The benefits associated with telecom technologies are pretty straightforward -- put simply, interoperable communications. That doesn't really change according to the faction of government; what does change, however, is the purpose for putting such technologies into place. "The solutions functionally don't differ at all," says James Krouse, manager of state andlocal market analysis at Input, a Reston, Va.-based research firm. "But federal is widely different from state and local in some areas. People ask how, and my first response is 'first-responders don't use satellite.' It's just a different ballgame as far as needs are concerned."
According to Input, federal telecommunications spending is expected to increase from $16 billion in 2005 to almost $21.4 billion in 2010, due largely to a revving up of e-government initiatives and the Presidential Management Agenda objectives. Contrast that with state and local government, which is expected to see an increase from $9.6 billion to $16.4 billion during the same time period, thanks to initiatives that enhance communications between government jurisdictions -- particularly for homeland security. In addition, growth at the state and local level will come from implementation of public-safety information networks being driven by the federal Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.
"Those departments are the ones that have the intelligence," Krouse says. "And they have an aggressive agenda over the next several years to link up directly with the first-responders."
Moving forward, acceptance of advanced technologies will further drive telecommunications growth at the federal, and the state and local levels, though again in somewhat different ways. For federal, wireless will transcend solutions as a means of staying in constant communication with personnel, whether out in the field or in a remote office. Given that, wireless service providers and application vendors will gobble up a fair percentage of the federal telecommunications budget, according to Input. State and local government, however, will likely invest first in Voice over IP (VoIP) as a means to improve efficiency and reduce costs, and wireless -- to a lesser extent -- as a means to provide extended service to citizens.
"The Wi-Fi market will be a politics vs. economic decision for state and local government," Krouse says. "We don't expect to see major growth in providing public Wi-Fi, like we saw in Philadelphia. Instead, I would expect growth in Wi-Max to reach rural areas; the township of Mayberry doesn't really have DSL lines."
Autor: Jill R. Aitoro
Quelle: Advanced IP Pipeline, 21.07.2005
