Today I learned that the Rochester City School district announced a deal that basically gives all the schools (voice over internet protocol) VOIP phone service. Basically, the data lines for your computer's internet connection also carry the phone signal. The great part about this is that the district will save $1M a year. Great thinking... but with $3M what could we do in the IT world. For starters, consider the fact that a crafty school IT department might have realized that you can get those phones free. Go to Vonage.com and sign up for VOIP service and you can get a free phone. I realize that large networks take a bit more than a free phone, but hear me out.
My dream is that one day we will have visionary people making the big decisions for this community and make Rochester a leader again. The bigger picture that we are missing out on is municipal wifi. Municipal wifi is a wireless internet network, generally provided by the city, that enables all residents to access high bandwidth wireless internet connections. Rochester is trying to position itself as a knowledge economy to compete for the jobs that are still being created on our shores, and this would really enforce that branding message. Based on the cost of the Philadelphia wifi system I calculated our cost to be between $2.5 and $3.75M to cover every square inch of our city with high bandwidth wifi that the school district could retail to residents and provide for free to low income households. Imagine if the school district had the foresight to build this network (for the same cost), put Rochester on the map for yet another innovative decision, and MAKE money off the installation.
If anyone who can make a purchasing decision from the school district is reading this, I would implore you to seek unbiased council on this matter with the RIT Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences to validate my claims. ICS Telecom, the guys doing the current install will tell you I'm nuts. If they're smart, they just might fill out the RFP to install the municipal wifi instead and plug the phones into that. $2.9M spent with 7000 phones and no network, or $2.9M spent with wifi for 220,000 city residents and 7,000 free Vonage phones. We need to demand more of ourselves.
