[wsfii-discuss] the cooperative way for India?

Thu Jul 6 21:18:58 UTC 2006

I am adding a few comments inline which I hope will expand and explicate what
Ken suggests.

Quoting Ken DiPietro <ken at new-isp.net>:
> 
> 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. 

I think the ability of our educational system to formally, in the short term,
provide training and certification for unlettered village people in this skill
is sorely lacking. I won't like to waste much space here describing why this is
so, but I doubt many Indians will disagree.

Rather, a proposal has emerged from the wsfii process that one or more (the
second of which I endorse) institutions be created that will provide both
outreach for training, support and assistance, and a location where further
research into network management and hardware be done (not all of that at each
and every location, but a suitable mix depending on local circumstances,
capabilities and directions of approach).

The training part may be formally supported by a manufacturing major that
happens to have a global reputation for networking, which hopefully will
fructify. If so, getting government support (endorsement) through the standard
educational system may not be such a problem (as far as getting things in place
quickly is concerned). 

> 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. 

I doubt this will happen quickly. Local politics - I don't think our finance
minister is overwhelmingly cheery about village connectivity. He certainly has
publicly favoured a 'pragmatic' approach that is an amazing echo of the current
US administrations' approach to foreign aid (think global, act local - source
everything through Indian banks, and blame everyone else when the banks can't
rise to the occasion). 

> 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.

This has not been the cornerstone of governance and policy. But things are
changing. Still, village empowerment is not on top of any politician's agenda.

> 
> 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.
> 

See, someone has claimed that stuff available in India is too expensive, and
others that it is not. We need to have an information resource availabl;e and
accessible to anyone with connectivity, that is kept up-to-date with prices and
availability of each type of equipment needed, plus addresses and track
record/experience of local contractors (for things like brackets and masts not
normally available in hardware stores). 

> 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.
> 

This is an interesting idea - certainly practical for installation, while
perhaps some more details need to be sweated out as far as labor for
manufacturing goes (how many people does an SMD assembly need, anyway?)

> 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.
> 

Definitely, for any specific geography (where language/culture are at least
related if not identical) it will be great to encourage the train-the-trainer
approach, where an initially small network of trained people help to get more
people up to speed on the basics and out in the field building networks that
deliver.  

> 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.
> 

We must do all we can on this mailing list to build up such ideas and try and
fill out the 'holes', so that when the summit takes place we can present firm
plans for endorsement and support.

Vickram