[wsfii-discuss] Economic Sustainability of Community Wireless

[Thomas Maketa]

Mbote Ian,

You are right you used the right word, in that context it is economical
value.
And you are also right in your analysis, in lesser developed country project
should be self-financing, in the project we are setting up, the non free
available services will have a price, but the least economically possible.
The infrastructure chosen is the mesh network, so someone with his material
can enter the network without paying anything, the cost intervene only if he
wants to have access to Internet (a bandwidth must be paid). We would give
access to voip functionality which will  be available for free inside the
network.
The goal is to use the resource available within community and to initiate
an endogenous growth of the network.  We think that it is the model
minimizing at maximum cost.
So far did not launched anything yet spending time in all the offices of
administration getting authorization and defending the project (private ISP
dont see us with good eyes) hope we will be done soon.

Cheers
TM

On 4/27/07, Ian Howard <ihoward at netdotworking.com> wrote:
>
> Mbote Thomas!
>
> Indeed.
>
> Regarding my use of the term "economic value" here. In the design of
> networks in countries like yours, I have found that cash flow is the
> greatest challenge. Local governments are not able to subsidize. Foreign
> governments wish only to provide short-term capital investment. Thus,
> ultimately, most often in the developing world (lesser developed
> countries) the model for supporting a wireless network must be
> self-financing, and thus we must find the economic value, or there is no
> hope to find social value. In Canada, it is much easier for me to build
> a network that is first focused on social value. Many of the community
> networks here use such a model. They provide a social value, more than
> an economic value. That can be done because the costs are negligible in
> terms of the economic output of the community, whereas a network in
> Congo, for example, can be a significant cost in terms of the
> community's economic output, because costs are factors more and revenues
> are much more constrained. So, my use of the term "economic value", I
> propose, is perhaps appropriate here as my point is that the network
> will only survive if its economic value is greater than its costs.
>
> Ian
>
>
> Maketa wrote:
> > Hi Ian,
> > Very pertinent what you said below, maybe we should accept that some
> > project will have as only purpose to show a possibility, and it is
> > people themselves who must embrace  it or not according to their needs.
> >
> > Fundamentally what I draw from your reaction is that a model is
> > adopted only if it suits a community needs, and as there are so
> > different communities with so different needs , because of the
> > difference in environments and mindset  in which they live, than an
> > universal business model is utopia. (So difficult to take the freifunk
> > or the server host based, or the FON , or the exotic model and
> > transpose it at it is in a different context, I know that nobody
> > proposed it !!!!!!).
> >
> > So we should look at model where all the same opportunities are given
> > to everybody and anyone according to his background, availability ,
> > willingness could grab it or not.
> >
> >
> > Just a quick pique to a previous direction that the discussion took, I
> > noticed the way you used "economical value" for you "if the network
> > fulfill a need the community will keep it alive", shouldnt you say
> > however "Social value"???  Why do we always associate something that
> > has a social value to money?
> >
> > >>>>
> > >:leaning to, such as in the phrase,
> > >"Demonstrate the economic viability of sustainable development,
> > promoting a variety of appropriate >sustainable technologies and
> > approaches suitable to local conditions and preferences." We believe
> > >that some models should be simply that, to demonstrate something, for
> > the purpose of testing it and >showing people(training) them. Then,
> > you later close the doors and if local peopl ewant that network, >they
> > will build it, as they will know how (if the project was done
> > right).To get back to your mention of >FM, I might simply redirect
> > your reference to state what is most important is that the network
> > fulfil >ssome crucial need of the community, such as an FM radio is
> > hungry for information, or that farmers >need to know market info. If
> > the network then fulfils a real need, than the network will be kept
> > alive by >the community. It will then have economic value.Cheers!
> >
> > !DSPAM:1,4631fec929642043112128!
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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