[wsfii-discuss] Re: wsfii-discuss Digest, Vol 26, Issue 12

Sat Apr 7 00:43:53 UTC 2007

>
>  Wireless Ghana.

CBN (Community Broadband Network) and Comic Relief have been working in
Ghana since last autumn to bring about 'some' connectivity to communities.
It has not been entirely succesful, mainly because of the mindsets of NGOs
and industry, and in one instance, the failure to invest an extra £1000 to
install a self-sustaining network which would support VoIP instead of a
half-hearted non-VoIP one which could only be funded till Q1 2008.

Many of the problems faced seem to stem from a need for everyone to work
together. "We" cannot aggregate demand for backhaul and negotiate prices
with satellite providers (for instance) or ship wireless kit into a country
with minimal costs and problems if everyone is trying to do it alone. And
there seem to be far too many people working 'alone' to solve Ghana's
issues, just to pick one developing country at random. Ditto every country,
one suspects. Time to talk to our neighbours mebbe?!

Surely it's just about stronger communication and joined up thinking and
employing well-established 'business-like' principles? And I don't mean
corporate principals as most of us envisage them, but instead those which
allow an entity to survive and sustain itself by minimizing costs (bulk
buying, sharing shipping pallets, containers, and customs costs etc) and
increasing impact/engagement/sales with its 'products' to its
consumers/community.

>
> >> For me the issue is about changing our mindsets about money and about
> how >>we communicate and network. The resources are there.
>
> >I can hardly believe you mean that. Just a week or so back, Daniel
> pointed >out the shortage in meeting travel expenses for Prepcon
> Winneba. I don't >think that has been sorted out yet, never mind
> resources to meet the >challenges posed by the corporate world in
> commandeering the possibilities >of community interconnectivity.
>
> I do mean it. Why is that so hard to believe? I guess we could say that
> instead of magically expect that the pennies (or more realistically the
> dollars) will start coming down from the heavens :-), we could work
> harder. However I think there is more to it than that. I could be wrong
> but I am expressing my view and I see this as a commonly accepted but
> little understood reality that relates to terms and realities that of
> empowerment and that of disempowerment.
>
> I am implying this in on a general level. However I do see many signs
> that the mindset issue is a struggle for many people I know including
> myself and it relates to the what we call the scarcity/poverty mindset.
> When you have very little money to operate on, it is difficult to escape
> that mindset and so it becomes self-perpetuating.

I agree with this. It is a change in how we are thinking. ABC has been going
now for 6 years and more on zero funds - it's called 'self-funded'
apparently these days! You just do it. It's desperately frustrating when BT
get 22million euros this week to connect over-funded bureaucrats in the EU
with megabit and gigabit connectivity that they won't even use, but it
doesn't stop any of the people I know in the EU from keeping going
connecting the odd house here, a farm there, dropping fibre into a sewer etc
where the telcos have failed, does it?

I'm sure from what I saw in Bolivia, Morocco, India etc that all such
problems of insufficient 'funds' can be solved with ingenuity, thinking out
of the box, communication, determination, and a good sense of humour.

If we can't get to conferences, summits etc, then stream them out to us so
we can take part, record it, and push for the funding to get key players
together to make things (innovation and invention and sharing) happen at
grassroots level. As with all other things, the larger orgs will follow the
masses and their activities if on the right track.

my suggestion is to focus on the founding of a half global / half local
> hardware supply cooperative and a similar ISP-cooperative. i wonder if
> we should go in details ...
>
> grts, marco pompe, berlin

We've touched on these 'demand aggregating ' co-ops in UK over the last 4 or
5 years. There is currently an idea floating around of a Fairtrade (Co-op)
telco for Africa that needs far more exposure. It came originally from
Adrian Wooster of ORB, and he should be asked for more info about this idea
following regular trips to Ghana and Kenya in the last 6 months. Its global
potential would seem to be enormous, and it is one of those ideas that could
perhaps bring about the required paradigm shift. Ditto the hardware
aggregation etc. In UK alone, we worked out that the community networks, if
they worked together, could put in orders equivalent to Fortune 500
companies.....this surely should immediately cause the likes of the Cisco
salesfolk etc to prick up their ears?

And finally, happy easter/weekend to all and I've just remembered one final
thing......in the 1970s, the canals and waterways of Great Britain had been
disused and abandoned, and it was through the work of thousands of
volunteers that many miles of canals were kept open. At the time, there was
no interest in keeping the canals open for a small geeky community of
narrowboat owners except from within that canal boat community. Now, 30
years later, the canals (which on the whole survived only with a lot of TLC
by volunteers) are an integral part of many city centre and rural
regeneration programs (eg Birmingham in the West Midlands, Wales etc) and
contribute substantial economic benefits both regionally and nationally.

I don't remember any of us getting paid for fishing bottles, cars etc out of
the basins, or raising money to clean up and replace the locks, but now the
need has been reproven and the value of the canals is felt at all levels.
Especially by British Waterways!

Many of us will do what we do with no recognition whatsoever, without pay,
because it needs to be done. The economic benefits of such work may not even
directly come our way. And, I suspect, that is the way of the world,
generation after generation. So be it. Let's just do what needs to be done.

Sorry this is so long. ;o)

All the best
Lindsey

Access to Broadband Campaign
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