Last month at the broadband conference I heard a lot of communities talk about fiber versus wireless. Fiber has the bandwidth that lets you grow into the future; wireless is considerably cheaper to deploy. So lots of communities are trying to come up with a phased approach that might start with bringing fiber to the node, then going wireless. Then some folks talk as if they might eventually phase out wireless – but I think wireless is here to stay – with fiber. People will always want the mobility of wireless. Here’s a fun example…

The City of Minneapolis and Minnesota Public Radio have created an audio MPR Sound Point™ tour of Minneapolis Public Art. Here’s a quick description from the web site…

The Sound Point technology allows the public to access a series of stories, in the words of the artists, about new works of public art in Minneapolis and the opportunity to leave their own stories in return. Viewers can listen to these stories by dialing or texting a phone number or scanning a QR code with their smart phone.

The Twin Cities Daily Planet wrote a story on the project highlighting the people and technology behind the project. I love the idea and I’m sure I’ll drag a kid to at least two projects over the next few weeks. It seems like a very manageable project for any community – that has the necessary infrastructure and what a fun way to encourage residents to start adopting new technologies.