The Turku Approach to Create a Wireless Infrastructure

One major goal of eGovernment is the provision of an efficient and cost-effective infrastructure enabling access to online resources for all citizens. While at the beginning this goal was basically related to Internet, today there is growing demand for providing access anywhere and anytime also where wired networks are not available. Major drivers of this development are emerging technologies as WLAN and the growing mobility of inhabitants as well as increasing usage and penetration of mobile phones. Another driver are emerging opportunities for new services for citizens based on mobile technology summarized under the term mGovernment. In order to enable mobile applications on a larger scale an efficient infrastructure is necessary. In this paper the approach of Turku, Southwest Finland, in creating a wireless infrastructure will be described based on a case study.