[wsfii-discuss] Do your country's Telco Regs help or hinder community networks?

Mon Mar 19 05:58:12 UTC 2007

While it seems to me that to a large extent the
Australian regulations regarding carrier services are
laid out to specifically support providers of
commercial services, they do seem to have a window for
non-commercial activities. 

Perhaps MW needs to look at a model where your members
do not need to directly pay you a fee for anything,
not even for 'recovery' of costs. Self-ownership of
routers is one possibility, with paid maintenance
service provided by independent entrepreneurs who pay
MW a fee in return for directing them to business.
Local maintennce entrepreneurs could bid openly to
attend a service call depending on availability, type
of complaint etc, paying MW an over-riding commission
for providing the bidding environment. 

MW could also charge for maintaining a city-wide 'map'
of available connectivity, to aid mobile users, and
for a 'pass' to individual network 'cells'. I think it
is important to separate out the provision of the
local network from the city-wide 'quality of service'
issues, which is a throwback to telco ways of
thinking.

--- Dan Flett <conhoolio at hotmail.com> wrote:

> And if you have a
> Carrier Licence or operate
> any sort of ISP you are subject to all sorts of
> regulations, including the
> requirement to provide wiretap access to your
> network to law enforcement.
> 

And therefore, if you don't have a 'network' (because
it is in fact severally owned by member individuals,
and not any one entity) such provisions would not
apply?

> Basically, in Australia only commercial Telcos
> registered with the
> Government can offer Internet access and receive
> money for it - even if it's
> only on a cost-recovery basis. The regulatory burden
> placed on ISPs means
> that no volunteer-run non-profit organisation can
> afford the licence fees or
> keep up with the paperwork involved with providing
> internet access.
> 
> I'm interested in hearing if there are similar
> regulations in other
> countries. What regulations is your network subject
> to? Are individuals or
> organisations subject to rules or regulations when
> they (legally) share or
> resell their internet access? Do commercial ISPs in
> your country see
> community networks as competitors?

In India, while the rules are not so clearly (or
blatantly) spelt out in terms of competition between
telcos and data network service providers, this in
fact underlies the application of policy. 

There is a move to provide national accessibility to
broadband. At this point in time, the development of
this activity seems skewed towards favouring the
involvement of large organisations (who are called
service agencies).

You mentoned above that even sharing of access is 
legal - why not find a way to delink providing access
from the cost of service? Say, all members of the MW
community set aside some amount of their bandwidth for
free public access - MW charges a fee from managing
this activity, not for providing Internet access. 

> Frankly, it is embarrassing to see how backward
> their thinking is.

It is embarrassing to see that policymakers around the
world continue their top-down approach to governance
despite its obvious drawbacks. Smart and inclusive
thinking seems anathema. 

Do you have an environment for participatory
discussion of such issues, and would enough ordinary
citizens get engaged if discussions were encouraged?
This is an important factor in bringing about a more
inclusive approach. 

The reason I ask this is that in a related area, local
radio broadcasting, I understand the Australan
government has decided to enforce a shift from FM to
DAB, which involves a cost prohibitive to local
community based public service broadcasters. 

> 
> I believe we could quite
> happily offer Internet on a
> non-profit, best-effort basis and no commercial
> operator would notice.
> 

I hardly think so. In the short term, such services
would certainly cull out the rapacious providers of
overly expensive vanilla networks, leaving only the
super high-tech and 'added-value' quality conscious
providers of what today are considered premium
services. The consumer would benefit of course, but
perhaps that isn't so obvious to regulators. 

> I eagerly await your feedback on this issue!
> 
I don't think your post actually asked for such
suggestions, so please forgive any unwanted gratuitous
inputs on how to run your affairs.

Vickram

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