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Congress going wireless

By Ephraim Schwartz
InfoWorld, 10/12/01

Although congressmen and congresswomen are not usually thought of as being on the cutting edge of technology, following the Sept. 11 attack on America, it appears that the House of Representatives is becoming a bastion of wireless technology users.

On the day of the attack, Congressman Robert Ney, R-Ohio, already had a Blackberry RIM (Research in Motion Ltd.) device on his belt. When wireless voice traffic became so overloaded that his cell phone became nonoperative, he turned to the little RIM device to communicate via wireless e-mail.

"The Blackberry was the only thing that worked for me. It was the only way to communicate with my family and staff," Ney said.

As a result, the congressman ordered 435 Blackberry RIM units for each member of the House and also paid for a year's e-mail service out of his committee's budget. Ney is chairman of the Committee on House Administration, which oversees the physical security at the Capitol.

"An amazing thing has happened. We wanted to give them the ability to send out messages on a widescale basis [in case of emergency], but now members are using them to communicate with staff. They are more productive," Ney said.

Although the impetus for the purchase of the Blackberry units was the Sept. 11 attack, the House Administration Committee had been reviewing various handheld devices for about a year. The Committee hired technology consultancy Gartner to make a recommendation. But back in January, Gartner advised the committee to wait.

"We have spoken to Gartner. They are one of the preeminent technology consulting firms in the world. Their advice right now for institutions like ours are to kind of sit tight for about six months and watch what happens," said James M. Eagen III, chief administrative officer, U.S. House of Representatives, according to a transcript of the committee meeting.

The House Administration Committee through its Office of Information Technology also offered individual training on the Blackberry, but Congressman Ney said that most of the congressional staff members were knowledgeable enough to train their boss.

"Look, I'm 48 years old and I didn't grow up with this stuff, and I learned how to use it," Ney said.

In the report to the Administration Committee, Eagen also cited challenges to making PDAs (personal digital assistants) work over the "vast network" that includes Washington and 900 district offices.

Eagen told the committee that he believed eventually there would be converged devices that included pagers, cell phones, and laptops all working wirelessly. "It is just not there yet," Eagen said.

Congressman Ney also admitted as much.

"We are not billing this as the foolproof communication solution, but we think it is a good idea to use them," he said.