Dutch City Wired Up for Exploiting the Digital Revolution; Almere in Holland Has Undertaken a Bold Plan to Attract Investment
THREE years ago, the Dutch city of Almere appeared doomed to international anonymity. Situated just 45 kilometres from Amsterdam, the area had been relegated to commuter town status despite its phenomenal growth. Thousands of young professionals and their families moved to the municipality, located on land reclaimed from the sea 40 years ago. The population stands at 175,000, with 5000 new residents a year, and is expected to hit 400,000 by 2030. "The problem was, and still is, that economic development had fallen behind," explains alderman Douwe Halbesma. "We realised that the balance between housing and employment had to become more equal. We wanted to create 5000 jobs a year." But as the world economy slipped in 2001, local officials in Almere realised they would have to do something spectacular to even register on the radar of inward investors. And thus, the idea of creating a "connected community" was born. The city, with commercial partners, has laid an optical fibre network to 1700 homes and 500 businesses. For (euros)80 ((pounds) 55) a month, residents have access to services like flat-fee phone calls; superfast internet; and digital radio and television (with 90 channels) and IP telephony - where voice calls are sent over the same network as data - which means calls made to numbers within the network are free of charge). City officials believe they've come up with a model that will kickstart a wave of private investment and some day make Almere the most advanced information communications technology city in Europe. With the help of funding from regional government and the European Union and more than (euros)3.5 million ((pounds) 2.4m) from the municipality itself, Almere owns the optical fibre infrastructure (cables and ducts) involved with the project. Cisco Systems has advised on the architecture and provided all of the network equipment. Last week, the American giant launched an initiative to encourage local and regional governments around the world to combine IP telephony and wireless technologies to deliver more efficient public services. The network itself is managed by corporate partner First Mile Ventures (part of the UNET group), which has co-funded the pilot.
No comments:
Post a Comment