Round Table: mGovernment. The Mobile Phone and its integration in e-Government
Chairs: Nacho Campos

What is a mobile phone

• Mobile
• A device you use every day
• 110% of penetration
• Many features

Tomy Ahonen: the mobile phone is the 7th medium:

• Personal
• Always on
• Always with us
• Integrated paying method
• Immediate tool

mGovernment: how the Administration adapts itself to the nomadic style of the citizen (The Economist)

Goal: from m-murmur to m-chat to m-conversation (unidirectional, bidirectional, multidirectional).

Barriers:

• Lack of leadership, political and technical
• Infrastructures
• Resistance to change of public servants
• Telecommunication Operators
• Lack of communication plans
• Digital Divide

Mario Moreno Sánchez: Mobile Marketing expert

The advertising market is absolutely saturated: the customer can no more get a bigger amount of ads.

The key of m-development is multistakeholder partnerships between the Administration, Banking and Telecoms. An appropriate legal framework is a must.

MMS is likely to be the next multimedia revolution… maybe more than SMS, because, among other things, it’s really multimedia.

Virginia Moreno: CIO Leganés City Council.

Why mobile communication between the Administration and the citizen?>/p>

• Highest penetration
• New communication channel with the citizen
• Integrated with other channels
• Secure systems

Almudena de la Fuente: Vodafone Government and Public Services Director

How do you sign? With a pen or with a mobile phone?

Multistakeholder partnership: service provider, the Administration, the certifier of the digital signature.

Very simple for the user: just change the SIM (keeping the telephone number) and pay (!) the registration to the service.

Víctor Solla: CIO Avilés City Council

First things first: organizational change before the application of new communication channels.

Technically, it’s everything already done: penetration is (almost) total in the user’s part, and knowledge/data digital management in the Administration part is (or should be) already a reality. It’s “just” a matter of making it happen.

Thus, sometimes the only problem is cost, but not developing cost, but the cost of leadership and organizational change.

The Administration should watch over the existence of an appropriate connectivity so its services can be properly reached. Otherwise, it should foster the establishment of the needed infrastructures, supplied directly or through partnerships with the private sector.