Social benefits: Feasibility Issues for Municipalities and Governments

Because it’s a very cost-effective technology with a large 'social benefit" payback, governments should consider underwriting some of the costs associated with making Metro Ethernet available to households and organizations, that could not otherwise afford next-generation broadband services.

Citizens located in large 'council flat" blocks benefit greatly from low-cost, flat-rate phone services, distance learning, online health information, remote banking and financial aid services, telecommuting, and the improved employment opportunities associated with higher IT and network technology mastery. The charities and support organisation that assist deprived households also benefit greatly from broadband connectivity.

In the area of education, Metro Ethernet enables real-time and interactive 'e-Learning" that can greatly benefit everyone from adult graduate students to underprivileged children. With Metro Ethernet-based e-Learning services, university and college students are no longer limited in their choice of education by location or geography or transportation constraints. Educational services delivered by next-generation broadband are particularly valuable for those who cannot physically attend classes and training. E-Learning is also a benefit to single parents, who can improve their skills while minding children at home.

Case point
In Italy, Acantho is working with the regional government of Romagna to deliver broadband services to municipalities, including municipal buildings, university sites and public health clinics. In addition to IP telephony and video surveillance, the project will help enable the local government to introduce new online initiatives, including telemedicine and citizen portals.

In the fields of public and private medicine, specialists can help patients via broadband connections in cases where they can not be physically present at the hospital or clinic when needed. High resolution x-rays, scans and other diagnostic data can be transported between sites very rapidly - in some cases enabling life-saving expertise to be rendered remotely. And with Metro Ethernet, large hospitals and smaller medical facilities can be interconnected at a fraction of the cost of traditional wide area network connections. This can mean a high level of services for patients in rural and underprivileged areas that don’t have enough high skilled doctors and specialists.

Metro Ethernet is the ideal foundation for government 'portal" web sites that serve as single access points to a great range of government and municipal information and services. Portals are being deployed at a rapid rate at many levels of government today. Most federal governments around the world now have portals, but the information offered is limited by the available network bandwidth. With a Metro Ethernet infrastructure, government can greatly expand its interaction with citizens, to include a wide range of graphically dense documents and multimedia services with voice, video and animated content. Metro Ethernet allows government portals to move from the delivery of simple text information to real interactive applications that speed up filing, submissions and approvals of a wide range of official documents and licenses.