[wsfii-discuss] Economic Sustainability of Community Wireless

Sat Apr 7 19:30:54 UTC 2007

--- Ramon Roca <ramon.roca at guifi.net> wrote:

> Apologies for the confusion on names 
> (Ashram/Ashish) :(
> 
> I had also no intention to open a flame. 

Yes, we do not want a fruitless name-calling kind of
exchange here, we need our energy to do more useful
things. It is my fault entirely for getting depressed
at the scale of the problem.

I picked up on Ramon's comment re FON, and must say,
right from their early days they have been quite
peculiar regarding expansion of activities in
countries like India. Which is to say, there used to
be no indication (I haven't checked lately) that they
were closed to the idea, but the fact remains they
don't reply to emails or show active interest in any
other way.

Of course reports from Spain have long indicated they
are just not a very 'community-oriented' organisation.

But I was thinking as well of other 'successful'
commercial organisations (such as Intel, for instance)
who have been spending a lot of time, effort and money
to 'educate' people about their technology approach. I
mean people in India particularly, but I am sure they
do not ignore other regions. 

> recommend people to analyze business models
> since not all of 
> them are good, and of course not because I'm against
> business models!.
> 

In my opinion, business is done when two entities
exchange things of mutually recognised value.
Centuries ago, such exchanges were 'improved' by using
a common item of barter, namely cash. Seems pretty
simple, economics 101, but I don't often hear much
discussion of the side-effects or fallout of the
choice to move into that cash-driven ecosystem -
including the creation of 'efficient' organisations to
increase the velocity of cash through their portals -
organisations that are not primarily driven by the
value they bring to their stakeholders, rather only to
themselves. 

For quite a lot of people nowadays, it is the cash
that matters and not the value it represents. That is
very interesting, and challenging for persons and
discussions like we have here, because we, and other
cash-strapped people like us, are forced to invest
more and more effort into doing things merely to keep
the status quo going, rather than to see worthwhile
improvement take place on a macro scale. 

We really need to find ways to get our energy invested
in meaningful business, and not the creation of
quasi-notional value.

There is a long way to go before organisations of that
kind will have the maturity to work with different
emerging models of the kind we will debate and try to
evolve. So we have our work cut out. Not cause to
despair, but to focus on the core issues.

> In any way, in order to build a strong partnership
> for that ecosystem, 
> it's important to understand everybody's roles and
> play their own 
> respectfully with the others. Invading other's roles
> might be dangerous.
> 

Doing so is not dangerous until it succeeds. Then it
becomes a threat and is dealt with. That is the
difference between achieving micro-successes and
getting real organic change.

> It's important to build trust and gain credibility.

I think it is better to accept ones' (our own)
difference, and work outward from there.

> there might be 
> some formulas which enable same results, like
> network 
> neutrality/unlicensed spectrums.

Spectrum definition is managed by ITU, to which most
nations subscribe. Since it is dominated by the major
telcos, it is hardly surprising that most of it is
sequestered for private (and 'security') usage. 

Network neutrality is 'permitted' in some limited form
it is true, in the very narrow regions of the noisy
and unmanaged ISM bands. That so much is achieved is
no credit to the managers of spectrum.

Warmly

Vickram

> 
> En/na marco ha escrit:
> > jeff buderer wrote:
> >   
> >> Marco,
> >>
> >> I think we need your perspective to bring this
> process forward at least
> >> in Ghana so please do continue to engage those
> people you mentioned.
> >>
> >>   
> >>     
> > my general opinion is, that it is very possible to
> deal with even big
> > companies, when have good idea of how to play the
> "game". we have to
> > consider the arguments of vickram crishna very
> well, to get that kind of
> > good idea about it ...
> >
> > i do think, that we can create a space, where in
> we can set the rules to
> > a certain extend. we have to have a look at how
> the market and its big
> > player work, how ecomical, social and
> psychological processes are
> > shaping the world in order to capital investment
> and profit maximising.
> > if we understand what will stab in our back and
> what will benefit the
> > community in the end, we have the basics to deal
> with corporations. also
> > i want to point at the several ethical investment
> facilities we have in
> > US and Europe ... the conditions are fantastic
> (compared to SERO). its a
> > matter of collective WILL in my eyes ...
> >
> > when we want to have an economical sustainability
> FOR THE PEOPLE, we
> > will need tools designed for exceptionally this
> goal. these tools
> > already exist. certain types cooperatives belong
> to these tools as I
> > believe. NGOs can help as well. loose networks as
> well.
> > 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
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > wsfii-discuss mailing list
> > wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss
> >
> >
> >   
> 
> 
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> 

Vickram

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