Craig Settles, perhaps the best-known advocate of municipal broadband, published a report today that outlines many of the positive aspects of municipal wireless. Mr. Settles, president of Successful.com, invites commentators such as yours truly who have called Muni WiFi a fiasco to take a look at eight U.S. cities where municipal broadband has been successful. (see Muni WiFi No Mas?)

The report basically expands the municipal communications horizon beyond WiFi. It includes wired communications such as fiber in Loma Linda, California and variants of wireless communications other than WiFi in Providence, Rhode Island.

The report sets new pragmatic goals for municipal broadband, and ratchets down the old ambitious goals of social and economic inclusion. “Affordable broadband for all” is replaced by more achievable targets such as public safety through better communications. Mr. Settles and the people he interviewed do not completely lose sight of social inclusion -- a goal I share -- but they have been chastened by recent events.

The report also promotes partnerships between carriers and municipalities.

By way of full disclosure: I have known Mr. Settles for much longer than I care to admit, and I consider him a friend. But we differed on Muni WiFi. I thought Muni WiFi was a bad idea from the start. I think local governments and quasi-governmental groups such as public utilities should not be involved in the business of delivering commercial telecom services to consumers -- for the most part.

There are exceptions of course such as municipalities where consumers are under-served by commercial carriers or where carrier services are too expensive and can be delivered more inexpensively by municipalities.

Also, WiFi at this stage is far too expensive a wide-area communications vehicle to involve municipalities. Perhaps broadband over power lines might be a better vehicle, but the development of that technology has been retarded by public utilities  - - bolstering the case for municipal exclusion.

But Mr. Settles makes a solid case for municipal broadband in his report which can be found here www.successful.com/snapshot-10-07-temp.doc.