corridor between Tucson and the Mexican border as part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) emergency response system. Using a mobile exam room with Wi-Fi capability, patients can speak with doctors, and have a retinal scan transmitted to a Tucson hospital to check for a diabetes-related eye disease.