When Old Regulatory Systems Meet New Technology
Source: Governing.com | Stephen Goldsmith
Boston's CIO has worked to transform traditional bureaucratic procedures to speed the rollout of the latest mobile broadband infrastructure.
Under Jascha Franklin-Hodge, who has been Boston's chief information officer since June 2014, the city has emerged as one of the country's most data-savvy cities. Not only has Boston been a leader in finding better ways to exploit the power of data to improve municipal operations and services, but the city and its residents also have benefited from a continuous effort to adapt traditional, cumbersome bureaucratic procedures to take advantage of new technologies.
That's a challenge facing government at every level. And it's one that Franklin-Hodge, who will step down tomorrow, met head-on in the way he equipped the city for the rollout of advanced mobile communications infrastructure. He laid the groundwork for an efficient approval process that promotes competition among service providers, preserves the look and feel of Boston's streets, and will produce significant revenue for the city.
It's also a challenge that Neil Kleiman and I address in our book, A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance. Outdated regulatory systems need to be reformed so that they don't thwart the rapid adoption of transformative technologies. Franklin-Hodge's work to speed the rollout of small cell wireless antennas across Boston is a prime example of what can be done to meet that challenge.
Unlike traditional cell towers, which can cover many square miles, small cell antennas (often referred to simply as "small cells") support only a couple of city blocks. For that reason, they must be widely distributed geographically, meaning many installations across unique terrains. This logistical challenge, however, pales in comparison to the benefits of having the infrastructure in place. Small cells add to a city's resilience: if one goes down, there are others nearby that will likely still be working. They can provide network capacity in underserved places. And while small cells are useful additions to 4G LTE networks (the current standard for wireless internet connectivity) they are expected to be necessary to support the impending proliferation of 5G, which promises cellular internet speeds up to 10 times faster.