Welcome and introduction to equitable access

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Welcome and introduction to equitable access

  • Mark Graham - welcoming speech


Welcome –Carlos Alfonso (5 mins)

  • access as the main issues, especially engaged in regulations and services getting to the edge..

APC challenged the regulations - using what is legal and what is not legal

  • Brazil, facing same problem as everywhere in providing access for the communities..
  • Communities network need to pay for multimedia services license, which is very expensive here.. how to run community network without need to pay enormously expensive licences
  • How we can learn from each other experiences what we make well or wrong, looking at regulations

marketing your initiatives, etc.

Setting the context and introducing the day – Anriette Esterhuysen (15 mins)

  • there is need to bring together various threads that can make access open
  • from mid 90ies, apc is engaging with this area, we took holistic approach, focusing not only on building networks, but creating the networking infrastructure and also looking at business models - for-profit, non-for- profit, etc. apc is now much more focus on the policy, but it is still rooted in practice
  • there are many debates happening around IS , eg. open source discourse, but very few people talk about access - what can make access real for people
  • aim of today is to explore access from holistic perspective, and look at sustainable business models, policy regulations, and technologies, as well as people, networks and capacities..if people are not there, and they are not owning network, these network are not suitable
  • in terms of access – there is a lot of innovation and investment – so where are the gaps, what can we do address them?

Willie Currie – why access is important (5-7 mins)

documenting why access matters?

  • wsis agenda - setting up goal by 2015 to connect X% the world 
46% connected in developed world, and 5% in developing countries by that time -
  • demonstrating the issue why access may matter on the "spagheti map" - North America as the centre of all lines, and massive oversupply between US and Europe, but absence of cables in Africa (East Africa)
  • 'bandwith map' and table


Introduction to policy and regulation theme – Lishan Adam (5-7 mins)

  • access policy issues have more layers and it is important to explore how these layers impact on each others
  • most of the activities and debates are happening on the national level
  • documented that access gap is wide
  • as moving from infrastructure to services and language the access issue become much more complex
  • policies are mostly about the power relationship
  • challenge: policy makers always see policies in the horizont o next election only..which is challenge in terms of political space available and regulations
  • market base approach have been successful in some case, as mobile phones, but there are also challenges
  • pricing is another critical challenge that can be influenced policies and regulations
  • policy strategies (see slides)
  • regulatory tools which are available to policy makers (see slides)
  • critical policy interventions ( Net neutrality, cross-border connectivity,...see slides)
  • which t policy interventions are possible on the national level..

Introduction to tools and technologies theme – Julian Casasbuenas (5-7 mins)

Columbia - about 13% has access to internet, but even much smaller portion of population has access to internet in rural areas (5% out of 13%)

Difficulties:

  • weak power system, how to adapt devices which can work properly in this environment
  • lack of services and content on the local level (mostly foreigner tools available - youtube...)
  • bandwith capacity in rural areas and municipalities

Opportunities:

  • mobile devices - about 60% of the people has access
  • fix and ip networks
  • sms based services are right now the most available: But even though infrastructure is there, technologies are there, there is not good content you can access through this mobile devices
  • open standards in software and hardware - accessibility, operability...: using FLOSS as critical

people centred approach – important to assess what needs have people on the local level in order to develop technological solutions which are accessible, adequate and relevant for them

Introduction to business models theme – Muriuki Mureithi (5-7 mins)

  • there is not free lunch, somebody has to pay... question is by whom (civil society, government...) and how much will paid?
  • 0 cost services are not free...because there is still enormous amount of responsibility which someone need to take on...
  • development actors come together to address issues of access couple of years ago and brought some solutions, such as telecentres
  • they not succeeded, but created awareness...other partner come in, business, but it is important to look at how can they come in? where do they fit in?
  • partnerships between government, business and communities can bring a lot of innovation, which may allow to cut on the cost
  • looking at business model and pricing mechanism
  • come up with generic framework for sustainable access


Introduction to people, networks and capacities theme – Laurent Elder (5-7 mins)

(haunting people to his session..offering free beer)

  • capabilities - better concept than capacities
  • senegal...story of telecentres with one telephone line..why it success..it was meeting space, public versus private spaces..looking at question - who have access and how they have access
  • kenya...story of ICT policy mailinglist..multistakeholder list with huge debates and impact on the policy development in kenya
  • Sri Lanka ...illustrating technical and policy capabilities are equally important, without them open access will not happen - research report how much people are spending on mobile phones?
  • stressing importance of capability building and research in open access
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