DETROIT ? Oakland County will name on Halloween a private company to provide wireless broadband connections to five municipalities in the state?s second largest county.
The news was announced by Phil Bertolini, Oakland County Deputy Country Executive, at the GLIMASoutheast State of Wireless presentation. Bertolini, who also serves as Oakland County?s CIO and head of the Wireless Oakland initiative, said county executives hope that the pilot project will lead to blanket coverage of Oakland County?s 910 square miles by 2007.
Bertolini was joined in the evening?s discussion of major wireless broadband efforts in Michigan by David Behen, Director of Information Technology for Washtenaw County, which also plans to blanket its 720 square miles with wireless broadband by 2007.
Like Oakland County, Washtenaw will use private business to build out the country?s wireless broadband network. The Washtenaw County wireless effort includes 35 partners, such as the Ann Arbor Chamber, Internet2, Merit Network and the Ann Arbor IT Zone.
Behen said a recent survey by Wireless Washtenaw, in which some 3,500 responses were gleaned, showed 76 percent of county residents would upgrade to wireless broadband if the service were offered today.
In Oakland County, some 1.2 million residents could get a portion of the wireless bandwidth free if the Wireless Oakland plan comes to fruition. Bertolini said the plan won?t use taxpayers dollars to do this, rather the free service will be a result of working with the private sector, which will sell higher bandwidth and advertising to subsidize the zero cost service.
Oakland also will provide low cost personal computer and training to low income families to bridge the digital divide. With the state losing some 300,000 manufacturing jobs in the past couple years, giving everyone in the county regardless of financial means access to the Internet and PC skills will get them ready for the jobs of tomorrow.
?Our youth, if they don?t have access to computers and technology, they will not go anywhere,?? Bertolini said. ?Our third goal is do a wireless technology tool kit for government so that local governments also will embrace the technology.?
