The Village is Unwired.
Ten months after its official development began, the first pilot project in Orleans is up and running. I was out and about in the wee hours of the night this week, pulling my car over into various Orleans locales and checking out the situation.
Yup, there is it, free public broadband wireless access supported by local business, across the village of Orleans. And people are using it.
In its first week, more than 300 individual accounts were created -- presumably by 300 individuals. It's too early for other statistics but early usage data shows a slight rise in use mid-week, with slightly heavier use early in the morning. Is that the pre-beach email download? Or the start-of-day activities planning? Or the on-the-way-to-work quick check?
There's a lot we don't know yet about how the service will be used, but I can tell you this for sure: at 9 pm the other night, there were six other users online at Depot Square at the same time as me.
OK, you have to picture this! I roll into the parking lot, grab a tall mocha latte and retreat to my car where I flip open my little Mac's lid and connect. The indicator shows other people are here-- I am not alone. Hmm.
I peered around the parked cars, wondering where other laptop glows were lurking. I spotted one on a bench (with human attached). I spotted one inside the window of the Sparrow. I wondered about prowling around the area, but thought better of it. I could just see the embarassing headlines that would create.
Then I was spotted. By a car pulling into a spot nearby. I explained what I was doing to an enthusiastic audience ... and I rather suspect that at least one group of out of town visitors began planning a return loop later with laptops in tow.
There were street lights all around me, pouring brightness and light into a public space. It made perfect sense that Unwired Village, the street light equivalent of communication, be there as well. In fact, that night time pattern of street lights and public broadband access held up pretty well throughout my drive through town.
This is just the beginning. On the Cape, we have become part of the 21st century, offering up the kinds of amenities people assume and expect. That's pretty exciting.
Several other villages are beginning the process of adding an Unwired Village to their public spaces, led in each case by a forward thinking Chamber executive or business district association.
What makes a place a good business place, an attractive location? What gives it the aura of the place to be, to be seen, to be in business? Offering the necessary set of infrastructure is certainly one of those things. And broadband access is a part of the infrastructure mix.
Giving off a sense of currentness, professionalism, and opportunity matters too. Once again, broadband brings that to the village.
And let's not forget the coolness factor -- offering up public access gives us point in the measure. It sounds sort of silly on the surface, yet perception (as you've all heard me say endlessly) does help to shape reality. And "coolnessl" is a desirable trait.
So the summer night in the Orleans business area was a pretty good place to be out and about the other night. Keyboard were clicking, people were talking, and a tiny wave of transformation was taking place.
The first Unwired Village is up. And more are to follow. No one can say that the Cape is a backwater of technology -- instead, we've showing ourselves as being among the leaders and we're doing it in a way that works for our realities.
So next time you're in Orleans and you need to check your email on the fly, or want to look at an online schedule, or upload a work file ... you can. And isn't that a pretty wonderful thing to be able to say.
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