Center for Digital Government Special Report Acknowledges Renewed Ingenuity From Local Government Wireless Initiatives

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (January 1, 2007) The Center for Digital Government has collaborated with Government Technology magazine to produce a "Digital Communities" special report on local government wireless initiatives. Report highlights a profusion of applications, business models and ingenuity by communities as they harness the evolving potential of Wi-Fi and wireless networks.

While cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco most often capture the headlines for their municipal Wi-Fi plans, a more pervasive view highlights that wireless applications and infrastructures are already transforming the way local governments interact with citizens, conduct business, increase public safety, prepare and respond to emergencies and solve a growing list of local problems.

But even more significant, local governments are starting to become innovators in their own right, adopting a tremendous variety of new wireless approaches:

Such innovations include:

Monitoring, detecting and responding to public health threats, such as: mosquito-borne diseases, radiation and environmental toxins and restaurant inspections.
Integrated into the management of: fleets of police, fire and animal control vehicles, street cleaners and garbage trucks, train stations and airports, water and waste water infrastructure, road signs, illegal dumping and meter reading.
"The report shows that a new season of experimentation has taken root in America's communities, both in the models being adopted to deploy municipal Wi-Fi networks, and in the ingenuity and innovation municipalities are now showing as they begin to harness the potential of wireless applications in addressing local problems," said Todd Sander, deputy director, Center for Digital Government.

Advance copies of the report Critical Mass: How digital technology will redefine the way you live are available to the media prior to publication.

About the Center for Digital Government and Government Technology

The Center for Digital Government (www.centerdigitalgov.com) is a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local governments. Government Technology (www.govtech.net) is the award-winning national magazine of record covering IT's role in the business and policy of running modern state and local governments.

About Digital Communities

The Digital Communities Program (www.govtech.net/digitalcommunities) provides community leaders with an informational platform for news, thought-leadership and best practices focused on wireless, high-speed broadband and emerging technologies vital for the success, safety and vitality of 21st century communities.

Government Technology and The Center are divisions of e.Republic, Inc. (www.erepublic.com), the nation's leading publishing, research, event, and new media company focused on information technology for the state/local government and education markets.