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The citywide wireless movement has gained tremendous momentum across the country over the last few months. Big cities including Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and San Francisco are in the throes of putting their wireless networks in motion, and many other cities--small, medium, and large--are following suit.

If you're a local government official or someone heavily involved in your community, and have been reading all of the news stories about citywide wireless networks, what do you have to do to bring this phenomenon to your town so it doesn't fall behind in the wireless networking race?

If you want to do it right, the first place to start is to get your hands on a copy of Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless: Applying Lessons From Philadelphia's WiFi Story (Hudson House Publishing) by Craig Settles, who has written THE guide to understanding both the business and political issues that need to be addressed before developing and deploying a citywide wireless network.

This self-published book by Settles, president of Successful.com and a technology consultant, offers readers a guide in planning a wide-scale wireless project. It's directed more toward laymen than technical types--there aren't many technical terms thrown around which may confuse people who are not intimately involved with wireless technology. However, it is important that anyone who chooses to become part of a municipal WiFi initiative become familiar with some basic concepts about regarding infrastructure and mobile workforce applications in order to move forward.

Settles uses numerous details of how the Wireless Philadelphia project progressed from an idea to the verge of deploymentas the foundation of the book, but readers from cities in all shapes and sizes can apply the same concepts to their own particular situations. if you're looking for a one-size-fits-all template that will help your town go wireless, this book DOES NOT have what you're looking for. But, if you need help in the organization of your own wireless initiative, look no further.

According to Settles, in order to answer the question "is now the time to pursue muni WiFi?", localities have to determine if there are immediate needs that the technology is sufficiently capable of meeting at a price (financial, political, and otherwise) that is affordable to everyone concerned. The actions taken to meet these needs becomes the main objective in driving the decisions throughout the evaluation and implementation process.

However, before even diving into the project itself, Settles points out that cities must be able to clearly state its objectives to all parties concerned--government workers, potential vendors, and, most importantly, the citizens. Why would your city consider going wireless? Settles cites three main reasons:

• Social reasons, which is common in cities wanting to address issues such as the digital divide
• Economic development, which is more intense in areas that can't foster economic development and bring new companies to the city or region unless they have a better communication infrastructure than what the private sector is motivated to provide
• To increase efficiency in government while reducing high telecom expenses that they might be paying to private sector companies.

The real "meat" of the book is the advice Settles offers on how a city can successfully develop and deploy a wireless network. Various chapters describe the major steps to move forward, including:

• Defining strategic goals and tactics
• Building consensus
• Creating a project team
• Understanding the needs of the people
• Defining a deployment
• Rolling out a pilot project
• Moving to full deployment
• Total cost of ownership (TCO)
• Return on investment (ROI)

Settles also spends a great deal of time interviewing some of the more important players in the citywide wireless world, including Dianah Neff, the CIO of Philadelphia and a person synonymous with Wireless Philadelphia. Again, the author only uses Wireless Philadelphia to point out examples of what was done to move the project forward. Readers should clearly understand that what was good for Philadelphia may not be good for their own municipality, but better to see how it worked there then going on blindly.

After reading this book, one can certainly make the case that a citywide wireless network managed by a local government seems like the way to go. For me personally, I have been on the fence regarding whether a telco/cable company should build and manage the network, or instead entrusting the effort to my local leaders. Fighting the Good Fight has changed my way of thinking on the entire matter, and Settles has helped me "see the light" a truly effective municipal WiFi network is built and run by the people who live in the municipality, not by detached telco/cable company execs sitting in an office miles away from the area.

At first, the very thought of a local leader, especially in a smaller town, taking the control of a project of this size and scope seems a bit scary. But if that local leader is smart, he or she will read this book and is certain to come out with a much better understanding of the challenges ahead. It is too important for the future of any community to not become educated in wireless networking. The future is now, and Fighting the Good Fight will help us realize it.

The city of Riviera Beach, Florida is in the process of deploying a public safety wireless network leveraging Motorola's MOTOMESH architecture, which supports up to four radio networks in a single access point. According to Motorola, MOTOMESH provides fixed and mobile broadband access to users in the unlicensed 2.4-GHz band, as well as the 4.9-GHz public safety band.

What makes this story so cool is that Riviera Beach is paying for all of this mostly from seized drug money. City officials say this type of funding has freed up other money that will enable the development of a wireless network for residents. So take that, drug runners! Crime DOES pay, at least for citywide wireless networks!