[wsfii-discuss] the cooperative way for India?

Thu Jul 6 12:58:23 UTC 2006

Vickram (et al)

I find this thread fascinating from a couple of different standpoints. 
First and foremost is the dynamic we are discussing between, government, 
private business and local communities. I applaud you being able to 
clearly and concisely explain some of the reasons each component of this 
structure is not capable of managing this work on it's own.

If that is the case, I would suggest that each one of these segments 
must take responsibility for a piece of the job and this is how I would 
suggest one possible solution could be implemented.

Government -  The national government in partnership with local 
governments create a training facility to educate a staff of young, 
resilient workers capable of deploying this equipment even under the 
most adverse local conditions. Additionally, government either mandates 
the manufacture of this equipment at a subsidized price or provides tax 
incentives to make the manufacturers of this equipment eager to produce 
it. From what I can tell, the government will also have to remove the 
mountains of red tape that it seems to thrive on to make this project go 
forward as well as removing any tariffs that might also add to the cost 
of this equipment.

Business - Private sector must be motivated to build this equipment. I 
would suggest that this could be done by using a combination of tax 
incentives weighed against the threat of allowing the importation of 
goods should the local businesses not meet the demand in a reasonable 
time period. Specifications for interoperability as well as 
environmental hardening need to be mandated. Another possibility would 
be for the government to subsidize the training of qualified employees 
to manufacture this equipment.

Local communities - This is where the demand is generated. One of the 
ways these communities can pay for this connectivity is to supply labor 
to the manufacturers as well as to the installation staff. These trained 
people could return to their communities to keep the network operational 
after a set period of time and it would be up to the community as well 
as government to pay for the workers (or a portion of their 
salary/expenses) during this time.

Please note - many of these communities will be able to work together as 
this connectivity will be supplied by passing through one community on 
the way to delivering to another community further down the line. It 
will be critical that these groups can work together or the segment of 
the network will eventually collapse.

I realize this outline is full of holes and is not intended to be a 
boilerplate for how this project should be rolled out but rather a 
staring point for discussion.

Respectfully,

Ken DiPietro

New-ISP.net/NextGenCommunications.net
Wireless solutions - not concessions.
http://www.nextgencommunications.net
1044 National Highway LaVale MD 21502
Tel# (301)789-2968 Cell (301)268-1154

vvcrishna at radiophony.com wrote:
> Quoting Balaji G <balaji_g1947 at yahoo.com>:
>
>   
>> What should these mechanisms be ? I have my doubts on the scaling of
>> community based approaches, but one must develop the area further, as well
>> as explore other mechanisms.  Hope is in strenghtening the energies of
>> communities as against burdening them with another development task, which
>> is easier done by Government and moneyed industry. 
>>     
>
> Community based approaches, on the contrary, are probably the most powerful in
> terms of scaling. Half the reason that mobile networks in rural areas are so
> pathetic as that no urban executive wants to go spend months in the boondocks
> wrangling with ticklish local issues of electricity, workers, spares, drinking
> water, food etc. 
>
> That critical problem is erased when the work is community-driven. But
> unfortunately, decades (centuries) of autocratic rule has damped down the
> desire of most rural Indian groups to do things for themselves, which is why
> the most genuinely successful ICT projects are in places where a significant
> amount of preparatory work has been done, sometimes for years. 
>
> Depressing, perhaps, but no reason to lose hope or abandon this country's fate
> solely to 'big' governments and (essentially greedy) private businesses to come
> to the rescue. 
>
> Vickram
>
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>
>
>
>   

-- 
New-ISP.net/NextGenCommunications.net
Wireless solutions - not concessions.
http://www.nextgencommunications.net
1044 National Highway LaVale MD 21502
Tel# (301)789-2968 Cell (301)268-1154