The City of Philadelphia is in the vanguard of American municipalities offering ubiquitous wireless access to their citizens. Despite legislative opposition from the cable and telecommunications industries, the city has forged ahead with a public/private partnership to build the infrastructure and skills needed to bring affordable wifi to the city's diverse neighborhoods. Dianah Neff describes the vision and the logistics of Philly's plan to shrink the digital divide and connect residents to the information highway.
Philadelphia gained world wide attention when it began a pilot wireless service for its large urban population in 2004. City leaders recognized early that internet access is an essential utility for the conduct of education, business, and the arts. Neff reports that, as in many cities, affluent areas are already well connected but low income neighborhoods need an affordable way to join the internet revolution. Philadelphia's business plan involves a partnership with Earthlink to build the infrastructure needed to cover 1.5 million residents, charging rates from $10 to $20 a month, with certain public spaces such as libraries and parks giving free access. The government is working with various community groups to provide hardware, training, and support.
Not surprisingly, the threat of low cost municipal wireless has triggered a response from the telecommuncations and cable industries: they successfully sought legislation in Pennsylvania to keep government out of the wireless business. A grass roots counter effort was able to obtain an exemption that let Philadelphia's plan proceed but most other parts of the state are blocked. Neff notes that fourteen states now have restrictive legislation, although others are moving ahead with municipal plans, and it remains to be seen how competition between public and private providers plays out.
Dianah L. Neff has 18 years experience in providing leadership and implementation of organization-wide strategic information technology planning, assuring reliability of information technology infrastructure, and directing information technology departments in their delivery of technology support services in both city and county organizations. Prior to working in government, she had 14 years experience in the private sector with high-tech software and hardware firms in Silicon Valley.
She was appointed as Chief Information Officer for the City of Philadelphia in May 2001, reporting to Mayor John F. Street and serving on the mayor's cabinet. As head of the Mayor's Office of Information Services, the city's central IT agency, Neff has guided the betterment of technology in the city:
Prior to Philadelphia, she played a leading role in making City of Palo Alto the first city in the US to have a web site; worked with San Bernardino County businesses and School District to develop a joint venture, Enterprise for Economy Excellence; developed and implemented City of Bellevue's (WA) Y2K compliance and in San Diego in conjunction with City Center Development Corp. identified and mapped the 70,000 miles of fiber underneath the city's streets in effort to attract businesses downtown.
Neff has a B.A. in marketing and economics, and M.B.A. with concentration in operations research. She is a past guest professor at Hayward State University and University of Washington in their Public Administration programs where she taught Information Systems Design and Management of Technology to non-technical managers.
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