Great Lakes IT Report

Matt Roush of WWJ 950 Newradio regularly publishes a report on IT developments in the Great Lakes area. He recently had this to say about wireless initiatives in Michigan:

As for the State of the Wireless, two panel discussions and a keynoter gave more than 100 people a peek at our wireless future. Oakland County deputy county executive and CIO Phil Bertolini, Washtenaw County CIO David Behen and Michigan Broadband Development Authority director Robert Filka outlined the two counties' efforts to boost broadband penetration across the state. Both Bertolini and Behen say their counties will be blanketed with wireless broadband access by 2007. Filka also said the MBDA will soon steer its low-interest loan program to broadband projects that target rural or underserved urban areas. Keynoter Adam Crane, vice president for business development at Siemens Communications Inc.'s mobile division, provided a peek at some of the cool wireless technologies of tomorrow (try a cell phone with a five-inch TV screen for personal viewing that's also a music player). The final panel, consisting of industry experts, featured Seth Atkins, leader of the Mobility Solutions Council at Nortel Inc., talking about radio frequency identification technology that will do everything from detecting soil moisture conditions in farm fields to detect suspicious radioactivity in cargo containers. (Gulp.) Lindsay Notwell, executive director of marketing operations at Verizon Wireless, contended his company has already eliminated the Digital Divide by offering high-speed wireless access practically elsewhere (though he conceded only in terms of access, not in terms of affordability). Notwell also showed off a very cool phone with an embedded music player. Finally, Michael McKay, CTO and co-founder of RF Connect L.L.C. of Farmington Hills, had the night's coolest Power Point slide. The future of wireless, it said, is simply: BOOM. "Because you're either going to get burned and buried, or see new opportunities," McKay said. Congrats to Glima Southeast for a terrific event.