Community Networks
THE 43 COUNTRY REPORTS included in this year’s Global
Information Society Watch (GISWatch) capture the different
experiences and approaches in setting up community
networks across the globe. They show that key ideas,such as participatory governance systems, community
ownership and skills transfer, as well as the “do-it-yourself”
spirit that drives community networks in many different
contexts, are characteristics that lend them a sharedpurpose and approach.
The country reports are framed by eight thematic reportsthat deal with critical issues such as the regulatory
framework necessary to support community networks,
sustainability, local content, feminist infrastructure andcommunity networks, and the importance of being awareof “community stories” and the power structuresembedded in those stories.

GLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY WATCH 2018

GLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY WATCH 2018

		

GLOBALGLOBALINFORMATIONINFORMATION
SOCIETY
WATCH
2018
SOCIETY
WATCH
2018
COMMUNITY
NETWORKSGLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY WATCH
Community
Networks
Community
Networks

GLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY WATCH
2018 Reportwww.GISWatch.org

International Development Research Centre
Centre de recherches pour le développement international

Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
A SSOCI ATION FOR P ROGRESSIVE C OMMUNIC ATIONS (AP C)
and I nternational Development R esearch Centre (IDRC)

Tapa_GISW_2018.indd 1

GISW_Prueba01.indd 1

12/10/18
13/9/1812:44
15:51

Global Information Society Watch

2018

International Development Research Centre
Centre de recherches pour le développement internationalGlobal Information Society Watch 2018
Community Networks

Operational teamRoxana Bassi (APC)
Valeria Betancourt (APC)
Kathleen Diga (APC)
Alan Finlay (APC)
Michael Jensen (APC)
Carlos Rey-Moreno (APC)
APC project coordination team
Namita Aavriti (APC)
Roxana Bassi (APC)
Valeria Betancourt (APC)
Kathleen Diga (APC)
Anriette Esterhuysen (APC)
Flavia Fascendini (APC)
Alan Finlay (APC)
Chat Garcia Ramilo (APC)
Michael Jensen (APC)
Carlos Rey-Moreno (APC)

GISWatch 2018 advisory committee
Carlos Baca (REDES)
Luca Belli (FGV)
Jane Coffin (ISOC)
Kazanka Comfort (Fantsuam Foundation)
Stéphane Couture (York University)
Alison Gillwald (Research ICT Africa)
Michuki Mwangi (ISOC)
Leandro Navarro (PANGEA)
Dorothy Okello (WOUGNET/Makerere University)
Nico Pace (AlterMundi)
Steve Song (Village Telco/Rhizomatica)
Ritu Srivastava (DEF)
Project coordinator
Kathleen Diga / Roxana Bassi (APC)
EditorAlan Finlay
Assistant editor and proofreading
Lori Nordstrom (APC)
Publication production support
Cathy Chen

Graphic design
Monocromo
info@monocromo.com.uy
Phone: +598 2400 1685
Cover illustration
Matías Bervejillo
This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development ResearchCentre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada, as part of the APC project “Community access networks: How toconnect the next billion to the Internet”. More information at: https://www.apc.org/en/project/
local-access-networks-can-unconnected-connect-themselves
The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of IDRC or its Board of Governors.

International Development Research Centre
Centre de recherches pour le développement international

Financial support provided byThis edition of GISWatch came into being alongside a brandnew baby boy. Welcome to the world, Ronan Diga!
Published by APC
2018
Printed in USA
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Some rights reserved.
Global Information Society Watch 2018 web and e-book
ISBN 978-92-95113-06-0
APC-201810-CIPP-R-EN-DIGITAL-296
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the introduction, thematic and country reportsof GISWatch are not necessarily the views of APC or of its members.

Table of contents

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Chat Garcia Ramilo
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)

Introduction
The rise and fall and rise of community
networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Steve Song, Carlos Rey-Moreno, Anriette Esterhuysen,
Mike Jensen and Leandro Navarro
fellow in residence, mozilla foundation; association for progressive
communications (apc); pangea.org

thematic reports

At the limits of the internet: Technology
options for community networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Country reports

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Alan Finlay

Argentina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Asociación Civil AlterMundi and Red Comunitaria
QuintanaLibre - jésica giudice

Australia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Media and Communications, Swinburne Universityof Technology - andrew garton

Benin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
POPDEV Bénin - sênoudé pacôme tomètissi

Brazil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Instituto Nupef - oona castro, with the collaboration

Leandro Navarro, Leonardo Maccari and Renato Lo Cigno
pangea, universitat politècnica de catalunya, ninux, university of trentoof carlos alberto afonso and paulo duarte

Legal framework for community networks
in Latin America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Fonias Jurua Project - anna orlova and rafael diniz

Erick Huerta
rhizomatica

Community networks and telecommunications
regulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Steve Song

fellow in residence, mozilla foundation

Towards financial sustainability
in community-based networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Mike Jensen

association for progressive communications (apc)

Community networks as a key enablerof sustainable access: A review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Michael J. Oghia

Brazil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
First Mile Connectivity Consortium - rob mcmahon
and the first mile connectivity consortium

The Caribbean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Internet Society Chapters in St. Vincent and the Grenadines,
Guyana, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, Barbados
and Panama and ISOC Blockchain Special Interest Grouprenata aquino ribeiro

Catalonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
guifi.net community - roger baig, leandro navarro, ramon rocaand felix freitag

China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Hudson Lockett

Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Community networks: Stories and power. . . . . . . 36

Colnodo - julián casasbuenas and lilian chamorro(with the collaboration of olga paz martínez)international university of management, namibia

Congo, Democratic Republic of . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  111

Nicola J. Bidwell

Feminist infrastructure and community
networks: An opportunity to rethink
our connections from the bottom up,seeking diversity and autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Bruna Zanolli (Vedetas, radiolivre.org), Carla Jancz (Vedetas,
Actantes), Cristiana Gonzalez (PPGS-IFCH/Unicamp),
Daiane Araujo dos Santos (Rede Base Comum/Casa dos Meninos)and Débora Prado (Lavits, Labjor/Unicamp)

Decentralising culture: The challengeof local content in community networks. . . . . . . . 52
Nicolás Echániz and Florencia López Pezéaltermundi

Mesh Bukavu - pacifique zikomangane

Costa Rica. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Cooperativa Sulá Batsú - kemly camacho

Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Anonymous

Georgia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Small and Medium Telecom Operators Associationof Georgia and Tusheti Development Fund - ucha seturi
and rati kochlamazashvili

Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Freifunk - tim schütz and monic meiselGhana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Nigeria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Fantsuam Foundation - john dada

Greece. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Pakistan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Wireless for Communities Pakistan - naveed haq

Afrotribune - emmanuel elolo agbenonwossi

Sarantaporo.gr - vassilis chryssos, aimilia voulvouli,
alexandros papageorgiou, giorgos klisiaris and nicholas kourtzis

Honduras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Red de Desarrollo Sostenible-Honduras and InternetSociety Honduras Chapter - eduardo tome

India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) - ritu srivastava
India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Gram Marg rural broadband project, Department of ElectricalEngineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
sarbani banerjee belur

Indonesia and Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Advisor to Forum Masyarakat Adat Dataran Tinggi Borneo(FORMADAT) - roger w. harris

Italy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
University of Trento, CNIT and ninux.org
leonardo maccari and claudio pisa

Kenya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Tunapanda Institute - josephine miliza
Kyrgyzstan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Internet Society Kyrgyzstan Chapter - isabek asanbaev
and talant sultanov

Malaysia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (EMPOWER)
angela m. kuga thas

Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Peru. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Communication Department, Pontificia Universidad
Católica del Perú - juan bossio

Philippines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
University of the Philippines – Diliman and Universityof Washington - mary claire barela, josephine dionisio,
kurtis heimerl, manuel victor sapitula and cedric angelo festin

Portugal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
WirelessPT - miguel vieira
Seychelles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Janick Bru

South Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Zenzeleni- sol luca de tena and carlos rey-moreno
Tanzania. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

The University of Dodoma, College of Informatics and Virtual
Education; Internet Society - jabhera matogoro in conversation
with jane coffin and colin muller

Thailand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Internet Education and Research Laboratory (intERLab) –Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Net2Home Social
Enterprise - kanchana kanchanasut, adisorn lertsinsubtavee,
apinun tunpan, nisarat tansakul, preechai mekbungwan, nunthaphat
weshsuwannarugs and parkpoom tripatana

Tunisia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
iGmena - hamza ben mehrez

REDES A.C., Rhizomatica and Colectivo Ik’ta K’op
carlos baca-feldman, peter bloom, mariano gómez and erick huerta

Uganda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
BOSCO Uganda - tonny okwonga

Myanmar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

United States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Alternative Solutions for Rural Communities (ASORCOM)
michael suantak

Namibia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Internet Society (ISOC) - quentillian louw in conversation
with jane coffin and colin muller

Nepal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191
National Innovation Centre - mahabir pun

Digital Equity Laboratory, The New School; Detroit Community
Technology Project - greta byrum and diana nucera

Venezuela. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Maureen Hernández

Zambia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Macha Works - fred mweetwa and gertjan van stamPreface
Chat Garcia Ramilo
Executive director, APC

This year’s Global Information Society
Watch (GISWatch) focuses on community networks. Community networks
are “communication networks built,
owned, operated, and used by citizens
in a participatory and open manner.”1
This is a starting point. As the 43 country
reports gathered here show, in practice,“community networks” can be hybrid
systems, with different political andpractical objectives. The country reports
cover a diverse range of countries suchas Georgia, Nepal, South Africa, India,
Argentina, Honduras, Portugal, Germany
and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Key ideas like participatory governancesystems and community ownership andskills transfer, and the “do-it-yourself ”
spirit that drives community networks,
give community networks across theglobe a shared purpose and implementation methodology.
The country reports are framed by eightthematic reports. Some – for example,
those by Steve Song, Mike Jensen and
Nic Bidwell – draw on research conducted under the two-year “Community
access networks: How to connect thenext billion to the Internet” project
implemented by the Association for
Progressive Communications (APC) andRhizomatica in collaboration with the

1

Internet Society and funded by the International Development Research Centre(IDRC). The thematic reports deal withissues critical to the emerging global
community network movement of which
the Community access networks projectis a part. The themes include the needfor telecommunication regulation institutions to take into account the steep
reductions in costs that wireless technologies have effected and to redesign
regulation to further community networks; the need to increase awarenessof “community stories” and the power
structures embedded in those stories;
the need to foster the transformationof local social structures and power
relationships to enhance the agency ofwomen and give them real power; theneed to increase meaningful local content that is conducive to social change;
and the need to explore ways for community networks to achieve financial
sustainability.
This GISWatch edition was supported bya group of experts whose contributions,as members of the advisory committee,
are gratefully acknowledged. We arepleased to present this edition to raiseawareness of the tremendous potentialof community networks to help achieve
universal access.

See the introduction to this year’s edition of GISWatch, “The rise andfall and rise of community networks”.
Preface / 5

Introduction
The rise and fall and rise of community networks

Steve Song, Carlos Rey-Moreno, Anriette Esterhuysen,
Mike Jensen and Leandro Navarro
Fellow in Residence, Mozilla Foundation; Association for
Progressive Communications (APC); Pangea.org
https://manypossibilities.net; https://www.apc.org;
https://pangea.org

Community networks1 pre-date the commercial
internet. They have their roots in the early email
and electronic bulletin board systems (BBSes) thatemerged in the mid-1980s. These systems grew into
networks, which were adopted by enthusiasts astechnologies that could be easily built with dial-up
modems and the newly emerging, low-cost personal computers. These networks were also adopted bysocial activists who immediately saw their potential
for improved organising, knowledge sharing, andawareness raising.
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC), a global network of social activist
organisations, has its roots in connecting community groups around the world with email and news2
at a time when email was limited to a tiny fractionof society using standalone BBSes or computersin academic departments. When it became possible to network these systems together – using
FidoNet3 or UUCP,4 for example – their affordability and accessibility helped to spread their use tosocial and political movements in communities
around the world, particularly among those who
1
2

3

4

Communication networks that are built, owned, operated and usedby citizens in a participatory and open manner.
News at the time was exchanged through “newsgroups”, primarily
through “Usenet newsgroups” which allowed users to sharenews articles as well as discuss the content with others. Some
newsgroups were used purely for debate and discussion. Usenet
was developed over a decade before the public internet andthe World Wide Web. APC provided access to both the public
Usenet newsgroup, as well as to APC-run newsgroups. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet and, for a good
introduction by Randy Bush, see https://www.fidonet.org/inet92_
Randy_Bush.txt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP

did not have other reliable ways of communicatinginternationally.5
In this early “pre-internet” phase, APC facilitated the use of email and maintained hundredsof private discussion forums by and for non-governmental organisations, United Nations agencies,
trade unions, universities, journalists and activists.
These forums were batch-replicated among APC
member or partner organisations around the world
and made available locally, initially through dial-up
modems and later also through public networks.6
APC was, as a result, a global computer communications and information network maintained by many
local member “networks” – organisations offering
local access to this global resource network, often
run as self-sustaining cooperatives or collectives.
With the growth of the commercial internet in
the 1990s and the birth of the World Wide Web,7
FidoNet and UUCP began to give way to commercial
internet service providers (ISPs) who offered theentire internet as opposed to just email and newsgroups.8 The users of these early internet services
mainly relied on dial-up modems operating overcopper phone lines. Unlike the store-and-forward
nature of FidoNet/UUCP, dial-up internet required
continuous use of a phone line. While this service
spread rapidly around the world, it was limited tothose who had their own phone lines with stableconnections, and who could afford the monthly subscription fee (and, outside of North America which
had free local calls, large phone bills). Not surprisingly, people in developing countries and the poor
5

6

7
8

Murphy, B. (2001). Mike Jensen and the code that stitched together
the APC: The pre-internet days and early efforts at linking APC
nodes. APC Annual Report 2000. https://www.apc.org/about/history/mike-jensen-pre-internet-days
APC nodes were themselves interconnected by a wide range oftechnologies, from LEO satellites, to international X.25 packet
lines, as well as local university links and international dial-up
connections using the latest high-powered modems (such as theTrailblazers).
The first APC website in the internet archive: https://web.archive.
org/web/19961028120226/http://www.apc.org:80
Surman, M. (2001). Where do we go from here? APC after theinternet explosion. APC Annual Report 2000. https://www.apc.
org/about/history/apc-after-internet-explosion

Introduction / 7

everywhere were the most constrained in their ability to access the internet. A solution that emerged
around that time to directly address affordability,
particularly in Europe and North America, which
had good telecommunications infrastructure, was a
type of community network called a Free-net.9 Freenets offered no-charge dial-up access and public
terminals which allowed ordinary citizens to participate in discussion forums about local city topics
and problems. Many of these Free-nets evolved into
community ISPs.
But it was another low-cost, commodity technology that really enabled the independent growthof community networks. In 2003, it was discoveredthat Linksys, a manufacturer of Wi-Fi access points,
had used software licensed under the GNU General Public License on the firmware of their accesspoints.10 Under such a licence, anyone using orchanging the software must release it into the public domain on the same terms as the freely available
original source. Linksys was compelled to release
the source code for its flagship Wi-Fi access point,
the WRT54G, to the community. This triggered awave of tinkering and innovation with these devices,which in turn led to several important innovations.
Wi-Fi hackers discovered that the access points
could be connected as peers to create a mesh network, allowing them to extend connectivity byplacing them in proximity to each other. They further
discovered that the antennas could be replaced withhomemade directional “can-tennas” which could direct connectivity over several kilometres. The sourcecode evolved into open-source operating systems
for network devices, such as OpenWrt.11 This gavebirth to the community wireless movement which
thrived in cities and universities around the world.
Although these networks were largely limited
to reasonable proximity to an existing internet connection, they had a profound effect on affordable
access as a single dial-up (ADSL) internet connection could be shared with an entire community.
Examples such as Free2Air12 in Europe and othersin the global North provided the basis to learn anddocument experiences13 that were then shared14 andpiloted in the global South.15 Additional momentum
9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-net
10 Miklas, A. (2003, 7 June). Linksys WRT54G and the GPL. LKML.ORG.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2003/6/7/164
11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWrt
12 https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Free2Air
13 wndw.net
14 https://www.apc.org/en/project/wireless-lac-tricalcar andhttps://www.apc.org/en/wireless
15 www.fmfi.org.za/wiki/index.php/
First_Mile_First_Inch_Home_Page

was gained via the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks (IS4CWN) events heldfrom 2004 to 2013, as well as the BattleMesh,16
an annual event organised by developers of open
source, ad hoc network routing protocols.
Towards the end of the 2000s, things changed.
The rise of mobile data networks, first with 3G andthen LTE services, provided an alternative to community wireless networks that was reasonably
affordable and was often more reliable. Also, as
demand for broadband grew, community networks
often struggled to keep pace with demand for capacity. As a result, many of these networks either
disappeared or shifted their focus to content hosting and services. Many commercial wireless ISPs
suffered as well.
Some community networks like guifi.net17 in
the Iberian peninsula evolved to embrace fibre optic infrastructure as well as Wi-Fi and developed
the practice of their community network throughthe exploration of the principles of common pool
resources as developed by Elinor Ostrom.18 The community networks that survived often relied on theextraordinary efforts of a few talented volunteers
and a commitment to build and rely on their own
cooperative networking and access infrastructure.
Fast-forward to the latter half of this decadeand new trends have emerged with implications forcommunity networks. Perhaps most significantly,
the value of being connected has risen to the point
where access to affordable communication has begun to rival access to other basic services in termsof personal priorities. More than a decade ago,
researchers established that simple proximity to
a communication network was directly correlatedwith a reduction in the probability of dying from malaria.19 Today, with smartphones delivering powerfulgeneric services like group and personal messaging and more specific apps aimed at critical sectors
such as education, agriculture and others, communication networks are approaching the statusof essential infrastructure for people’s livelihoods.
Affordable access to communication has gone fromluxury to necessity no matter where you live or what
your income.
And yet, over half of the world’s population still
does not have access to the internet. Traditional
solutions are showing signs of having reached their
16
17
18
19

https://battlemesh.org
See the Catalonia country report in this edition of GISWatch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom
Mozumder, P., & Marathe, A. (2007). Role of informationand communication networks in malaria survival. Malaria
Journal, 6, 136. https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/
articles/10.1186/1475-2875-6-136

8 / Global Information Society Watch

limits. Mobile subscriber growth is slowing as thecurrent economics of mobile network operatorsstruggle to find viability in markets with subsistence-level incomes and/or in sparsely populated
regions. It is also noteworthy that the same situation is being mirrored in the number of internet
users, whose annual growth has slowed from 12% in2016 to only 7% in 2017. Varied attempts to address
this problem, through universal service strategies/
funds, private sector initiatives or philanthropy,
have met with limited success.
This presents a conundrum for policy makers
and regulators where value continues to accrue
to those with affordable access to communication
infrastructure while the unconnected fall further
and further behind by simply staying in the sameplace. Those who most desperately need support
are cut off from access to opportunity, to social andhealthcare safety nets, to education, to informationthat can improve lives, and to platforms to demandchange. It is ironic, or perhaps tragic, that the voicesof the unconnected are not heard on this issue forthe very reason that they are unconnected. And the
problem extends beyond the unconnected. There
are also the underserved. Lack of choice in accessalternatives often results in a cost of access thatis unaffordable for a significant percentage of the
population (especially in rural areas) and/or in low
quality or speed of service. In a context where government shutdowns are becoming a trend, and data
privacy is becoming a growing concern to many, thislack of alternatives also compromises the freedomof expression of many users.
These unattended needs represent a challenge
and an opportunity for community networks. If community networks were able to thrive and provide
services effectively in the pre-internet era, might it
be possible that they can do so again? There are anumber of factors that suggest that the telecommunications infrastructure landscape has shifted yet
again.
The spread of fibre optic infrastructure, bothundersea and terrestrial, is changing the accessmarket. Fibre optic networks are the deep water
ports of the internet. While there is no question that
fibre optic networks are increasing the ability of existing operators to deliver broadband, those same
networks are opening up possibilities for new players who can now deliver more targeted, localised,affordable solutions to unserved and underserved
populations. Where open access20 policies exist,
the spread of undersea and terrestrial fibre optic

networks has democratised access to broadband.
Changes in last-mile technology are also opening up new possibilities. The spread of Wi-Fi as anaccess technology is empowering commercial, government and community access initiatives to offer
local services. Dynamic spectrum technologies
such as television white space (TVWS) also showpromise as alternative access technologies.
Finally, the meteoric growth of access combinedwith mass manufacturing has brought down thecost and complexity of access technologies to thepoint where they are within the reach of small-scale
operators. For example, low-cost solar-powered
open source GSM base stations can be deployed
for a fraction of the cost compared to the proprietary equipment used by existing mobile network
operators.
All of these changes in the infrastructure andthe technologies available are now being exploited in many imaginative forms by communities
around the world to meet their communicationneeds. Those needs vary, and relate to issues suchas a lack of services, the affordability or quality ofaccess to voice and data services, or the lack of locally relevant content and services, often ignoredby mainstream providers. But a community’s communication needs go beyond just technical issues.
In places where both commercial and community
providers exist, users may choose to access communications via a community network because oftrust, because of its commitment to local development, because it is customer friendly, or it preserves
and defends their privacy better than other options
available.
Yet while there are many good examples of community network success stories across the world,
community networks are not yet the norm that theymight become.
There are several reasons for this.
First there is a lack of awareness of opportunity. The more advanced community networks like
B4RN21 in the United Kingdom and guifi.net in the
Iberian peninsula are offering broadband services
that the incumbents cannot match on either speed
or price, yet neither their performance nor the innovative commons-based business models they
operate on are well known. Similarly, in the stateof Oaxaca in Mexico, a non-profit, Rhizomatica,22 is
helping communities build their own GSM base stations and services. But their similarly remarkableachievement is also not as well known as it shouldbe. More needs to be done to spread the word on

20 ITU. (2011). Open access regulation in the digital economy. https://www.itu.int/net/itunews/issues/2011/07/43.aspx

21 https://b4rn.org.uk
22 See the Mexico country report in this edition of GISWatch.

Introduction / 9how these organisations are taking community networks from proven feasibility to proven scalability.
A second limiting factor is the current state ofpolicy and regulation for community networks.
Community networks have largely succeeded inspite of existing regulation rather than becauseof it. Regulatory frameworks were designed withlarge, relatively slow-moving, monolithic operators in mind. Changes in access policy andregulation are required, in particular with regard
to spectrum management, in order to encouragecommunities to address their own access challenges. As the International Telecommunication Union(ITU) has recommended, it is “important that administrations, in their radio-spectrum planning andlicensing activities, consider mechanisms to facilitate the deployment of broadband services in ruraland remote areas by small and non-profit community operators.”23
Another factor is related to the lack of technicaland financial support to backstop those who may
see the opportunities of a community network butlack either the technical expertise or the seed funding to get started. Universal, affordable access tocommunication will only be achieved when communities are empowered to solve their own local accesschallenges, instead of just waiting to be connected.
Finally, communities are composed of people,
with their own background, social dynamics, andhistory. Community networks, like any other othercollective initiative, also have to deal with the different sensitivities of everyone in the community
to avoid clubs that perpetuate existing inequalities, with regard to gender, economic resources, or
technical skills, amongst other areas. This is notalways possible, and tensions and issues need tobe resolved to enable everyone in the community toenjoy the benefits of the network.
Still, as the 43 country reports in this year’s
Global Information Society Watch show, manycollectives around the world have managed to overcome these challenges. And, as in the pre-internet
days, they are collaborating among themselves, exchanging information and learning from each other,and taking collective action at the local, national,
regional and global levels to consolidate their work,and encourage more and more people to join what
has become a global movement.

23 Recommendation ITU-D 19. See: International Telecommunication
Union. (2017). World Telecommunication Development
Conference (WTDC-17): Final Report, p. 634. https://www.
itu.int/en/ITU-D/Conferences/WTDC/WTDC17/Documents/
WTDC17_final_report_en.pdf
10 / Global Information Society Watch

Thematic reports

GLOBAL INFORMATION
SOCIETY
WATCH
2018
COMMUNITY
NETWORKSGLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY WATCH

Community Networks

A SSOCI ATION FOR P ROGRESSIVE C OMMUNIC ATIONS (AP C)GISW_Prueba01.indd 1

13/9/18 15:51

At the limits of the internet: Technology options forcommunity networks1

Leandro Navarro, Leonardo Maccari and Renato Lo Cigno
Pangea, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Ninux,
University of Trento
https://pangea.org, https://upc.edu, ninux.org, https://www.unitn.it

Introduction
Community networks are kinds of networking infrastructures built to provide local and global
connectivity to interconnect people and devices
and transfer messages and content. As with othercritical infrastructures, the challenge is to reacheveryone and anything requiring connectivity. Thisrelies on a combination of technologies to optimise
affordability, complexity, quality and performance.
This report discusses how connectivity works ingeneral, the specifics of network access and backhaul technology, and the software considerations
when setting up a community network. It then offers a list of key software and other resources useful
to community networks.

Connectivity
Connectivity – the ability to connect or communicate with others – comes in units of links that arepart of the internet. Links bring access to people
or devices in a given location or as they move fromlocation to location. Interconnected links spreadover geographic areas to provide coverage forming
access networks, or autonomous systems. Regions
which are at the edges of the internet are connected through routers and long-distance links, also
known as the backhaul network, which connects
access networks to the core of the internet. In somecases, access providers use internet exchange
points (IXPs), where autonomous systems meetand exchange or trade internet traffic to reach local
content or transit providers. Transit providers allow
customer networks to cross or “transit” the provider’s network, usually to reach the rest of the internet.
This can take the form of offering backhaul connectivity to networks. They do not offer connectivity
1This work has been partially funded by the European
Commission, H2020-ICT-2015 Programme, Grant Number 688768“netCommons” (Network Infrastructure as Commons).

to individual end-users. Technology in the form ofstandards, hardware and software artifacts, andtheir complexity, restrictions, performance, costand evolution, determine the availability of connectivity or the lack of it.
The electromagnetic spectrum refers to the rangeof all frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. Theinternet relies on devices that generate, carry andread information encoded in this radiation in theform of waves in cables, in the air or even as lightwaves in optic fibres. Simply speaking, waves are
oscillations, and at each oscillation some information is moved. The bandwidth of a signal refers to
how wide the frequency range of the oscillation is. A
wider frequency range, a broad band, results in higher data transfer speeds. Therefore, broadband is an
old term to refer to connectivity from the perspectiveof the allocated spectrum bandwidth.2 By being analways-on and faster internet access, fit for a wide
range of uses, broadband is differentiated from slow
and fragile access through telephone lines (dial-up,
or narrowband). The term is carefully defined andpolitically loaded in the telecom regulation in every
region3 as it affects criteria for digital inclusion policies and public subsidies or investment.
Generally speaking, transmitting two different
wireless signals at the same frequency creates interference, and may make it impossible to receive
any information. For these reasons the public electromagnetic spectrum is divided in intervals (bands)
and each band may be licensed or unlicensed. There
are international agreements and regulations regarding this public spectrum,4 but to use a licensed
band one must obtain an authorisation from a local
regulator (a public body that has the task of assigning bands of the public spectrum commons tooperators, generally at a cost). Unlicensed bands5
are free for use, which means that they must use
2

3

4
5

Analogous to comparing traffic characteristics of vehicles (packets)on roads (links) referring to the thickness of their asphalt (signal tonoise ratio) or width of lanes (narrow or broad).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband; regional definitions –EU: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/broadbandglossary and UK: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/broadband.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_spectrum; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITU_Radio_Regulations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band

Thematic reports / 13

figure 1.

Spectrum properties. Frequency ranges (Hz), wavelength (metres), radiation. Wi-Fi is on the range of
109 Hz and light on 1014

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EM_Spectrum_Properties_edit.svg

technical means to survive congestion, and in general are considered less reliable. Cables and fibres
create their own “private spectrums” that are separate from the public spectrum and do not interferewith each other.
More speed allows for more communication tohappen simultaneously. Adequate connectivity allows running one or multiple apps with no visible
degradation, which means not limited by data rate or
fluctuations (congestion) at any part of the network
path. Using the analogy of roads, if broadband is theasphalt, lanes carry data packets (cars) and roundabouts correspond to routers that do packet switching and queueing. Quality also includes reliability,
the quality of being trustworthy or performing consistently well, and latency, the time interval between
input and response, which depends on the lengthof the network path, given the unavoidable physicallimits of propagation of electromagnetic signals.6

AccessAccess generally refers to the first network link between a hardware device (also called a “terminal”)
and the network that reaches each user or server
device. Mobile phones, and computers in general,link human beings to the internet, but many types of
6Less than 300 metres per microsecond (light), comparable to the
execution time of a CPU instruction.

hardware serve as terminal nodes, such as servers,
printers, cameras, and environmental sensors. Theseterminals are typically connected through cables, orwithout (wireless), with the first option offering awider bandwidth at the cost of a higher price (cables
need ducts to be deployed and reach our houses),
and the second option being generally poorer in performance, but cheaper and supporting mobility.
Wired access usually reuses an existing wired
cable such as a telephone copper line (dial-up, DSL)
or TV distribution cable. The evolution towards moredata traffic has led to the replacement of copper
network segments with faster fibre7 – for example,
fibre to the cabinet in the neighborhood (FTTC) or to
the premises/building (FTTP) extended by reusing
existing copper cables to each premises, and full fibre access networks to each unit, business or home
(FTTH). As fibre cables and fibre network devices getstandardised and become easy and cheap to deploy,community networks have adopted the FTTH accessmodel, with examples of full fibre in the Broadband
for the Rural North (B4RN)8 community network, and,mixed with some participants using wireless whileothers use full fibre, in the case of guifi.net.9 These
give typical access rates of around 1-10 Gbps.
78
9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_x
https://b4rn.org.uk
https://guifi.net/en/node/38392

14 / Global Information Society Watch

Wireless cellular access networks: The road to 5G
Mobile devices get connected through some formof GSM (Global System for Mobile communications)standards or evolutions of it, nowadays describedin terms of technology generations (from 1G to 5G).
Each connectivity provider sets up base stations
with omnidirectional antennas that cover a certain
area (a “cell”) and pays a fee to have a licence forthe exclusive use of a part of the electromagnetic
spectrum to serve its customers. The more spectrum allocated to a given mobile provider, the morecustomers will be able to communicate at the sametime in the same cell. That leads to a competitive
privatisation of the public spectrum, typically atcountry level, for commercial usage: optimised tomaximise the profit, and therefore prioritising andoptimising the most profitable market of dense (urban) population with higher disposable income.
The allocation of public spectrum is a goodsource of income for governments (through spectrum
auctions) and a good source of business for mobile
operators, but leaves less spectrum available for other public, community or private uses. In underserved
areas, there is the tragedy of lock-out of allocatedspectrum, kept idle by the licensee due to lack ofprofitability and preventing its usage by anyone else.
The evolution of mobile technology has brought
faster data rates with more efficient data encodings, better support for mobility, roaming, internet
packets, and different coverages for dense (a few
metres with pico/femto cells) or sparse macrocell
deployments up to a 100 km radius.
The future generation of mobile connectivity (5G)
deserves special attention, as it is intended to be not
only a technological update but a leap forward. The
goal of 5G is to provide a 1,000-fold increase of theaggregate network capacity, with up to 10,000 connected devices per base station. Apparently, 5G willchange the way we access the internet. This requiresa large spatial densification of the base stations, andtherefore a huge investment to install and connect
them through high-capacity links (typically fibre or
high-capacity directive radio links). Operators will
generate revenues selling new kinds of applications
that take advantage of the breakthrough in termsof bandwidth and communication delay. The needfor densification shows the focus on more speed insmaller areas, as opposed to a focus on increased
coverage. This will increase the cost per user and the
profit of the service provider in a given location.
It is worth noting that more than eight years
after the roll-out of 4G,10 only 29% of the five bil10 https://www.gsma.com/mobileeconomy/#techmigration

lion worldwide mobile subscribers use it. Since
5G calls for an even larger capital expenditure for
new infrastructure, it is legitimate to ask: who will
mostly benefit from 5G? Will it ever reach the populations in the developing world, especially in rural
areas? Or – most likely – will it simply widen the divide between those who are already well connected
and can afford better connectivity at a higher price,and those who are still unconnected today, roughly
50% of the world population?
At the other end of the technological spectrum,
we find community networks that work with mobile
phones as user devices that are cheaper, simpler
and lighter than larger devices. These cellular community networks rely on low-cost cellular accesspoints (base stations). Hardware for these basestations is becoming available at lower prices (inthe range of a few thousand USD and 50 W of power consumption) and runs open source software.
Alongside technical advancements, proposals arebeing made on innovative ways to access spectrum,such as progressive regulation for spectrum accessto promote social rights for communities or secondary spectrum access for digital inclusion.11

Wi-Fi access networks
The term Wi-Fi refers to a family of technologies for
wireless radio components (technically belonging
to the IEEE 802.11 standards, with multiple revisions and updates: 11b/g/a/n/ac/ax etc.) that havereached ubiquitous diffusion. Contrary to cellular
access networks, Wi-Fi uses unlicensed spectrum,
which cuts the deployment costs but also increases
the risks of congestion.
At a very low price, a Wi-Fi access point canbe used for an access link to another Wi-Fi device or to the internet (coverage of 100 metresor less) or, using directional antennas, Wi-Fi canprovide high-performance point-to-point links (between only two devices, separated even by tens ofkilometres).
Interconnected with access points throughwired or wireless point-to-point links, Wi-Fi can
expand the coverage of access networks and also
create a backhaul network. The multipoint links,
with sector antennas, result in a mesh network.
A mesh network is a network topology in which
each node is capable of relaying data for any user ofthe network, not just the node owner. In mesh networks, all nodes cooperate in the distribution of data
throughout the network to the mutual benefit of its
participants. With each participating node, the reach,throughput and resilience of the network expands.
11 https://www.rhizomatica.org/blog

Thematic reports / 15

figure 2.

Alternatives for Wi-Fi wireless radio links

Access point

Directive point-to-point

Multipoint or mesh

TVWS radio link

Satellite link
Source: Authors

Mesh networks are able to adapt to changes: whena node joins or leaves the network, the others automatically reconfigure to guarantee connectivity
to the modified network. In some sense, they cangrow “organically” with the growth of the communityof people that use/manage them. A key ingredientof mesh networks is the routing protocol that can
automatically select routes to enable multi-hop communication between any two nodes on the network.
Combined with access points for user devices andinternet gateways to reach the internet, mesh networks allow access networks to transform as newparticipants join, new areas are reached, and morecapacity is added to links and internet gateways.
Many community networks based on mesh networks exist today, often led by volunteers who areable to set up networks to give coverage to large
areas at a fraction of the cost it would require withcellular technology or cables.
The key observation is that if the price to bootstrap
a network is lowered while capacity and cost growincrementally with the growth of the community, thistechnology makes it possible to create networks that
gradually expand with little planning or human coordination and give the time for the community to face thetechnical and organisational issues that come up along
the way. Without a large initial capital expenditure fora spectrum licence and expensive infrastructure, it
is much easier and less risky to create low-cost, bottom-up network infrastructures owned and managed
by initially small communities of participants.

Other wireless access technologies
Another opportunity for long-distance communication is the use of the “white spaces” of TV spectrum,so-called TVWS, which are lower frequencies than
Wi-Fi, and which were allocated to analog TV broadcasting (UHF and VHF) but are not used anymore.
The standards for these radios are IEEE 802.11af
and IEEE 802.22, also referred to as “White-Fi” and“Super Wi-Fi”. The antennas look like TV antennas(both for access points and users) and have very
good coverage, in the range of a radius of tens ofkilometres without the need for line of sight.
What is known as the “internet of things” (IoT)
allows us to connect “slow” devices, such as sensors, using very-long-range transmissions (morethan 10 km in rural areas) with low power consumption and very slow data rates. One popular exampleof this is LoRa/LoRaWAN.12
On the higher part of the spectrum, beyond microwaves, we find millimetre waves, in the range of
30-300 GHz, with one licence-free ISM band13 at 60
GHz. The IEEE 802.11ad standard, also known as
wireless gigabit or WiGig, promised very directive
in-room or open space multi-Gbps communication
12 The Things Network follows a model comparable to a federation ofcommunity networks. See: https://www.thethingsnetwork.org
13 The industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio bands are radio
bands (portions of the radio spectrum) reserved internationallyfor the use of radio frequency energy for industrial, scientificand medical purposes other than telecommunications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band

16 / Global Information Society Watchfigure 3.

Coverage of different technologies, applicable to licensed and unlicensed bands
Coverage with overlapping
omnidirectional antennas

Sub-GHz (TVWS, LoRa)

Wi-Fi 2.4GHz

Wi-Fi 5GHz
Wi-Fi 60GHz

Areas can be covered by multiple antennas in different bands and coveragewith omnidirectional antennas or point-to-point links:– Sub-GHz (TVWS, LoRa ~ 10-30 Km omni)– Wi-Fi 2.4GHz ~ 100 m omni + few walls, ~ 100 Km p2p– Wi-Fi 5GHz~10 m omni, 0-1 walls, ~100 Km p2p– Wi-Fi 60GHz, few metres omni, 0.1-1 Km p2p
Higher frequencies =› faster speeds but less coverage
Results heavily influenced by power, obstacles, interference
Source: Authors

in the range of a few to perhaps a few hundred metres. However, this specification has not succeededin the market, needing expensive and niche devices. Instead there are alternative wireless gigabit
proprietary products in the 24 GHz ISM band.14
IEEE 802.11ay targets even higher speeds of up to
20 Gbps with a final specification expected by 2019and products a few months later.
Satellite access15 only appears as a competitive solution for low population density areas, inthe range of less than a few tens of inhabitants per
square kilometre. Beyond that it becomes too costly compared to the alternatives. The added latency
comes from propagation delay considering the radius of the orbits, 1,000 km high or 12 ms for low
earth orbits (LEO), 10,000 km or 120 ms for medium
earth orbits (MEO), and 36,000 km or 480 ms forgeostationary orbit (GEO). The satellite latency is areason in favour of high-altitude planes or balloon
networks that operate in the stratosphere, at altitudes around 20 km16 with less than 1 ms latency.
The service cost for satellite is determined by
the number of subscribers in the coverage area, thecost of the satellite in orbit, and the base stations
on the supplier side. The frequency bands used forinternet traffic are C: 4-8 GHz, Ku: 12-18 GHz, Ka: 2640 GHz with antennas for users of 2.5 metres in the
14 See, for example: https://www.ubnt.com/airfiber/airfiber24-hd
15 https://youtu.be/YDedVZ04aqk?t=8s
16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_balloon; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon_(company)

C band, 1 metre in Ku band or less than that in Ka
band. The achievable data rates, assuming the total
capacity of the satellite is not saturated, can be up
to 16 Mbps for 99.995% of the time for the C band,64 Mbps for 99.9% of the time for the Ku band, and
512 Mbps for 99.7% of the time for the Ka band ina temperate climate, as rain has more of a fading(degradation) effect on higher frequencies. Satelliteinternet access has unique characteristics in coverage, but is expensive given the cost of build, launch,capacity and latency. Although an expensive accesstechnology for any individual user, some community networks in remote environments may benefit
from sharing the cost and capacity of satellite connectivity as one of the sources of connectivity in thebackhaul to reach the internet, but ideally not the
only one.
Beyond technological details and choices, both
Wi-Fi and mobile technologies evolve side by side:
while mobile operators evolve towards LTE and 5G,
successive generations of Wi-Fi technology also offer
faster and cheaper devices capable of serving moreusers (e.g. MIMO) with faster data rates (new modulation schemes) in the range of gigabits per second
but covering smaller areas. Who will win out between
mobile operators or Wi-Fi device vendors? Probably
both will coexist and complement each other, but
definitely one is based on a “centralised” operator
model with its own reserved radio spectrum, andthe other is “self-provided” or “decentralised” using
shared and unlicensed radio spectrum.

Thematic reports / 17

Backhaul
Beyond access networks, network interconnection
relies on long distance links that carry aggregate
traffic, IP packets, from/to the internet. These
links are provided by internet service providers(ISPs), which can be retail providers (one community network sharing one or several retail internet
connections: fibre, DSL or satellite), wholesaleinternet transit providers, with points of presence
reachable over fibre or high-speed point-to-point
radio links, or IXPs, with the presence of multiple
network providers (internet carriers) and content providers (content distribution networks or
CDNs). The interconnection fees in these IXPs may
depend on the symmetry of the traffic (cheaperor even free for a community network with a balanced mix of content that is generated by the
network and users or readers of content on the
network, while more expensive for networks that
only have users or readers of content, the latteralso called “eyeball networks”). Community networks can even formally or informally become
IXPs in regions without any. As mentioned before,
satellite can be one ingredient of the backhaul forcommunity networks in remote areas, but ideally
not the only one.
A growing development to facilitate connectivity
is the availability of open access optical regional networks (or fibre-equivalent radio links) that provide
wholesale/volume connectivity to reach interconnection points, carriers or build access networks.
These shared infrastructures,17 developed cooperatively or competitively, benefit nearly everyone
locally, and therefore may be supported by large
users such as governments, education institutionsor the private sector, and may create economies ofscale of competitive dark, active fibre or ethernet
circuits to facilitate regional connectivity. Availability and cost efficiency in regional connectivity
increase the opportunities to provide more services to more people. Recommendations regarding
functional separation can keep incumbents from unhealthy competition and overbuilding, and facilitatecommunity networks to scale up their deployments
while reducing the cost. Community networks are
effective in aggregating traffic from different stakeholders and sharing internet access, which directlytranslates into a significant reduction of cost forinternet connectivity. This is the case with several

17 For more information, see the APC project “Infrastructure Sharing
for Supporting Better Broadband and Universal Access”: https://www.apc.org/en/infrastructuresharing

community networks that share and rent wholesale
open-access fibre for regional connectivity.18
Another barrier for the deployment of backhaul
cables is the occupation of public space (throughrights of way) by “private” infrastructures for private use. Municipalities are in charge of regulating
this. Beyond laws to facilitate deployments, theguifi.net Foundation has developed the universal
deployment model,19 a template for a municipal
ordinance to help promote the development ofcommons infrastructures. This template helps
municipalities to avoid any discrimination andfacilitate infrastructure deployments that are mutually beneficial for governments and private andcommunity use. The principle is that any cable forprivate use to be deployed on public land is required to assign fibres for public (municipal) andshared/commons usage. This results in a publicand community infrastructure at minimal cost (theprivate actor takes on the installation and maintenance costs in exchange). Therefore, the universal
deployment model simultaneously allows for thethree uses described, which results in infrastructure to expand community networks. The model
can be extended from municipal land nationally,
regionally and internationally (overseas), and evengovern the use of undersea fibres.20

Hardware and software
The behaviour of the building blocks that produce
connectivity is controlled by software. There is thesoftware needed to run the network: routing protocols, authentication systems, and wireless/wired
drivers for link adapters. There is also the software
needed to monitor and manage the network, or network management and planning tools. We do nothave a wide range of these in open source, or not as
stable as proprietary products. The typical discussion in community networks is on the tradeoffs withregard to openness when choosing between proprietary and open source solutions (efficacy vs lock-in
in integrated components).
Hardware is an area where openness is lacking.
Mostly anything directly related to it is still kept
18 See, for example, Waites, W., et al. (2016). RemIX: A Distributed
Internet Exchange for Remote and Rural Networks. https://arxiv.
org/abs/1603.08978 and Baig, R., et al. (2016). Making Community
Networks Economically Sustainable: The guifi.net experience.
people.ac.upc.edu/leandro/pubs/baig-sigcomm.pdf
19 Most recent version in English (outdated): people.
ac.upc.edu/leandro/docs/ordinancePEIT-rev14-en.
pdf; updated version in Catalan: https://fundacio.
guifi.net/web/ content/2322?unique=cef4
bebe39b45ba50ed5ebb5e2a63ecaf07e6cb4&download=true
20 Navarro, L. (2018). Network deployments for universal connectivity.
Presentation at IETF 102, 14-20 July, Montreal, Canada. people.
ac.upc.edu/leandro/docs/ietf-102-universal.pdf

18 / Global Information Society Watch

closed source, with protected intellectual property
and product secrets held by the industry for hardware such as radio boards, radio firmware, device
drivers, and programming interfaces. Notable exceptions of open hardware are the Mesh Potato,21
LibreRouter22 and Turris Omnia23 routers and thesoftware-defined radios for GSM such as UmTRX24
or the USRP25 family.
Proprietary hardware often requires the use of
proprietary software, more expensive and potentially less secure due to the lack of public scrutiny.
It is also less adaptable because it lacks the possibility of contributing bug fixes or alternative
implementations. Most community networks rely
on proprietary hardware and software black boxes,
or a mix of open and closed source, for the previous
reasons. Fortunately, there are a range of standards
and public specifications which allow interoperable interconnection of components from different
sources. The community of open source developers
has made and is working on an impressive list of
key solutions for community networks (see our list
below for details).
Open specifications and standards,26 in comparison to proprietary specifications, are key topromoting software and hardware alternatives,
reducing cost and promoting specialised and optimised components that are interoperable. Publicresearch helps to address the needs of the population, exploring challenges with high societal impact,in contrast to research in industry, which is typicallyfocused on the development of competitive advantages and economic benefits that benefit private
profits and shareholders first. In fact, Elinor Ostrom
identified this requirement in the task of designingsustainable, complex human-resource systems:“Building respectful collaborations between local
users, public officials, and scientific experts is a vital requisite of adaptive governance.”27

Software and other resources forcommunity networks
The following is a set of typical software and relatedresources used in community networks.
21 https://villagetelco.org/mesh-potato
22 https://librerouter.org
23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turris_Omnia
24 https://umtrx.org
25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Universal_Software_Radio_Peripheral
26 Such as those promoted by organisations such as the Instituteof Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) or the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF).
27 Ostrom, E. (2008). The Challenge of Common-Pool Resources.
Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development,
50(4), 8-21. https://doi.org/10.3200/ENVT.50.4.8-21

Wi-Fi access points•

OpenWISP: A software platform that can beused to implement a complete Wi-Fi service, including managing access point devices, captive
portals, user credentials, accounting data andmonitoring.28

Cellular mobile access•

Osmocom: An umbrella project focused on open
source mobile communications; includes software and tools implementing a variety of mobile
communication standards, including GSM,
DECT, TETRA and others.29•

OpenBTS: BTS stands for base transceiver station. OpenBTS is an open source software-based
GSM access point, allowing standard GSM-compatible mobile phones to be used as SIP
endpoints in VoIP networks.30

Firmware for routers•

OpenWrt: An open source project for an embedded operating system based on Linux, primarily
used on embedded devices to route network
traffic.31•

Quick Mesh Project (qMp): A system for easily
deploying Mesh/MANET networks using Wi-Fi
technology. qMp has been designed to be usedin any scenario, such as free community networks, corporate networks, large social events,
quick network deployments, etc. The qMp
firmware, based on OpenWrt, works on many
embedded Wi-Fi network devices.32•

LibreMesh: LibreMesh is an initiative of community network members from different continents
to unite efforts in developing tools to facilitate
the deployment of free networks for any community in the world. The main tool is the LibreMesh
firmware, based on OpenWrt, which standardises the creation of Wi-Fi communities andprovides roaming to existing ones. This project
was initiated to merge a number of pre-existing
firmware projects: AlterMesh (from AlterMundi,
Argentina), qMp (from guifi.net, Catalonia) andeigenNet (from eigenLab, Ninux, Italy).33

28 http://openwisp.org
29 https://osmocom.org
30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBTS
31 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWrt
32 https://qmp.cat
33 https://libremesh.org

Thematic reports / 19

Routing protocols
There are two families of protocols: distance-vector
routing protocols, based on the Bellman-Ford algorithm, share only aggregated information about
the path metrics, whereas link-state routing protocols, based on the Dijkstra algorithm, share thewhole view of the network, and the metric of every
single link is known by every router. Therefore, inlink-state routing, every router has a global map of
the network, whereas distance-vector routing only
takes into account vectors (arrays) of distances tothe other routers in the network. The most popular
distance-vector routing protocols in community networks are Babel and BMX, while Batman-adv and
OLSR are widely used for link-state routing.34•

Babel: A distance-vector routing protocol for internet protocol packet-switched networks thatis designed to be robust and efficient on both
wireless mesh networks and wired networks. In
June 2016, an Internet Engineering Task Force(IETF)35 working group was created whose main
goal is to produce a standard version of Babel.36•

BMX6/7: BMX6 (or the new version BMX7) is an
IPv6 native dynamic routing protocol which offers very advanced features and a small network
overhead (thanks to the distance-vector strategy and a set of optimisations). Version 7 has, inaddition, security routing extensions.37••

Batman-adv: B.A.T.M.A.N. (better approach tomobile ad-hoc networking) Advanced, known as
Batman-adv, is a link-state mesh routing protocol
which runs in the kernel space. Even if the network
topology is made by multiple nodes and multiple
hops, it abstracts it to a single layer 2 collision
domain, so from the user perspective the entire
mesh will look like a single LAN. This architecture
is very interesting for roaming purposes given that
network connections are not lost even when moving and changing access points.38
OLSR: The Optimised Link State Routing protocol is an IP routing protocol optimised for mobile
ad hoc networks. OLSR is a proactive link-staterouting protocol, which uses control messages39 to discover and then disseminate link-state
information throughout an ad hoc mobile

34 http://dsg.ac.upc.edu/eval-mesh-routing-wcn
35 https://www.ietf.org
36 https://www.irif.fr/~jch//software/babel
37 http://bmx6.net
38 https://www.open-mesh.org
39 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Optimized_Link_State_Routing_Protocol#Messages

network. Individual nodes use this topology
information to compute next hop destinations
for all nodes in the network using shortest hop
forwarding paths.40

Network management•

Prometheus: A metrics collection and monitoring system that is particularly well suited tocommunity networks, with data exporters for
network nodes, including network traffic andBMX6/7 routing metadata.41

Network description•

netJSON: A data interchange format based on
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) designed todescribe the basic building blocks of layer 2
and layer 3 networks. It defines several types of
JSON objects and the manner in which they are
combined to represent a network: network configuration of devices, monitoring data, routing
information, and network topology.42

Applications•

FreeSWITCH: A free and open source application
server for real-time communication, WebRTC,
telecommunications, video and VoIP.43

Fibre planning•

FiberFy: An application for those who develop
fibre networks. It allows implementers to plan
deployments and maintenance, define coverage
areas, prepare projects and budgets, etc. It allows the sharing of information among actors
who can intervene in a fibre deployment: suppliers, local administrations, and retailers.44

Governance and economics
See guifi.net’s governance principles45 and economic compensation system,46 or the community sharesfor investment in B4RN.47
40 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Optimized_Link_State_Routing_Protocol
41 https://prometheus.io
42 http://netjson.org
43 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeSWITCH
44 https://github.com/guifi; https://guifi.net/ca/node/107850
45 Baig, R., Roca, R., Freitag, F., & Navarro, L. (2015). guifi.net, a
crowdsourced network infrastructure held in common. Computer
Networks, 90. people.ac.upc.edu/leandro/pubs/crowds-guifi-en.pdf
46 Baig, R., Dalmau, L., Roca, R., Navarro, L., Freitag, F., &Sathiaseelan, A. (2016). Making Community Networks
Economically Sustainable: The guifi.net experience. Paper
presented at the 2016 Workshop on Global Access to the Internet
for All (GAIA), 22-26 August, Florianopolis, Brazil. people.ac.upc.
edu/leandro/pubs/baig-sigcomm.pdf
47 https://b4rn.org.uk/b4rn-community/investors

20 / Global Information Society Watch

Legal framework for community networks
in Latin America

Legal nature of community networks

Erick Huerta
Rhizomatica
https://www.rhizomatica.org

Introduction
Although community networks are not a recent
phenomenon in Latin America,1 they have very little
regulatory oversight in the region, given that mostof the legislation has focused on addressing the behaviour of large service providers and the markets
in which they operate.
The development of regulations that facilitate
the coverage of areas not yet served by internet
providers necessarily involves the creation of aregulatory framework that provides certainty andaccess to the infrastructure required by community
networks to function. This is because up until now,
community networks have been the only sustainable model for connectivity in underserved areas in
the region.
This report provides a starting point for thecreation of a regulatory framework for community networks. We start from the basis that the best
regulation is that which only appears where it isnecessary, since over-regulation can constitute an
obstacle to the growth of any industry and to theachievement of the objectives it intends to serve.2
While new regulations are necessary, the reportshows that the existing legal framework in the region can be drawn on when it comes to issues suchas spectrum allocation, essential infrastructure or,where appropriate, the licences that community
networks require. Although this report is based on
Latin American examples and experience, its logic
can probably be applied in any country.

Considering their network architectures, businessmodels, operating and organisational models andpurposes, community networks have a specific legal
character that finds its place in existing categories
of regulation, regardless of whether or not there isa specific category called “community network” inthe legislation of a given country.
The legal nature of a network allows us to establish the parameters with respect to which it must be
regulated, whether or not it needs to have a licence
and, if applicable, the characteristics that such a licence should have.
In order to establish the legal nature of a network, it is necessary to understand its architecture,
its form of organisation and its purposes. This allows us to consider the legal categories that alreadyexist and that are applicable to it.
In general, community networks can begrouped for legal purposes into three categories:
those that can be categorised as self-provisioning
networks, those providing services, and mixed or
hybrid systems. There may be subdivisions of thesecategories, but while these may be useful in establishing regulatory particularities,3 they are notessential when defining the legal nature of community networks.
The subcategories are also defined according to criteria that are important for each country.
For example, for one country it may be relevant toestablish a distinction between state-owned andcommercial networks, while for another this distinction may not be necessary. Because of theseparticularities, we only discuss the three categories
mentioned above in this report.

Self-provisioning networks
1

2

See Galperin, H., & Girard, B. (2007). Microtelcos in Latin America andthe Caribbean. In H. Galperin & J. Mariscal (Eds.), Digital Poverty: Latin
American and Caribbean Perspectives. IDRC. https://www.idrc.ca/
en/book/digital-poverty-latin-american-and-caribbean-perspectives
The Telecommunications Regulation Handbook published by
the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2011 clearly
defines the objectives of telecommunications regulation, andexplains that it is not about regulating just to regulate, but tomeet four basic objectives: to increase access to technology andservices, avoid market failure, foster effective competition andprotect consumer interests. The Handbook is available at: https://www.itu.int/pub/D-PREF-TRH.1-2011

This type of network is made up of communities ororganised groups that decide to share a telecommunications service through their own network;3

An interesting study that describes the different organisationalmodels of different community networks is Navarro L. et al. (2017).
Report on the Governance Instruments and their Application toCNs (v2), produced as part of the EU-funded netCommons project.
https://www.netcommons.eu/sites/default/files/d1.4_cngovernance_v1.0-2017-12-30.pdf

Thematic reports / 21

they have a non-profit purpose and they build or
share common infrastructure.
This type of network can use free or licensed
spectrum; its interconnection is generally throughanother network, through which they connect with
the internet.4 Legally they might form a non-profit
association or consumer cooperative, just to namea few of the possible governance models.
Examples of these networks are the QuintanaLibre network started by AlterMundi5 in Argentina
and Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias(TIC A.C.)6 in Mexico. QuintanaLibre is a community mesh network that provides internet services inremote areas of the Córdoba region and TIC A.C. isa cellular telephony community network operated
by indigenous communities in the state of Oaxaca,
Mexico.
Because of their characteristics, the networks
are private networks, since they only serve theirmembers and do not normally manage direct interconnection links.7 In a way we can say that they are
similar to a switch in an office building. Basically,
they receive services from one or more provider,and redistribute them inside their network, sharing
the costs. In the case of AlterMundi, these are internet services, and in the case of TIC A.C., cellphoneservices.
Most countries make allowances for private
networks that do not require licensing in their legislation, as long as they are fixed networks or use
free-use spectrum for their wireless links.
When this type of network uses licensed spectrum, it is necessary to request a licence or permit,
depending on the existing regulations. At this point
it becomes essential to distinguish these networks
not only in terms of their legal nature, but in terms
4

5

6

7

When referring to “interconnection” it is necessary to distinguishbetween telephone networks and internet networks. In the former,
when there is interconnection with other networks, it is necessary
to provide services to users not belonging to the network, which is
why these are no longer self-provisioning. In the case of internet
networks, the connection is to a network of networks, and theinterconnection does not change the nature of the service.
AlterMundi is a civil association based in Argentina that works topromote a new paradigm based on freedom through peer collaboration.
AlterMundi explores different manifestations of this collaborationfrom a technological perspective and with an emphasis on community
wireless networks in rural areas and small towns. Through projects suchas LibreMesh and LibreRouter, they contribute to a model based onaccessible technologies that can be handled by people without priortechnological knowledge. See https://www.altermundi.net and theArgentina country report in this edition of GISWatch.
Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias A. C. is a federated
network of cellular telephone networks of indigenous communities.
It has published a Manual of Community Cellular Telephony that
describes its operations (available at: https://www.redesac.org.mx/
telefoniacomunitaria). See https://www.tic-ac.org and the Mexico
country report in this edition of GISWatch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interconnectionof their purpose; otherwise there would be no difference between how we treat a private network of acommercial company, a public-private network, anda private network set up by a marginalised community and serving an area that no other service
provider is interested in.
In these cases it is necessary to establish a specific modality that recognises the purposes of the
network and even the type of community that requests it. In some countries this is already the case:in Mexico a social sector licence exists with two
variations, one for “community” groups and one
for “indigenous communities”. Both of them can be
granted access to spectrum without being subject
to an auction.
The lack of recognition of the social purposeof a community network, as happens in countries
that have the auction as the only model to assign
licences, significantly limits the possibilities ofaccess to the spectrum for community networks.
This can constitute a barrier to competition and,at the same time, deprive communities of several
human rights.
In summary, we can say that if a community network meets the following characteristics, it does
not require a licence (depending on the specificlaws of each country, of course):•

It operates as a self-provisioning network.

•

In the case of telephone networks, it does nothave direct interconnection, and only redistributes an access service.

•

It uses free-use spectrum.

However, if a network complies with a) and b) but
uses licensed spectrum, then it will require a licence. In these cases it is necessary for the country
to have specific legislation in place considering the
purposes of the network and the areas in which it
intends to operate. This could even mean obtaining
a different licensing scheme for primary use (where
protection from interference is guaranteed) or secondary use (where protection from interference is
not guaranteed), depending on whether or not the
spectrum has been allocated to another provider.

Networks that provide services to third parties
There are networks that have a telecommunications
infrastructure constituted as a common good, but
can provide services to third parties that are notnecessarily owners/members of the network. This
small difference makes them providers of tele­communications services and depending on thelegislation, and whether or not they use licensed
spectrum, they require some type of licence.

22 / Global Information Society Watch

Networks that are self-service but perform direct interconnection in telephony also fall into thiscategory, and will require numbering resources,quality of service agreements, and all other obligations that arise from the interconnection of thesetypes of networks.
Examples of this category of community networks are B4RN8 in the United Kingdom or thetelecommunications cooperatives of Argentina.
These networks, although they are constituted ascommunity networks (i.e. the infrastructure belongs
to a specific community), can provide services tonon-members of the network, and therefore we cansay that they are public telecommunications networks that provide services to the general public.
It is their purposes which define the particularcharacteristics of this type of network, not theirarchitecture. That is, their specific legal treatment
derives from their form of economic or social organisation, rather than their networking architecture.
This way of organising can give them special tax orlegal treatment, for example, by being a non-profit
association or cooperative.
Although these types of networks require a licence even if they do not use spectrum, in somecountries they can benefit from a simplified licensing model or from spectrum reserved for them.
This distinction is normal in the case of radio
broadcasting, and a similar principle should apply
in telecommunications. For example, if a country
recognises special legislation for community broadcasting that is derived from its form of governanceand its purposes, when the means of transmission
is changed, but not the form of organisation or
purposes, the same principles should apply. Thisis because there is a general principle of law thatsays: where there is the same reason, there must be
the same provision.
If we also take into account that technologicalconvergence allows the provision of different communication services, by establishing an artificial
distinction for a certain type of community media,
based only on the kind of technology it uses, this
could turn into a barrier to the exercise of the rightto freedom of expression or a barrier to entry tomarkets.9
89

https://b4rn.org.uk“Regulation inspired by the principle of neutrality must avoid
discriminatory effects among other technologies at the same time as
favouring the development of ICTs. Broadly speaking, the regulatory
principle of technological neutrality is based on four commitments:
non-discrimination, sustainability, efficiency and consumer certainty.”
Cullell March, C. (2011). El principi de neutralitat tecnològica i deserveis a la UE: la liberalització de lespectre radioelèctric. IDP.
Revista de Internet, Derecho y Política, 11. https://idp.uoc.edu/
articles/abstract/10.7238/idp.v0i11.1017

There may also be networks with a commercial
purpose, but aimed at a specific market segmentthat is not serviced. In these cases the licensing
model can be simplified to facilitate their attention
to this segment, such as the simplified licence inBrazil for operators that serve localities of less than
5,000 inhabitants.
Countries such as Mexico and Argentina havea special regime for community or social operators
and, in the case of Mexico, spectrum specifically reserved for these purposes. In the case of Mexico,
the spectrum segment in the GSM band assigned
to social uses is not exclusive, since it can be granted at the same time for social and commercial use– the rural and remote areas are far enough awayfrom commercially viable areas so as not to causeinterference.10
In summary, we can say that community networks start to look more like commercial
telecommunications networks, if they provide
services to third parties or, in the case of telephony, if they perform direct telecommunications
interconnection.11
In these cases, the licensing model may consider the purpose or scheme of a specific organisationand create a specific licence; but unlike the first category, these networks usually require a licence.

Mixed networks
In these cases the network constitutes a separate
infrastructure from the services that are provided
and has a different legal status compared to a model where there is a service operator: the network
becomes a separate entity that is not owned by any
operator.
This type of network consists of the aggregationof user nodes into a network, where the users contribute their local infrastructure to create a common
infrastructure. There are, in this model, multiple
pieces of a network that are added together to forma single one. This is something similar to what is
known in civil law as servitude: where private property or goods are also used for the benefit of others,
as is the case with the right of way, where the good(in this case a piece of land) remains the propertyof the owner but he or she must allow passage andnot hinder the passage of others across that land.

10 Programa Anual de Bandas de Frecuencia 2016, Instituto Federal
de Telecomunicaciones, Mexico.
11 To determine if there is interconnection, it is advisable to observe
whether the network requires interconnection agreements for theprovision of its services, and if the interconnection is made using its
own resources or that of another operator.

Thematic reports / 23

Its existence in the law is old and still enforced, as is
the case with transhumant grazing routes.12
This licensing model can exist without a specificentity that owns the network, because it is enoughto have a governance agreement for the network.
These are interconnection agreements between different owners of nodes or network segments, which
can be operators, users, universities, community
networks, municipalities, governments, etc.13 Noneof them owns the network and therefore nobody operates it in its entirety.
In these cases it depends on the legal natureof each node owner whether the network needs
a licence or not. If a user is a telecommunications

service provider, it will require a licence, but if it is a
private network, it will not.

Conclusions
To determine the need for a licence for a community
network, you have to consider the network architecture in the first place and the infrastructure it uses
(free spectrum, licensed or shared infrastructure).
If the network is private and uses free spectrum, it
probably does not require a licence.
If it is a public or private network that uses
spectrum, its purpose and form of social/legalorganisation must be analysed to see if it fits a specific type of licensing scheme.

12 See, for example, the chapter on “Ownership, Tenure Regime andUse” in the White Paper on Transhumance in Spain by the Ministryof Agriculture, Food and Environment of Spain. It shows how theproperty regime of transhumant lands is varied, but mainly public,
and how the use of the land affects its legal status. https://www.
mapa.gob.es/es/desarrollo-rural/publicaciones/publicaciones-dedesarrollo-rural/LIBRO%20BLANCO%202013_tcm30-131212.pdf
13 See, for example, the commons approach of guifinet: https://
guifi.net; for a more in-depth study, see Navarro et al. (2016). A
Commons-Oriented Framework for Community Networks. In L. Belli(Ed.), Community Connectivity: Building the Internet From Scratch.
Annual Report of the UN IGF Dynamic Coalition on Community
Connectivity. https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/index.
php?q=filedepot_download/4391/1163; see also the Catalonia reportin this edition of GISWatch.
24 / Global Information Society Watch

Community networks and telecommunications
regulation

Steve Song
Fellow in Residence, Mozilla Foundation
https://manypossibilities.net

Regulation should not just be
about large operators
The world of cables and radio waves that make up
the underlying physical communication infrastructure on which the internet is built is fundamentallydifferent from the digital world of the internet wherepermissionless innovation rules. Where affordable
access to the internet exists, the barriers to manifesting a work digitally are extremely low. Although
there are signs that this may be changing, the internet remains a realm largely free of regulation.
Digital producers require no licence or certification
to create, just the willingness to invest the time andeffort in the production.
Telecommunications infrastructure comes froma very different history. As centrally controlled, topdown networks based on a command-and-control
philosophy, their underlying conception is radicallydifferent from the more organic, bottom-up networkof networks that is the internet. There are reasonsfor this. At the time the first large-scale tele­communication networks were being developed,
their construction was an effort so extraordinaryand expensive that they were typically only undertaken by national governments. Following the
tradition of postal services, countries undertook
the provision of telecommunication infrastructure
as a public good.
This began to change in the early 1990s as,around the world, governments began to embrace
privatisation as a means of addressing inefficiencies
in state-run infrastructure monopolies as well as ameans of generating revenue for the exchequer. In
most countries, privatisation was accompanied by aprocess of market liberalisation allowing for competition for the first time. Part of the privatisation andliberalisation involved the establishment of regulatory frameworks and organisations to ensure thatthe public good was still being served and that theresulting privatised and liberalised market was fair,
open and competitive.

It is not surprising that these regulatory bodies
were designed to deal with large-scale national companies, because it required millions (even billions) ofdollars of investment to build a national communication network including the international connectivity,
national backhaul (long-distance, high-capacity infrastructure) and last-mile infrastructure.
Because of this, most telecommunication regulatory frameworks are designed with these large
corporations in mind, with implications for organisational capacity. It is implied, for example, within mostregulatory processes and requirements that theapplicant has the time and resources that the legal
department of a large telecommunications corporation might possess to fulfil detailed applications andreporting requirements as well as draft submissions
and commentary on new proposed regulations. With
the new norm of auctioning high-demand spectrum,
it is assumed that any telecommunications organisation should have the millions of dollars required tobid on spectrum licences.
An exception to the above model has emerged,
however, with the growth of the use of Wi-Fi
technologies. Wi-Fi equipment operates in the licence-exempt frequency bands which are regulated
through technological constraints rather than therequirement of a user licence. The licence-exempt
nature of Wi-Fi has created a very low market barrier for both manufacturing and deployment of thistechnology. Wi-Fi has proven successful as bothan access technology and a backhaul technology,
making it suitable for a wide range of deployments.
It is estimated that the Wi-Fi market will be worth
USD 15.6 billion by 2022.1 Wi-Fi has allowed people
to build out broadband networks in a manner thatwas not foreseen by regulators. It has allowed forindependent initiatives to establish connectivity inplaces that were either unserved or where access
was deemed expensive by citizens. It has enabled
the rise of small-scale operators both in the formof non-profit community-owned networks and commercial wireless internet services providers (ISPs).
1

MarketsandMarkets. (2018, 23 March). Wi-Fi Market worth 15.60
Billion USD by 2022. https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/
PressReleases/global-wi-fi.asp

Thematic reports / 25

The disaggregation of the telecommunications
network supply chain has also enabled the use of
Wi-Fi for internet access at the community level.
Historically, telecommunication operators managed
the entire communication network infrastructure,from international backhaul links through undersea cable to national fibre optic and microwave
backhaul networks to the last mile connecting consumers. Increasingly, international, national andmetropolitan network infrastructures are available
as wholesale services to any operator, lowering thebar to market entry for smaller operators who canfocus on last-mile delivery.
Finally, communication technology in general
has come down dramatically in cost. Not only has
Wi-Fi technology become extremely affordable,
but all kinds of communication technologies, frompoint-to-point microwave to GSM to LTE base stations have dropped in price; even fibre optics now
have prices that are within the reach of the community network and small-scale operator.
All of these changes represent tremendous potential for community networks.
Nevertheless, most regulatory frameworks have
yet to catch up with these changes and are not
structured in such as way as to enable communities
to easily take advantage of them. Most community networks happen in spite of existing regulatory
frameworks, not because of them.

Regulation needs to evolve
Most regulatory and policy frameworks focus on
the provision of broadband access primarily by alimited number of national mobile operators. This
presents barriers to other models of access that cancomplement the existing players, whose businessmodels are less able to cost-effectively serve remote and sparsely populated areas.
Regulators need to recognise community networks and small-scale operators as an essential
part of their regulatory strategy, representing animportant complementary approach to access delivery that can address geographic or sectoral gaps
in service delivery. This is not a case of replacing
one approach with another but of recognising thatcountries do not have one single economy. Frenchhistorian Fernand Braudel2 argued that economies
can be understood at three different levels: ordinary economic life at the base, where local efforts
are consumed locally; then the market economyof cities, markets and trade, currencies, transportsystems, etc.; and at the top, capitalism, wherecompetition for control of entire trade networks or2

See: dannyreviews.com/h/Civilization_and_Capitalism.html

even entire economies exists. Regulation should acknowledge the existence of these levels of economy
and their value in delivering affordable access.
Metaphorically, we might think of regulation as
trying to fill a glass jar with stones. Current regulation accommodates only one fist-sized type ofstones. When we attempt to fill the jar, we can fit
three or four stones in at best. The jar may look full,
but if we were to fill the remaining space with water, it would fill more than half the volume in the jar.
What is needed is regulation that enables smallerstones and even tiny pebbles so that we might fill
the jar.
This approach acknowledges and continues tovalue larger operators but recognises that smaller-­scale operators and even subsistence operators
have an important role to play as well. It is important to note that the small-scale operators andcommunity networks may not be designed to scale
to the size of large operators, but rather to serve thegeographic, economic and sector niche they were
designed for.
In order for this to happen, there are a host of
enabling regulations that are needed.

Licensing
Many countries have yet to move to a modern unified regulatory regime based on technologicalneutrality and simple authorisations to permit service provision. National licences are often the only
type available and may come with substantial
administrative reporting requirements and fees.
Although a few countries like Brazil and India haveadopted tiered licensing systems which provide
licences at the regional or municipal level, the requirements for these are still bureaucratic, and thetechnical and financial requirements are beyond
the means of most potential operators. In countries
like New Zealand and the United States, no specificlicence is required to become an operator below acertain level of operation. Awareness raising about
existing good practices and capacity-building work
among policy makers and regulators are needed toaddress this situation.

Access to radio spectrum
While licence-exempt Wi-Fi has grown exponentially in deployment and application, demand for
exclusive-use licensed spectrum has also grown.
Operators are now expected to pay millions ofdollars at auction for an exclusive-use spectrum licence. This creates an insuperable barrier for all but
the largest companies to gain access to this spectrum, and even those that do gain access may be

26 / Global Information Society Watchobliged to pass on the cost of that spectrum to consumers. There is a need to build on the success oflicence-exempt spectrum by exploring new frequencies that might be similarly regulated. There is alsoa need to find a middle ground between licenceexempt and national exclusive-use licences. This
may include new approaches such as dynamic spectrum regulation needed for TV white space (TVWS)
spectrum or Citizens Broadband Radio Service(CBRS).3 It might also include alternative licensing
for rural, underserved regions. There is scope for arange of creative alternatives. Finally, new technologies such as radio devices which operate over amuch wider range of spectrum bands and use spectrum sensing suggest that we may be on the cusp ofa paradigm shift in spectrum management.

Access to passive infrastructure and backhaul
As demand for broadband grows, especially withthe rise in streaming media content through services like YouTube and Netflix, access to affordable,
high-capacity backhaul services becomes one of
the most critical limiting factors in the delivery of affordable access. Open access policy and regulation
for backhaul networks are essential to ensure equitable access. Perhaps more importantly, pricing onthese networks needs to reflect the national strategic assets that networks are. Like roads or railways,
broadband backhaul networks should be designed
and priced to maximise traffic in order to realise thefull potential for positive externalities that these
networks represent. Similarly, passive infrastructure, such as the towers of mobile operators and themasts and poles of public broadcasters and energy
distribution grids, should be considered from thepoint of view of enabling all kinds of operators.

Transparency
Even if fibre is available nearby, it is often very difficult for a new operator to know where the nearest
point of presence is, so it can design and cost the
network accordingly. It is also difficult to know who3

has been assigned licences to radio frequencies
that might be unoccupied or unused in rural areas.
Similarly, access to information on tower locations
is needed so that both governments and other actors can identify the connectivity gaps and adopt
the best approach to close them. Information on
the deployment of fibre, towers and spectrum infrastructure should be a matter of public record. Thisis essential both from the point of view of transparency, where millions of dollars are changing hands,
but also from the point of view of enabling the identification of market gaps and possible solutions.

Associated taxation
Finally, there are many taxes that add to the burdenof starting and operating networks. In some countries, import taxes are up to 40% of the total cost of
the equipment. Other taxes include fees per mastand device installed and contributions to universal
service funds, among others. These added costs
must be recovered from end-users, which further
limits the service’s affordability.

Conclusion
The very low barriers to digital production on theinternet have enabled an explosion of creativity
in content and services, which is steadily increasing the value of being connected. Those withoutaffordable access to the internet are increasingly
socially and economically left behind. In order toensure that everyone has affordable access to communication, we need to unleash the same kind ofenergy that spurred the growth of internet content
and services. Lowering barriers to the establishment and operation of community networks will
exploit the pent-up demand (and creativity) of theunderserved, allowing them to implement low-cost,
local connectivity solutions that can sustainably
serve their constituencies. Regulators must recognise that community networks have an essential
complementary role to play in the delivery of affordable access for all.

CBRS is a regulatory framework under development in the
United States which applies similar dynamic spectrum allocation
principles to TVWS but for the delivery of LTE services in the 3.5
GHz frequency band. It is designed to enable both large and smallscale operators.
Thematic reports / 27

Towards financial sustainability
in community-based networks

Mike Jensen
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
https://www.apc.org

Introduction
Community networks are increasingly being seen
as a means to help address the need for affordable connectivity where traditional commercial
networks are not present or are too expensive touse. According to a 2018 report by the GSMA, theseareas represent a substantial portion of the planet – up to 40% of the world’s population will still
not have internet access by 2025, while 30% will
not even have voice connectivity.1 Considering thatafter more than 20 years of deployments in developing countries, mobile network operators havebeen unable to respond to demand for even basic
voice connectivity, this is clearly not a simple problem to solve.
Due to their generally small size, there are limited economies of scale in community networks,
which often means more costly services to operate
the network, resulting in higher per-user overhead
costs than in larger networks. Since community-based networks often operate or plan to set
up in remote, sparsely populated areas, costs arehigher than in urban areas for providing internet
connectivity and energy, as well as for transport andsourcing of the business and technical skills, which
are usually scarce in these areas. And although
there may be many important social and economic
benefits that can be derived from a community network, it is often difficult to translate these benefits
into the cash needed to pay for the network and its
operations.
On the positive side, in contrast to traditionalcommercial operators, community-based networks
are able to start at a very small scale and have amore diverse range of models for achieving financial sustainability. In addition, they are less likely toneed an expensive marketing and public relations

1

GSMA. (2018). The Mobile Economy 2018. https://www.gsma.
com/mobileeconomy

budget. While some community networks may operate much like a traditional commercial network(where users pay a monthly fee to cover all costs),others may draw to varying levels on volunteer labour, donations of equipment, donated upstream
bandwidth and the use of high sites to erect towers
and antennas, or subsidies from government andcommercial sources.
Primarily focusing on remote or rural areas
where connectivity is not available, this report
looks at the different aspects that may be considered in maximising the potential for small-scale
networks to achieve financial sustainability by leveraging opportunities to minimise costs and accessstart-up funds.

Starting small
At the outset, it should be noted that many community-based networks have started on an informal
basis from very small beginnings, which requirealmost no initial external financial support. Considering that the high cost of internet access is amajor barrier to increased connectivity, it is not surprising that the most common example is the Wi-Fi
broadband network, where the cost of a link to theinternet is shared among a number of users via WiFi. Households and offices do this routinely, but thiscan easily extend to providing links to neighbours.
If the users are close enough and they install theirown routers, the only cost is for each user to pay
their share of the monthly fee for the upstream connection to the internet, and perhaps add a small
contribution for router power consumption at thelocation of the shared upstream connection.

Bandwidth costs and network scaling
Ensuring the lowest possible cost for upstream
connectivity to the internet is often a top priority
with community networks, as this usually has the
single largest impact on overall operating costs,
and ultimately, on the financial sustainability of the
network.
Some communities have been able to negotiatewith their upstream internet provider to reduce thefees for the bandwidth leased – often a university,
a government infrastructure provider or perhaps a

28 / Global Information Society Watchsympathetic local internet service provider (ISP).
Even if a discount cannot be arranged from an ISP,
and there are no other nearby supporting organisations with capacity to spare, commercial ISPs still
usually charge less per Mbps for higher capacity
commitments. This means the larger the initial network deployment (in terms of numbers of users),
the lower the monthly cost per user. And if cheaper additional bandwidth is available to respond to
demand as the network grows, the cost savings
can be passed on to the users. This lower cost ofparticipation further adds to the network effect inattracting new members.
It is also worth taking into consideration thatas the network grows, bandwidth costs per user
are further reduced, because usage is more evenly spread over time with a larger user base. So, forexample, doubling the number of users does not
require doubling the upstream capacity in order foreach user to have the same network experience. As
a result, even if extra capacity costs the same ona per-Mbps basis, the cost of upstream bandwidth
per user reduces as the number of users grows. If
this can be translated into reduced charges for cost
recovery from users, this will further incentivise
participation in the network.
In networks providing voice services, the economies of scale are smaller, because each voicechannel requires symmetric, dedicated capacitywith low latency and high quality of service. As
a result, service fee increases are more linearly
linked to traffic increases. Balancing the numberof channels required in peak and off-peak periods
can involve compromises and requires experience.
In addition, there may be recurring costs associated with allocation of numbering resources.
Furthermore, unless there is a favourable regulatory regime, small voice networks can struggle tomeet the minimum interconnection requirementsof the larger national operators, let alone gain any
volume discounts from them.
Once a broadband network has grown to a sufficient size, upstream bandwidth costs are often
significantly reduced by installing a caching serveron the network. The server stores copies of content
requested by users, thereby reducing duplication of
traffic on the link whenever that content is requested again by the same or another user. Pre-fetchingcontent and refreshing mirror servers (such as software and operating system updates, Wikipedia,etc.) during off-peak periods can further optimise
the use of the link for peak traffic during the day.
Some community networks have also taken additional steps to manage their expensive upstream
capacity by setting up their routers to filter accessto high-bandwidth websites, especially during
peak periods.
Exploiting the availability of the excess internet
capacity of nearby larger institutions during offpeak periods has also proved an effective strategy
in cutting upstream bandwidth operating costs. For
example, AlterMundi in Argentina has an agreement with the National University of Córdoba2 for
free capacity of up to about 10 Mbps during the day,but in off-peak periods the community network canaccess as much capacity as is available to the university, in practice about 250 Mbps. Members of the
network adapt their usage accordingly, knowingthat access at peak time is likely to be less efficient.
Where low-cost off-peak capacity is notavailable from a larger nearby institution, somecommunity networks, such as Pamoja in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have leveraged thepeak/off-peak dynamic by leasing capacity during
office hours to local businesses at commercial rates(and higher service levels), while making the service available at a much lower cost (or free) to the
public during the rest of the day/night. This strategy can also be adopted more generally by charging
all users a differential rate for peak versus off-peakusage, or even making usage free during off-peakperiods.
Finally, it should also be noted that many community networks have not aimed to provide accessto the upstream internet, focusing instead on linking the community directly with each other and to
locally hosted servers and content. Naturally these
networks are unburdened with upstream connectivity costs, although in some cases it is assumed
that the participants have their own internet connections (mainly in urban environments). In others,
the networks are “islands” completely unconnected with the “rest” of the internet, such as Mesh
Bukavu,3 which hosts a large amount of content
online locally.

Gaining independence
If the community network’s upstream connection
is provided on a purely commercial basis by a single operator, the network is essentially resellingthe service in smaller chunks on their behalf andabsorbing the cost of collecting the fees. In this situation the community network is also dependent
on the prices for capacity charged by the operator,and must pay for all the upstream traffic, even when
it is destined for other local networks nearby.

2
3

See the Argentina country report in this edition of GISWatch.
See the DRC country report in this edition of GISWatch.

Thematic reports / 29

If other ISPs are present, then it makes sense
for community networks to establish additional
direct links to at least one of the other operators
as well. Although this requires greater technicalknowledge and a more capable router (to be able toroute traffic efficiently between multiple networks),
this not only gives the network a better negotiating
position on the price of upstream capacity, but also
makes the network faster for the users of the interconnected networks, and reduces capacity needson the original link. Ideally, if it is possible to establish a link to a local internet exchange point (IXP),
then more networks can be reached directly, and it
should normally be possible to “peer away” evenmore traffic, further reducing the costs for transit
capacity purchased from upstream providers.
As importantly, a single link to one upstream provider also creates a vulnerable point of failure, whilea network with multiple upstream connections will
be more reliable, because one of the providers cango down and the network will continue to function.
Reliability quickly becomes an important concern once an affordable service has proven itself
and as the community becomes more dependanton it, especially for economic activities, such as remote work. Long periods of downtime can quickly
sap confidence in the network, and generally chill
the level of use when connectivity returns. If there
is only one source of cost-effective capacity in thearea, it can still make sense to set up a 3/4G backup
link for urgent traffic if a mobile network is accessible (perhaps through a long distance Yagi antenna).4
Alternatively, a tower or high site, or even a satellite
link, may be needed to reach other more distant options for obtaining backup connectivity.

Minimising the cost of additional
resource needs
At the next level up in terms of costs and infrastructure required for the network, there may be a needfor a tower and/or network equipment to provide
mobile voice and data services, or to relay the signal to a distant community, a larger institution ora sub-set of users. In some cases, this might also
involve site rental for a high site on which to locate
the relay equipment, and tower insurance. Alongwith upstream capacity, these costs are usually theother major cost component of a community network, especially if a large tower is needed, and/or solar power and protection against lightning isrequired.
Sometimes the owner of the high site will accept the provision of free connectivity in return for

installation of a tower on the location. If there isalready a telecom tower of some form on the siteor nearby, it may be cheaper to lease space on
the tower than construct another. However, thismay require some hard negotiating or bringing in
the telecom regulator to ensure that infrastructure-sharing regulations (which should include
price caps for space rental) are being adhered to.
These regulations are unfortunately not widelyadopted in many developing countries – for example, Airtel still charges USD 1,300/month for space
on one of its towers in Rwanda, a country which
prides itself on having one of the more advanced
regulatory environments on the African continent.
Tower costs can often be reduced by having
them locally constructed, and by mounting shorter
towers on existing tall buildings, or even trees, if
available. In addition, use of non-line-of-sight frequencies (most often those lower than 800 Mhz)
means that towers do not have to be high enoughto reach over trees, buildings and other obstacles,
which considerably reduces tower deployment
costs. This was noted in the Gram Marg network
in India,5 where the initial TV white space (TVWS)
deployment used relatively low towers. When the
network had to switch to line-of-sight 5 Ghz links
due to regulatory issues, the towers required needed to be much higher. As a result, although 5 Ghz
radio equipment for the links is much cheaper than
the TVWS equipment, the overall deployment costs
were significantly higher because the tower costs
were a much larger component of the total cost.
Similarly, with mobile voice and data services,
choice of lower frequencies (e.g. 700 Mhz rather
than 1800 Mhz) means that towers can be shorter
and/or farther apart because lower frequencies
travel farther, providing greater coverage. Voice(2G) deployments in the lower frequency bands canalso take advantage of the much longer distancethat these signals cover relative to 3G/4G data
connections.
Fortunately, the cost of equipment for generating electricity from solar power continues to drop,
but the batteries, electronics and solar panels foroff-grid sites can often still cost as much as the tower itself, especially when the power system needs
to support mobile networks, for which the base stations consume significantly more energy than Wi-Fi.
However, for off-grid locations, it should be notedthat energy needs in a mobile network are concentrated at the tower and overall energy consumption

54https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagi%E2%80%93Uda_antenna

See the India country report by Gram Marg in this edition of
GISWatch.

30 / Global Information Society Watch

in a mobile network is lower, because the end-user
devices use less power than the user’s router andaccess equipment in a Wi-Fi network.
In general, because of the reliability concerns
described above, it is important to dimension the
power system sufficiently to ensure that occasional long periods of cloudy weather do not cause asystem outage. In addition, availability of backup
equipment, ideally stored on-site, for quick replacement of broken parts also needs to be considered,as well as the lightning protection and security forthe tower equipment if necessary – some community networks need to employ full-time patrols toguard against theft.
The community network may be required to
pay licence, spectrum, business and other fees,
for which there is often no way to reduce costs, except by spreading them across a larger user base.
However, as the importance of these networks
is being increasingly recognised, it is hoped that
more countries will follow the example of Mexico inrecognising the social purpose of these networks,6and making appropriate dispensations to support
them by providing access to licensed spectrum andlimiting bureaucratic burdens and unnecessary
fees and taxes.
Aside from spectrum and licence fees, importduties should not be ignored, as these can often
double the cost of the network equipment, and also
often add significantly to the cost of end-user access devices. If waivers on import duties cannot be
obtained from the government for community networks, it may be possible to avoid some of thesetaxes through partnerships with charities whichhave special status, or through informal importchannels.
Use of open source hardware and software also
helps to bring down equipment costs and provides
many other advantages. This is already a relatively common strategy among community networks
where proprietary Wi-Fi hardware is often modified
with open source routing software (e.g. Open-Wrt).
This trend is similarly found now for mobile network
infrastructure thanks to projects like Osmocom for
2G/GSM and OpenAirInterface and NextEPC for 4G/
LTE.
There are now also an increasing number ofopen hardware platforms, in particular the muchanticipated LibreRouter initiative by AlterMundi, anumber of 2G base stations such as those from Fairwaves and Sysmocom, and the OpenCellular LTE

6

See the discussion on TIC A.C. in the Mexico country report in thisedition of GISWatch.

base station currently under development. These
new devices generally offer cost advantages over
the traditional equipment commonly being used
– in particular, the presence of three radios in the
LibreRouter increases the available capacity on themesh, and obviates the need for duplicate devices
when acting as a relay or mesh node, while simultaneously performing hotspot functions to provide
end-user access.
Buying network equipment in bulk or organising group purchases with other community
networks can also help to bring down equipment
costs. Community network collaboration is particularly important for helping reduce prices in small
community-driven hardware projects such as the
LibreRouter, which does not benefit from the same
economies of scale as consumer devices mass produced by the large companies operating in thismarket.
In relation to the administrative and humanresource aspects of a community network, theinvolvement of community members is usually
essential to minimising costs of deployment andoperations. While technical and business skills
often need to be initially sourced from outside
the community, with fairly minimal training, local
volunteers can be used for many tasks, such as
erecting towers and installing equipment on roofs,
or even day-to-day technical and administrative
tasks (troubleshooting, adding users, collecting
fees, etc.).
Nevertheless, once the network grows beyonda certain size, the most cost-effective solution is
likely to involve part-time or even permanent staff
from within the community. In some cases, especially where there are multiple similar networks
operating in the country with licence complianceneeds and shared use of other resources (such as
higher level technical expertise, a satellite link or
DID numbers),7 it can make sense to establish a national or regional organisation that can take on theburden of many of these common administrative
tasks. This has been done in Mexico with TIC A.C. tosupport its member villages operating community
networks.

Fundraising
In some locations, the members of the community may be able to fundraise internally to cover thecosts of the network, especially if there are somepotential businesses or other organisational users willing to contribute. In cases where telecom

7

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_inward_dial

Thematic reports / 31

infrastructure is managed as a common-pool resource, finance is crowdsourced by those benefitingfrom the infrastructure. See for example the country report on guifi.net in Catalonia, which won a
European Commission Broadband Award with thisapproach.
However, in most rural areas in the developingworld, the resident population is unlikely to beable to provide the needed resources, and external
fundraising will be required. In choosing targets for
fundraising, it is worth noting that there are three
intrinsic difficulties in raising funds for networks
focused on remote and rural areas from traditional
lenders, investors and soft funders (banks, venture
funds, development institutions, etc.):•••

Scale: Rural networks are likely to have far fewer­­customers than urban networks, rendering
them less attractive to traditional investors or
lenders, be they commercial or soft (development) funders. This is because the overheads
for due diligence and administering smaller
disbursements are not so different from thosefor larger-scale projects, resulting in a relatively high cost of finance, especially if they are in
remote and isolated locations which may be
unfamiliar to the funder. Also, many of these
networks may be purely focused on provisionof connectivity in a particular location, and may
have little or no interest in scaling and replicating in ways that would create the larger projects
that are more attractive to traditional funders.
Real and perceived levels of risk: There may
be higher actual or perceived levels of risk bypotential funders because the initiatives are
based on novel business models, may be run bypeople with limited management skills, or use
new technologies in unfamiliar contexts. These
initiatives may also lack land collateral or other asset sureties needed to provide guarantees
for loans. Even if collateral is available, in many
developing countries the cost of commercialbank loan finance is exceedingly high to reflect
the high level of perceived risk, so this option
is unlikely to be cost effective for a community
network.
Low surplus revenues: Networks serving remoteand rural areas usually operate in locations
with low income levels, and where operating
costs are substantially higher in comparison tourban areas. Therefore, the ability to service aloan or provide a return on an investment may
be quite limited. Furthermore, there are many
networks which a) do not aim to make a profit and/or b) try to ensure that fees for service

are as low as possible. This may disincentivise
traditional investors in the telecommunication
sector looking for higher returns.
Given these considerations, community networking initiatives are likely to find raising the needed
startup funds from commercial or other traditional
lenders difficult. Even soft loans from development
funds are still currently more focused on large-scalenational initiatives, and as conservative lenders or
grant makers, they need to be convinced of thepotential for the novel strategies and innovative
business models of community networks. Ideally, local intermediaries acting for many networks
could play a key role in this area, as they may be
more familiar with the landscape and can better
evaluate potential initiatives, aggregate needs, aswell as manage the disbursement of funds received
from large funding sources.
To meet the funding gap, a variety of other fundraising strategies can be considered:•

Universal service funds: National governments
usually have universal service funds to support
the provision of access in rural and underserved
areas. Many of these have already accumulated
large amounts of unspent funds, partly becauseof the limited capacity of regulators to evaluate
and disburse funds, and also because of thepaucity of effective projects to support. Given
the recent response of regulators and policy
makers who have been sensitised to the potential of community networks, it would appear
that this avenue of support is likely to become
increasingly fertile in future.

•

Grants and awards from Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), ccTLD operators, the InternetSociety, APC and other international NGOs andcommercial tech organisations such as Facebook, Microsoft and Mozilla: While the funds
available from these organisations are relatively small, these institutions have been the mostcommon source of financial support for community networks to date.

•

Provision of in-kind services: These can reduce
the startup and operating costs of the networkby tapping into the corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes of businesses, forming
partnerships with local and international NGOs
operating in the area and local government offices. Examples include donation of equipment,
skills/training, tech volunteers and bandwidth.

•

Cross-subsidisation: As discussed earlier, insome cases, community networks may be financially sustainable by charging businesses a

32 / Global Information Society Watchmonthly fee and giving discounts to the general public. Funds for the cross-subsidy can alsocome from other services provided, which may
be unrelated to the provision of connectivity
to the end-user – for example, hosting remotesensing equipment (weather, air quality, etc.)
for a government or research agency, as is being experimented with at TakNet/Net2Home in
Thailand.8•

External crowdsourced funding: Crowdsourcing
funds from outside the community offers significant though untested potential. However, there
may be interest from the diaspora and people
in developed countries who have visited thearea as volunteers or tourists, among others, infunding a local initiative.

8

See the Thailand country report in this edition of GISWatch.

Conclusion
This report aims to familiarise the reader with themost common strategies for minimising and sharing costs in community networks, and in raising
the necessary financial and other resources to help
support their long-term financial sustainability.
Given the relatively short time frame and difficult
conditions in which community-based networks
have emerged, the extent to which these strategies
will help ensure a place for community networks inmeeting the needs of connecting the unconnected
is still unclear. However, given the diversity of strategies that have already emerged and the level ofinterest in supporting community networking initiatives, the prognosis is good.

Thematic reports / 33

Community networks as a key enablerof sustainable access: A review

Michael J. Oghia
https://linkedin.com/in/mikeoghia

One of the most significant problems vexing
the information society is the lack of a holistic
perspective when it comes to technical and policy development. Take, for example, the issueof access to information. Often it is consideredsolely from a rights-based perspective – i.e.
that access to information is a right that is often hindered or impeded in some way, such as
by a governance or policy decision. Likewise,from technical protocol and standards development to content-related issues like hatespeech, actors tend to organise among stakeholder groups and conduct their operations
in silos. Although the multistakeholder model
is championed as a way to alleviate this tendency, there has yet to be a silver bullet thatfully addresses the lack of holistic vision that isnecessary to govern an inherently collaborativeand global resource such as the internet while
also addressing its fundamental challenges.
If we revisit the example of access to information, we can see how this has playedout with one particular and lingering problem:
sustainability. Democracy is built on the ability to access information, which is why accessto information is such an important pillar of
the United Nations Sustainable Development
Agenda1 – along with the fact that access to information facilitates myriad social, educationaland economic gains as well. At the same time,
however, how can individuals – particularly1

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/
development-agenda

those four billion or so people who are not connected to the internet – be expected to accessinformation digitally when they not only facesignificant barriers to connectivity, such as
poor or non-existent infrastructure and/or
the lack of user capabilities, but the electricalbackbone necessary to even power internet infrastructure is often lacking?
In a chapter I wrote titled “Community networks as a key enabler of sustainable access”,
which was published in the Dynamic Coalition
on Community Connectivity (DC3) 2017 report2
for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), I described how connecting another billion people
to the internet will require more than an internet-connected device; such an endeavour
requires significant long-term vision, investment in both technology and human capacity
building, as well as communities committed
to ensuring their access is useful, meaningful
and sustainable. For this to occur, however,such communities must be invested in the process of connectivity – from energy access, tonetwork set-up and maintenance – as well as
leading this process based on their own needs,
context, and developmental challenges.
Community networks are vital to catalysing this investment – not in terms of financial
investment, but in terms of community development. A key shift in thinking is necessary
for this to happen, however, in part because

2

Oghia, M. J. (2017). Community networks as a key enablerof sustainable access. In L. Belli (Ed.), Community
Networks: The Internet by the People, for the People.
Official Outcome of the UN IGF Dynamic Coalition on
Community Connectivity. https://bibliotecadigital.fgv.
br/dspace/bitstream/handle/10438/19401/Community
networks - the Internet by the people%2C for the people.
pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y34 / Global Information Society Watchthe challenge of generating reliable energy to
power infrastructure continues to pose a significant barrier to lowering costs and the ability toscale. I argued that one way this can change isby replacing the focus that sustainable development places on the role and proliferation of
information and communications technologies(ICTs) with the concept of “sustainable access”– a term I coined that broadly refers to the ability for any user to connect to the internet andthen stay connected over time. Sustainable
access encompasses various aspects of the relationship between technology, society and theenvironment – everything from infrastructure,energy and the availability of radio spectrum,
to the recyclability of ICTs, how internet-connected devices are manufactured, and evenspace junk. The concept is meant to address alarger gap in current practices vis-à-vis development and ICTs – i.e. that facilitating access tothe internet and expanding connectivity in general must be seen as a holistic, interconnected
process involving multiple stakeholders.
The core thesis of this perspective is thatinternet technologies are largely unsustainableat present. This relates to overall lack of design
consideration of ICTs for sustainability (such as
recycling or energy scaling), but also reflects
serious challenges such as the exponential
growth of data use and generation. Becauseof this, we cannot legitimately discuss internet access without addressing sustainability– even though, conversely, ICT sustainability islargely viewed as a future concern, not a present one, and is therefore largely overlooked.
This is not the case for community networks, however, which generally operate inrural or remote areas that often do not haveaccess to electrical grids, depending on theregion. This point is emphasised in the chapter
I wrote by outlining the role that community
networks can play in catalysing sustainable
access, and focusing on efforts and initiatives used by such networks to electrify theirinfrastructure and ensure their energy sustainability. It also addresses how energy, thesubsequent costs of infrastructure (both initialinvestments and upgrades), and the inability
to recycle equipment or use it over the longterm can significantly hinder the sustainability
and growth of a community network – as wellas its ability to scale.
The chapter concludes by stressing how
if we truly want digital technology and the
myriad emerging technological innovations
that are beginning to scale to become ubiquitous, sustainability must be addressed more
prominently as a core component and within the design of ICTs. We cannot disregard or
downplay sustainability with the hope that theinherent problems with our digitised world disappear – time will only exacerbate them. On thecontrary, it is clear that there are unexplored
and underemphasised synergies and areasof collaboration between the energy and ICT
sectors, which undoubtedly include the internet governance community, that could better
address sustainability as a whole. Therefore,
since sustainability and access are intrinsically connected, the role of community networks
in ushering in the next phase of the internet’s
development should not be underestimated.
Instead, it will benefit anyone seeking to makethe internet more sustainable to offer more financial, technical, policy, legal and regulatory
support to community networks, and ensurethat such initiatives are viable, sustainable andsuccessful.

Thematic reports / 35

Community networks: Stories and power

Nicola J. Bidwell
International University of Management, Namibia
www.ium.edu.na

Introduction
In this report I consider some of the meanings embedded in community networks, and the way theywork together with power relations. A critical awareness of the interplay of meanings and power caninspire us to create new meanings that might better
contribute to achieving aspirations, such as promoting the agency of all community network users. I
draw on my preliminary analysis of data generated
in the past eight months about the social and gender
impacts of community networks in the global South,
and reflections on conversations within the Community Access Networks project, a research study into
community networks globally that is led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and
funded by the International Development ResearchCentre (IDRC).1 I refer to only a few of the many power relations at work in my research about community
networks and focus on just four sets of meanings.
During my research so far at five community
networks in Asia, Latin America and Africa, I generated data about people’s everyday practices andopinions in relation to their network in focus groups
and individual interviews. Adapting my methods tosuit each community network, I was privileged tointerview 119 men and 103 women, individually orin groups, some repeatedly and extensively. This
included community network initiators, champions,members, users and non-users.
While all networks are rural, their socioeconomic and political contexts vary widely. They arelocated in countries that have, according to the
UNDP’s 2015 measures, gross national income percapita ranging from USD 1,670 to USD 20,945, andincome distributions from 0.41 to 0.63 on the Gini
index, where 0 represents total equality and 1 total inequality. Indices for the population’s health,longevity, living standards and knowledge also vary1

https://www.apc.org/en/project/
local-access-networks-can-unconnected-connect-themselves

amongst the community networks; for instance,
one is located in a country with very high humandevelopment, another in a country with high, twoin countries with medium and one with low humandevelopment. These countries also differ in genderequality, one high, two medium-to-high, and two
countries with low gender equality.
The intentions and the geographic scale of theoperations of the initiatives I studied vary as widelyas their socioeconomic and political contexts. Someinitiatives prioritise ethics about human rights tocommunicate or net neutrality, some are driven byresearch about technical solutions to provide “firstmile” internet access to rural people, and others
seek to integrate information and communications
technologies (ICTs) into local culture to address significant humanitarian challenges. Some networks
connect directly to individual people or homes,
others connect via local not-for-profit or government centres; some are groups of local networks
distributed over distances of 300 km, and others
are geographically localised. However, all initiatives
self-identify as community networks, and all aim to
improve access to low-cost telecommunications forpeople in rural areas.

Power relations and narratives
Power relations between people enable one person, or group of people, to have more influence overanother person or group. This influence operates
through direct and indirect relationships between
people and arises due to differences in sociallyagreed political or legal authority, or capability incertain domains, or economic status, or race, age
or sexual orientation. In some community networks,
people explicitly referred to differences that are institutionalised according to formal categories suchas refugees, internally displaced persons, indigenous people, tribe, caste and “other backward”
classes. For instance, members said “You don’tcome from our background” to a woman employed
to support a group of networks. We must, however,avoid oversimplifying power relations to only particular categories, as power relations intersect, andoften less explicit power hierarchies emerge withincommunity networks.

36 / Global Information Society Watch

Inclusivity was central to the ethos of all thecommunity networks I studied, yet, in all networks,
differences between people affected their respective agency in shaping the meanings embedded intheir network. Consider, for instance, one aspectof power relations in a community network in acountry with a high equality ranking and traditionsof solidarity. One man in this network described
three groups of local inhabitants: people like him,
who moved permanently from the nearest large city
within the past five or six years and establishedtheir main activity locally; people with weekend
homes; and people whose families had lived in thearea for generations. In this network, I interviewed
many more people who were newcomers, like thisman, than people with historical local ties, primarily
because most participants were recruited throughthe community network’s initiators’ closest socialgroup. One network initiator had family connectionsin the area but moved to a city where they met otherinitiators through the free software movement.
Like other newcomers, the network initiators
had greater physical and virtual mobility by virtueof their education, class, and varied income sources, as writers, teachers and software developers.
Interview participants with historical local ties, on
the other hand, were working-class and had manual
jobs. A woman user of the network, with historical
local ties, explained that there had always been
people from far away staying in weekend homes
but recently a dramatic increase in newcomers had
elevated property prices and filled the area with“strangers” who displayed an unwarranted ownership of the little town.
The community network acts as a bridge between inhabitants, and people with historical local
ties said that it had facilitated connections that
contributed to new opportunities for business andsocialising. People with historical local ties choseto associate with this community network and, as
for some other community networks I studied, there
were alternative providers of the same services.
Interviews also illustrated that the network’s initiators actively encouraged members with historical
local ties to host meetings to decide about the community network and lead the technical workshopsthat are more or less mandatory for membership.
Nonetheless, people with historical local ties weremore reluctant to be interviewed and, unlike the
network’s initiators, were less forthcoming aboutcertain views, which suggests that the network’s
initiators have greater influence over the meanings
associated with the network.
Some meanings associated with community
networks repeated across the networks I studied,and this report illustrates how these meanings inherit from other stories, through elements suchas narratives and tropes. Such story elements arerecognisable concepts and patterns of ordering that
help us understand and communicate about new
situations. Narrative selects and puts events andthoughts together into some coherent sequence toconvey a particular perspective on a story. Tropes
are archetypal narratives that use other familiar stories to make a perspective clear; for instance, thetrope of David and Goliath is about competition inwhich the little guy is the hero.

Whose story counts?
A David and Goliath trope permeates narratives
about resisting concentrations of power. Acrossmy research, champions, and some network members, referred to the role of community networks
in opposing domination by technology and telecommunications giants, which often linked toother critical attitudes about multinational corporations and monopolistic control. Some of my data,
however, suggests that airing views that might betagged politically liberal and progressive was more
comfortable for community network members withgreater cultural capital, such as people with university educations or professional jobs. For instance,in the community network that illustrated power
relations between newcomers and people withhistorical local ties, it was the initiators who emphasised resisting, or perhaps evading, aggressive
or unaccountable control by technology companies.
People with historical local ties, on the other hand,more often associated the network with affordability, and its not-for-profit or communal ethos. In fact,interviews with people in this network revealed
different perspectives with respect to corporations
and control; for example, newcomers opposed thepossible location of a new mine in the area, linked
to contesting the extractive nature of transnational companies in general, but people with historical
local ties were more likely to mention that a minebrings employment. That is, despite this network’s
considerable efforts towards inclusivity, a foundational narrative that relates community networks toresisting concentrations of power did not have similar relevance to all network members.
The community network philosophy, assummarised in the Declaration on Community
Connectivity,2 addresses the use of technology to
2

The Declaration on Community Connectivity was developed
at the Internet Governance Forum, Guadalajara, Mexico,
December 2016, and the GAIA Workshop, Cambridge, England,
January 2017. https://www.comconnectivity.org/article/
dc3-working-definitions-and-principles

Thematic reports / 37

concentrate power, and this overlaps with a larger
political project about autonomy, self-determination, emancipation and decoloniality in relation totelecommunications. However, the meaning of concepts such as emancipation varies amongst people
at the grassroots in community networks. In one setof networks, in a highly resource-constrained setting, a major transnational technology consulting
company funded solar and other infrastructure. In
another set, in a country that favours both capitalist
development and government involvement in digital
participation, the ability of low-income rural women to shop with Amazon.com marked their internet
inclusion. Meanwhile, impoverished members of acooperative that founded yet another community
network hoped the network’s growth would directly
profit their families. The agency of diverse people ineffecting narratives about community networks andmeanings about, say, autonomy, emancipation anddecoloniality in relation to telecommunications, differs. Unequal agency in shaping narratives aboutcommunity networks can compromise some of thefreedoms and rights pursued by the overarchingcommunity network movement.

The worth of human connectedness
The next narrative that repeated in the community
networks I studied values human connectedness ina certain way. Participants’ stories, in interviews andfocus groups, often referred to the role of social ties,
sociality and sociability in obtaining or achieving
something else, such as economic improvements orsafety. Accessible communications had enhanced
some participants’ job prospects through studying
for formal qualifications or improving their English
language skills, and real-time business-to-customer or business-to-business relationships, suchas sharing information about agricultural market
prices amongst sustenance farmers, and about
components amongst electronic repair businesses. Members of different community networks alsomentioned the impact of solidarity on their safety;
in one network different people explained that they
were able to coordinate to apprehend a burglar; inanother, that they had been able to call a taxi totake an old man who had fainted back to the village
from a remote field, and coordinate together to savea donkey cart, full of provisions, when it fell down amountain. That is, participants tended to frame human connectedness instrumentally.
Instrumental narratives about human connectedness also featured in a set of networks in a region
that endured war for many years and hosts millionsof refugees and displaced people. Severe conflict,and some post-conflict actions, have underminedpeople’s trust in institutions, neighbours andeven family members, and the network’s initiator
prioritised peaceful coexistence in all activities,emphasising traditional practices of people coming
together in dialogues to manage disputes, such as
about land or water, and organising host-refugee
events, such as football matches. The initiator rationalised cohesion and inclusion by explaining that
“You won’t go anywhere with excluding because
tomorrow you might need the people that you exclude.” Such a narrative resonates with an, albeit
controversial, argument in international development discourse which proposes that social capital,
resulting from social ties, enables people to satisfy
everyday socioeconomic needs, such as access toadvice or money.
Instrumentalist interpretations can be applied
not only to social ties but also to people’s felt experience of human connectedness, or the emotions,
intuitions and morals a person senses in social relationships. At this level, a person’s felt experience ofcollectivity, such as in setting up a network with others, might function in building trust; and a person’s
felt experience of social expectations about digital participation, say through social media, might
function in accruing cultural capital and mobilisingsocial assets. Facilitators in one set of networks, forinstance, noticed that feelings of connectedness
with children powerfully motivated women to learn
to use technology.
Narratives that emphasise the worth of felt experiences of human connectedness according totheir utility in solving certain problems or efficacy in predicting certain states of development are
useful for justifying in wider arenas, such as evaluating community networks against the Sustainable
Development Goals.3 However, the nuances of participants’ more ordinary stories also tell that humanconnectedness has a different type of worth. Mundane human decision making is not mostly rational,
and the intrinsic worth of felt experiences of humanconnectedness in everyday life is that such feelings
exist. Participants told how community networks
contributed to averting loneliness, sharing joywith remote family, feeling the presence of intimates through phatic contact, and feeling pride in
caring for their community. Users in two networks
said that they supported the network not because
it enhanced their own access to telecommunications but, rather, because it enabled access formore disadvantaged local inhabitants. Meanwhile,
the majority of cooperative members that founded another network said that their achievements3

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300

38 / Global Information Society Watchbenefited their children and other youth of their impoverished area, since they do not own phones able
to access the Wi-Fi themselves, and they asked withpride that a book be written about this legacy.
In driving the community network agenda, we donot make explicit the intrinsic value of felt experiences when humans connect to other humans. Perhaps
a trope of sentimentality discourages us from expressing that the worth of sociality and sociability
is quite simply that they exist, and encourages instead the use of rhetoric common in discussions of
so-called “last mile” connectivity, such as impacts
on poverty, health, education, employment andeconomic growth. Ironically, this lack of emphasis
contrasts with commercial telecommunications providers who readily market products and services,
including to low-income populations, by depicting
emotional qualities of human connectedness asmuch as affordability, convenience or mobility. The
intrinsic worth of human connectedness is vital todeveloping and sustaining community networks,
with or without supportive policy and legislation
and, across the networks I studied, members implicitly or explicitly indicated the felt experience of
their contributions, and acknowledgement of theircontributions, be they doing technical tasks or reliably attending meetings.

Hidden skills
Clearly the meanings embedded in community networks are influenced by narratives that do not comevia one ideology or any coherent set of stories. To
the contrary; for instance, international development discourse as often conflicts as overlaps with
opposition to neoliberalism and globalisation. The
next narrative I find that influences meanings incommunity networks is, in fact, directly inheritedfrom the telecommunications industry. It concerns
the visibility of, and values ascribed to, different
types of creative and coordination work in setting
up, maintaining and expanding a network; andit actively performs in excluding women. Indeed,this narrative might qualify as a “master narrative”, in Susan Leigh Star’s terms,4 or “a single
voice that does not problematize diversity, andspeaks unconsciously from the presumed centerof things.” In the education and industry sectorsof telecommunications, stories about creativeand coordination achievements are dominated bylarge-scale engineering feats, like satellite technology, as well as software development, and they
are acutely gendered; consider how long it takes
4

Star, S. L. (1999). The Ethnography of Infrastructure. American
Behavioral Scientist, 43(3), 377-391.

to find the 10 women amongst 130 men in images
returned by Google to the query “telecommunications engineer”! The dominance of men in activities
associated with these achievements contrasts withthe dominance of women on factory productionlines manufacturing phones, or in customer service
divisions of telecom companies; and the disparity
in pay and labour conditions of these employment
areas tells of the value of these women’s work.
Conversations with members of different community networks about their achievements inestablishing physical infrastructure were dominated by references to certain activities. For instance,
erecting structures like towers and poles, and negotiating roofs, mountains and trees has a prominence,
partly because the outdoor work involved is publicly
visible and the conspicuousness of the equipment
makes them accessible referents in conversation.
The material visibility of tasks conflates with gender,
and the worth attributed to creative work. Womenin networks in three countries described perceptions about physical work that excluded women. In
a network in the country ranked highest in genderequality of those I studied, women members explained how one was scolded for climbing a ladderwhile pregnant, and another refrained from ascending a tower because she was concerned that thismight be perceived as hindering an important team
activity. In a network in the country ranked lower ingender equality of those I studied, one young man
technology intern explained that women’s strength
made them less able to climb towers – I did not resist asking him how, then, did women in this setting
routinely manage to walk for miles carrying hugeloads of firewood on their heads.
The relevance here is not about particularphysical capabilities in building networks, rather
it is about visibility, value and gendered roles. For
instance, when we asked a group in one network
whether it was only men who cleared the land for
erecting an antenna, one man said: “Some womenhelped carrying sand, water and alcohol. It was bothcommunity [voluntary] and paid work; the carpenter [a man] had paid work.” Meanwhile, a woman
in another network observed that dexterity andcare in finer physical assembly meant women were
better than men in soldering, crimping wires andassembling components; and a woman researcher
in yet another network enthusiastically displayed
the circuitry of a router prototype. Indeed, in four
networks studied, women referred to their own creativity, from weaving baskets and rugs, to sewing
and upcycling fabrics, from crocheting to pom-pom
making and many other crafts. However, women’sfiner physical work in networks often disappears

Thematic reports / 39

inside homes, fitted between many other tasks,
whereas when men undertake finer physical work
it is more obvious and focal. For instance, men who
use the solar electricity their network provides inelectronic repair businesses display their skills in
fixing in the open fronts of little shops and promote
their business locally, in jingles on the radio. The
men also promote their businesses nationally, byinserting adverts into movies they distribute; one of
the men overlays African movies with audio in local
language, speaking through a female voice synthesiser for characters that are women.
While people in the community networks I visited
mostly acknowledged the importance of social coordination, they rarely spoke of it with the reverenceor heroism they attached to software and network
engineering tasks. In several networks, and evenamongst our project research team, men refer to themonetary market value of their technical skills. Women employed by one group of networks explained
how the members of a local, traditional, male-dominated governance authority overseeing one network
were determined to speak only with technicians,
who were men, including about non-technical aspects of network. Such valuing is, perhaps, thereason why young women engineers in a universitythat instigated another group of networks are reluctant to work at the network’s rural sites and prefer todevelop software in the lab.
Paradoxically, the worth ascribed to work may
offer new opportunities for women’s agency intechnology. Nearly 40% of the group of community
networks in which traditional, male-dominated governance authorities make decisions allocated local
administration to young women because the mostvisible everyday work is secretarial, such as registering subscribers and record keeping. Yet theseroles also provide opportunities to develop technical skills, meet others in different villages and,according to one woman employee, had fosteredself-confidence in the women who participate. Thissituation is analogous to the prevalence of women in the field of computing in the 1960s because
programming tasks were perceived as comparable
to typing or filing; which provokes asking what weneed to do to ensure that all types of creative and coordination work are valued, and that diverse people
can do all types of creative and coordination work.

Meshworks not networks
The final trope is about our emphasis when we use
the word “network”. Featuring as much in common speech as in business, and fields of scienceand the humanities, the “network” is one of themost prominent metaphors of the past 25 years.
In telecommunications we apply it to connecting
discrete technical and organisational components,
like nodes and links, content and services, administrators and users. When we talk and teach aboutcommunity networks we also tend to describe themas structures in summative and static ways. In one
community network, for instance, people learned
about lines of sight by holding hands with people
whose homes they can see from their own, and I
watched members of another initiative visualise thevalues that their networks are based on by drawing
lines to join together points on a large paper graphic. The focus in these activities is on the connection
itself, rather than the many ongoing movements thatmake and sustain those connections, such as the
movements of bodies that join hands or the pen thatlinks points on paper. We focus more on the net, andless on the work; we think of network as noun rather than verb. In reality, of course, the technical andsocial fabric of a community network emerges from,and is embedded in, the details of people’s ongoing
lives. Connections are made as people move along inlife, never stationary in the passage of time. People’s
paths, as they move along, thread and loop throughand between each other, diverging and converging,and twisting and knotting together. Even when community networks are connected to each other acrossvast distances, and travel between them requires acar, the processes of interconnecting them always
involves humans’ lives.
Many aspects of fastening and maintaining thesocial connections underlying a community network cannot be described using the rational andexplicit terms of telecommunications vocabularies. These fastenings have emotional and dynamic
qualities that are the stuff of human lives. Indeed,
the way people lay paths through the world when
they produce and experience the material andsocial infrastructure of community-based telecommunications, suggests that a “meshwork”
is a more appropriate word. A community meshwork comprises paths lived by people, and a flowof engagements with the circumstances that they
produce and experience. It does not comprise fixed
connections between human and non-human components. A “community meshwork” helps to anchor
descriptions, plans and actions about connectivity
to human temporal and spatial scales, and may help
to avoid the ways that monolithic telecommunication systems underserve populations and erase theexistence and agency of people, regardless of thesentiments they draw on to market their products
and services. The contrast of “community network”

40 / Global Information Society Watch

and “community meshwork” resonates with different depictions of development; one that links moreor less distinct inputs, outputs, outcomes and impacts together in straight lines of causation, andanother that notices emergent qualities and interactions of complex systems. The former depiction
represents neither the complicated, relational character of a community meshwork, nor the potential
agility enabled in the movements people make.

Making new meanings
A narrative about community meshworks, rather
than networks, is an alternative that recognises thecapacity for new meanings to emerge. Similarly,
with regards to the other three stories that I used
to illustrate the way narratives work together withpower relations, I propose that we may create
new meanings by tuning our awareness to their
manifestation.
A narrow focus in resisting concentrations of
power by telecommunications giants may limit theability of community networks to respond to theway autonomy, self-determination, emancipation or
decoloniality mean different things to different people in different places. Undoubtedly, an enabling
policy and regulatory environment is essential forcommunity networks to flourish and achieve more
for people in the global South. Yet, strategies to oppose the status quo according to particular politicalinterpretations about the use of technology to concentrate power also function to maintain particularhegemonies of doing, knowing and being. Or in
Audre Lorde’s words, “The master’s tools will neverdismantle the master’s house.”
An example of hegemonic thinking and doing isa tendency to deploy instrumental narratives abouthuman connectedness in claims about community networks’ impacts, at the expense of narratives
about the intrinsic value of human connectedness.
Attending to the nuances of members’ and users’
felt experiences of human connectedness, and articulating these feelings, intuitions and morals in
operational and strategic decisions, may be vital increating new narratives about community networks.
Another example of hegemonic thinking and doing concerns the worth ascribed to different types
of work involved in setting up and maintaining
community networks, where a dominant narrative
illuminates and values technical tasks. The efforts
of some community networks to develop members’
and users’ technical skills, and the proliferation ofdevices that are easier to set up and maintain, canhelp in revising the relative value ascribed to social
and technical work.
However, to realise a new narrative about technical and social work in these new reconfigurations,
we need to be vigilant to the ways that power relations will constantly act to manifest worth according
to existing hierarchies, such as gender or education, and how we are never passive in this process.
During the eight months while I conducted mystudies, a great many people in a great many places created new prospects for community networks
in general, such as by raising awareness and advocating for more supportive policy, and created
new prospects for diverse people to develop them.
Perhaps this will yield the time and space for us
to enrich narratives about power and telecommunications by better encompassing the ways thatpeople at the grassroots understand and relate togovernment, transnational corporations, or local
entrepreneurialism.

Thematic reports / 41

Feminist infrastructure and community networks:
An opportunity to rethink our connections fromthe bottom up, seeking diversity and autonomy
Bruna Zanolli (Vedetas, radiolivre.org), Carla Jancz(Vedetas, Actantes), Cristiana Gonzalez (PPGS-IFCH/
Unicamp), Daiane Araujo dos Santos (Rede Base
Comum/Casa dos Meninos) and Débora Prado (Lavits,
Labjor/Unicamp)redeautonomafeminista.org; www.casadosmeninos.org.br

Introduction
In this report we intend to examine three experiences with community and autonomous networks – byfocusing on relationships that are established between diverse women and non-hegemonic groups
and considering the overlapping of discriminatory
systems that can be experienced based on sex,
gender, race, ethnicity, class and other axes in anintersectional perspective.1 These groups havebeen engaged in developing and crafting newcommunication tools and infrastructures in theirlocal communities. We want to share our view as
researchers and activists that networks constitutean array of relations that go beyond the mere act ofsharing and distributing access to a particular kindof technology, including when communities reclaim
the use of electromagnetic spectrum, building radio
and mesh networks.
From a feminist perspective on technology andinfrastructure, we briefly discuss our assumptions inthis field considering that technology is neither neutral nor deterministic. The operation of a community
network implies relationships between a multiplicity of individuals and social groups with different
perspectives, interests and needs, and who are notaffected in the same way by socio-technical systems given existing inequalities such as race, class,nationality and gender. This means that technology

1

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw conceptualised intersectionality todenote the various ways in which race and gender interact to shape
the multiple dimensions of black women’s employment experiences.
Although her theory has aroused controversy, Crenshaw helped tomake visible some of the dynamics of structural intersectionality andpointed out that people and groups experience the overlapping of
discriminatory systems. She also pointed out the limits in identity
politics, affirming that its problem “is not that it fails to transcend
difference, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite – that it
frequently conflates or ignores intra group differences.” For more
information, see: https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/
mapping-margins.pdf

initiatives and the way that they are framed can produce inequalities and differences that emphasise thepolitical structuring of the social world emerging under the impact of the material internet infrastructure.
Community networks also show that technology isa terrain of struggle on which hegemonic forces express themselves through specific design strategies
in opposition to non-hegemonic groups that are nevertheless more or less successful in influencing thefuture form of the network infrastructure with which
they are engaged.
Whenever voices, experiences and realitiesof people with little or no access to the internet
are homogenised under the category of “unconnected”, their visions, aspirations and creative
potential are invisible. Since a feminist perspective
plays with different modes of being, it may help toquestion the basis of knowledge and subject positions that were/are seen in one-dimensional binary
opposition in communities, and help to note thecontradictions, tensions and ambivalence that characterise different communities, groups and subjects
in technology initiatives.
On this basis, we present ongoing experiences in Brazil – Rede Base Comum, Fuxico andRadia Pankaru – all autonomous networks that arechallenging androcentrism and new forms of colonialism or exploitation at the very local level. We also
advocate that alliances between multiple groups
can be expanded and technologies can be re-appropriated respecting local specificities and thedifferent means by which communities articulate
their experiences, without placing technical expertise above all other kinds of knowledge.

A claim for heterogeneity
There is a common tendency among “experts” touse the term “last billion” to homogenise those
who lack internet and mobile phone access. Suchnarratives imagine technology as moving not only
“from the West to the rest”, but from the urban to
the rural, from the cosmopolitan to the local, andfrom the globally networked to the remotely disconnected. Under such a framing the notion that
culturally and geographically peripheral sites are
in definitive need of “magical” solutions is implied.

42 / Global Information Society Watch

This particular view can emerge even in activism
or free software and open technology environments, where hegemonic narratives on networks
are often naturalised and presented as universal tothe detriment of already existing experiences andlocal ways of bonding. In this broader context, it isimportant to think over the risk of using the term“community” as a simple label that not only overshadows the recognition of local technologies andnetwork alternatives, but also reinforces the lackof respect for the voices of those silenced within acollective experience. In order to avoid this risk, we
understand it is necessary to consider multiple voices and internal inequalities in community-based
projects, which should impact on methods, timeplanning and especially on the dynamics of project
implementation.
The lack of consideration of these aspects often makes the evaluation of the achievements ofa community network difficult, or even leads us tomeasure its success mainly by the number of nodes
it connects. In this sense, the pressure for scaling
up community networks may, for example, run overlatent conflicts on gender-related aspects and undermine efforts to break down hierarchical authority
structures where difference between classes, ethnic
groups, races and experts and non-experts becomesinequality. It may also reduce the time required tomature social ties and make a community network
more bold and diverse. In addition, there is a risk ofinternet access provision and network stabilisation
being considered the primary concern, without any
consideration regarding the power disputes over its
standards, protocols, software and infrastructure
design.2 In many cases, connection is seen as themost important goal to be achieved in a whole project, instead of one among many others, neglecting
discussions and proposals that could be carried out
from more intersectional perspectives.
At the end of the day, we often face the absenceof actions designed to actively make these spaces (physical or digital) more welcoming and safe
for women – for example, the creation of daycare
facilities in spaces of infrastructure design and deployment; the implementation of affirmative action
to build more representative and less power-concentrated network and community management
structures; a collective agreement on an anti-harassment and non-discriminatory policy; or even theawareness of the potential need to remove intimate
content disclosed without consent or misogynist
content from community servers. All this is revealing
2

Vicentin, D. J. (2017). Internet Governance, Infrastructure andResistance. lavits.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/P8_Vicentin.pdf

of how even collective initiatives sometimes are designed in such a generalised way that they dismiss
the potential offered by an intersectional framework with all its complexity, mobility, and untiring
political possibilities, and with no consideration forstructural violence and discrimination.
It is not surprising that some initiatives thought
up by white, cis,3 non-poor men, who are disproportionately represented in many decision-making
spaces, are loaded with assumptions and ideological baggage, and do not contemplate issues suchas those mentioned above, even in the field of open
and free/libre technologies, when those needs are
not part of their universe and daily life. Furthermore, the choices that were made considering thiscertain group’s needs and concerns – which will not
be the same for all the participants in any network– are often not presented as one of the possible alternatives, but are hidden under an appearance of“ready-made solutions”. This kind of experiencecan reinforce not only the naturalisation of inequalities, but also, as pointed out in various feminist
literatures,4 reinforce a colonialist and problematic
heritage through the universalisation of a particularand privileged condition (and the choice of a privileged narrative, which like its formulator is seen as
universal and, therefore, capable of dealing with all
inequalities at once).
Considering this assumption, the discussions
aimed at making collective spaces and infrastructure designs more “on the ground”, welcoming andsupportive to different people and their values andpractices, are many times perceived as a waste oftime or a secondary item on the implementation
agenda. All this may foster the feeling that certain
spaces are not supposed to be occupied by women, orthat certain kinds of knowledge cannot be considered
technologies, or even the notion that external experts

3

4

According to the LGBTI+ Communication Manual, “cis” (or cisgender)
is the term used to describe people who are not transgender. It refers
to individuals who identify themselves, in all aspects, with the gender
attributed to them at birth. See: https://agenciapatriciagalvao.org.
br/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/manual-comunicacao-LGBTI.pdf
Some references regarding this discussion are: Harding, S.
(1998). ¿Existe un método feminista? In E. Bartra (Ed.), Debates
en torno a una metodología feminist. Mexico City: Universidad
Autónoma Metropolitana-Unidad Xochimilco; Haraway, D. (1995).
Saberes localizados: a questão da ciência para o feminismo e oprivilégio da perspectiva parcial. Cadernos Pagu, 5, 7-41; Rago, M.
(1998). Epistemologia Feminista, Gênero e História. In J. Pedro &M. Grossi (Eds.), Masculino, Feminino, Plural. Florianópolis: Ed.
Mulheres; Ribeiro, D. (2017). O que é lugar de fala? Belo Horizonte:
Letramento; Sardenberg, C.(2002). Da Crítica Feminista à Ciência
a uma Ciência Feminista? In A. A. Costa & C. Sardenberg (Eds.),
Feminismo, Ciência e Tecnologia. Salvador: Rede Feminista Nortee Nordeste de Estudos e Pesquisa sobre Mulher e Relações deGênero (REDOR), Núcleo de Estudos Interdisciplinares sobre a
Mulher (NEIM), Universidade Federal da Bahia.

Thematic reports / 43

will always have better answers to community problems than the community members themselves.
The Brazilian experiences we will address exemplify how the presence and active participationof diverse women, including indigenous women,
LGBTIQ people, community leaders living in the
periphery of urban centres and in rural villages,
feminists, tech activists and NGO participants, impact on the organisation of practices, activities andspaces of power where they are mostly thought ofas hegemonic subjects.
In our examples:•

The experiences involve diverse women in theformation of infrastructures and networks,
therefore encompassing both gender and technology issues.

•

Participants believe in the importance of building both online and offline local networks.

•

Participants see as problematic ready-madeand easily presented solutions (with English
often the embedded language of instruction
and implementation), as well as hierarchicalknowledge arrangements, pointing out that experiences with any kind of technology should
be designed to value local expertise, support
learning processes, seek diversity and dialogue
with the local context and, through doing this,entrench participants’ autonomy.

•

The experiences help us rethink our methods
and practices, disrupting naturalised assumptions that are built upon the invisibility ofdifferent groups and traditional knowledges,5
which have been supporting community organisation and sustainability concurrently with oreven before digital technological knowledge.

The purpose here is not to present these experiences as a solution to the diversity problem, but
to reflect on how they break down the invisibility of both local infrastructure relations and social
inequalities,6 highlighting local knowledges andpractices and proposing new social alliances. We
believe these experiences can help us to movetowards the decolonisation of our technologicalimaginary. In this regard, we understand technology in a broader perspective. As one co-author of
5

6

Although incorrect from a strictly grammatical viewpoint, the pluralform “knowledges” is used to emphasise the fact that there are
multiple kinds of knowledge.
Oliveira, D. (2017). Community networks and invisibility regimesof infrastructures and bodies. Paper presented at LAVITSInternational Symposium “Vigilancia, Democracia y Privacidad
en América Latina: Vulnerabilidades y resistencias”, Santiago,
Chile, 29 November-1 December. lavits.org/wp-content/
uploads/2018/04/40-Débora-Prado-de-Oliveira.pdf

this report once defined it: “[B]eing, living, loving,
suffering, resisting, organising, cooking... all areancestral forms of technology,” and the infrastructures are “the elements that make technologies
operate so powerfully.”7
We also share Sophie Toupin and Alexandra
Hache’s perception that:
One of the main constitutive elements of feminist autonomous infrastructures lies in theconcept of self-organisation already practisedby many social movements that understand thequestion of autonomy as a desire for freedom,self-valorisation and mutual aid. In addition,
we understand the term technological infrastructure in an expansive way, encompassing
hardware, software and applications, but also
participatory design, safe spaces and social
solidarities.8

Rede Base Comum, a local network to act
on our living areas
Rede Base Comum (Common Base Network in a freetranslation from Portuguese) is an urban community network in the district of Jardim São Luiz, locatedin the south of São Paulo. It is a local mesh network
currently managed by the NGO Casa dos Meninos.9
Although this is not a feminist network by definition
nor a collective that organises itself from a gender
perspective, it was the women from the communitythat managed the entire process of its implementation and are now in charge of its maintenance.
The network was born in 2010 with the objectiveof creating a common space for residents to gather
and learn from knowledge exchanges and to share
local resources. It was also designed to improve theterritory’s10 appropriation of technology while creat7

Zanolli, B. (2017). Podcast: Feminist spectrum and infrastructure.
GenderIT.org. https://www.genderit.org/node/5029
8 Toupin S., & Hache, A. (2015). Feminist autonomous
infrastructures. In A. Finlay (Ed.), Global Information
Society Watch 2015: Sexual rights and the internet. APC
and Hivos. https://www.giswatch.org/en/internet-rights/
feminist-autonomous-infrastructures
9 Casa dos Meninos is a social organisation founded in 1962. Since
1999, it has carried out social, educational and cultural activities
and programmes, using geo-referencing technology and web
development. The NGO’s target audience is young people aged
13-29 years old and adults aged 40-75 years old, all residents of theneighbourhood of Jardim São Luiz, in the district of M’Boi Mirim,
located in the southern outskirts of the city of São Paulo.
10 We understand territory as in Milton Santos’ work: “The territory is
the ground and the population, that is, an identity, the fact and the
feeling of belonging to what belongs to us. Territory is the basis oflabour activities, of residence, of material and spiritual exchanges,
and of life, upon which it also has influence. When talking about
territory one must, therefore, understand that we are speaking about
territory used by a population.” See Santos, M. (2003). Por outra
globalização: do pensamento único à consciência universal. Rio deJaneiro: Record.

44 / Global Information Society Watching a sense of community in a densely populated
city. Inspired by the ideas of Brazilian geographer
Milton Santos, the physical local network is seen
as an experience that can help locals amplify the
impact of political action in their residential areas,
redefining the composition of their immediate territory into smaller, delimited areas where residents
circulate, interact and modify collective spaces,such as schools, health units, local markets andothers. The network was also built with the prospectof creating a new culture, based on collaboration,solidarity and local exchange practices,11 challenging the pre-established culture of individualism andcompetition in our society.
It is noteworthy that the mesh network set up
by Rede Base Comum was preceded in an “analogical way” by a community network in the territory
created when residents mobilised for the “Daycare
Centres for All” protests in 2008. Back then, weorganised field work to gather information on thelack of daycare facilities in São Paulo, combinedwith geo-referencing tools, which showed the community, especially mothers, that a large number ofchildren without daycare access in São Paulo werefrom their area.
The lack of daycare facilities in São Paulo could
give one a feeling of impotence: official numbers indicated more than 100,000 children without daycare
in the city at that time. Nonetheless, the geo-referenced information unified the mothers and helped
them organise and intervene with a more concretedemand. As a result, the data collected in the fieldwork enabled a local movement that resulted in two
new daycare units in the neighbourhood, inaugurated in 2011 and 2013.
Social mobilisation coordinated by the community preceded the organisation of a local digital
network, helping us to think of a mesh network as
a way of supporting important interactions alreadyexisting between residents and relating to theirreality and local needs. In this process, a series ofmeetings and discussions were carried out to define the operation and maintenance of the network
structure. In a demonstration on how technology
can support a non-hegemonic vision, it was decided that in order to maximise autonomy, the network
should be managed by the community itself, including when it came to defining internal policy andcontent issues. Here when we talk about the “community”, we are also talking about ourselves, and
11 With the network we want to use and develop applications andwebpages that allow the community to share local resources, from theexchange of local knowledge, texts and audiovisual content to open
channels for the promotion and organisation of shared physical items
among the local population, such as books and building materials.

women who live in the neighbourhood and werealready bonded in “offline” social networks.
Nevertheless, when our group of women looked
for network infrastructure experiences and technical expertise, we faced an unwelcoming scenario:
the complete absence of training spaces on information and communications technologies (ICTs) in
our own neighbourhood, including for-profit technical schools – which led us to conclude that not every
area in the city is seen as a place of interest regarding technological expertise. Clearly, this lack ofopportunities is a reflection of social and geographical tensions that underline internet infrastructures– the place where people live and their social classresonate in the level of their access to informationand knowledge.
As a consequence, the team that today manages
the network sought partnerships with other groups
involved in digital culture. However, even in thefree/libre and open technologies activist field, ourfirst impression was that this space did not belong
to us, as we faced a predominance of white males
and only a few women working with infrastructureand free networks. Furthermore, these partnerships
were sometimes focused on teaching particular
content or techniques in a short period of time – adynamic in which there was little space to connect
all that “external” expertise to local aspects.
One of these partnerships, however, occurreddifferently. During a course on community networks
designed for women organised in 2017 by Vedetas –who had set up a feminist server intended to support
feminist groups in their online activities, to increase
women’s security and autonomy and to build feminist technologies12 – we discovered that feminist
practices could influence learning and knowledge
production. Once we managed to find out about
spaces where diverse women were involved withthe construction and modification of network infrastructure, we could observe the differences in theteaching methods and in the environment, and realised we should take into consideration what wewere producing and thinking for Rede Base Comumin order to meet our needs when building our own
infrastructure.
One aspect that drew our attention was thatthe partners who work with feminist infrastructuresconsider the reality of “on the ground” practices ofthe local population when introducing digital tools.
In other groups that we had contact with, it wasalways stated as an imperative and general truththat it was important to use free software in community networks, for example. We know the political
12 https://vedetas.org

Thematic reports / 45

importance of its use; however, we cannot always act
in ideal conditions and in this case specifically mostof the residents in our territory were still more familiar with the use of proprietary software than withfree software interfaces. In their very first contact, a
digital environment that was too different could divert people from the use of the local network.
In the feminist infrastructure workshops weparticipated in, partners presented the use of bothproprietary and free tools in parallel, which helped
us to understand in practice the differences thatmake the use of free software so important. This
simultaneous use served as a period of adaptation
to a free software environment. This has helped us
to adapt the workshops we have conducted in Rede
Base Comum, in which we apply a similar methodology, introducing free tools in a more practical,
gradual way and looking at their differences in relation to the proprietary software. As a result, digital
tools were presented as a popular resource and nota tool designed by and for experts.
Another difficulty we had was in relation to
the application of ready-made solutions. In somepartnerships with digital culture groups there wasan insistence on using already developed tools
and “plug-and-play” solutions in our network. We
know that this is the result of a positive intention
and effort to “facilitate” the life of those who arestarting their projects with community networks,
but in addition to using platforms and tools alreadydeveloped elsewhere, we have always affirmed that
it would be important for us to learn how to develop
some of our own tools. We had long conversations
with some partners in this regard, but they did notunderstand our need to appropriate this knowledge. Feminist groups had a better understandingof this need, as the importance of autonomy is aprominent part of their discussions. Today we aredesigning workshops and training projects which
aim to have women programmers and developers
in our own group and territory building some applications for our network locally. We consider this to
be one of the main priorities in the organisation of
our time, resources and projects, even if this means
slowing down the expansion of our network toneighbourhood areas.

Fuxico: Weaving connections beyond
the internet
Fuxico13 is an autonomous and portable device
made by Brazilian women to connect people whoare present in the same physical space in order topromote content, exchange experiences, and foster
13 redeautonomafeminista.org/fuxico

collaboration. It creates a wireless network – disconnected from the internet – with the objective of
sharing digital content in real time and in a completely anonymous way.
Motivated by the desire to explore the theme ofautonomous feminist networks, in 2017 a group offour female hackers from Brazil and Mexico coming from different feminist social infrastructure
and technology initiatives – Kéfir,14 Periféricas15 and
Vedetas – met at the AWID international forum.16
This participation resulted in a one-year projectwith the purpose of exploring what was mapped asfour points of tension in feminist infrastructures:“consent and intimacy”, “situated knowledge andmemory”, “seeded connectedness” and “autonomous decision making”.17
Through this project we worked with 230 women18 from events and workshops we facilitated inSão Paulo and Salvador, and also agriculturists from
Vale do Ribeira and rural artists at EncontrADA,19­
a self-organised event carried out in the São Paulocountryside. The work itself had very diverse approaches, such as setting up temporary prototypes
of autonomous mesh networks in events, to presentations, talks and longer courses on the subjectof autonomous infrastructures.
During the project we realised that merely a theoretical presentation about the theme or practice
14 https://kefir.red
15 www.perifericas.com.br
16 AWID is an international, feminist, membership organisationcommitted to achieving gender equality, sustainable development
and women’s human rights. https://www.awid.org
17 These women hackers also explored the points of tension in
feminist autonomous infrastructures at the 2017 Internet Freedom
Festival. See the event’s wiki at: https://internetfreedomfestival.
org/wiki/index.php/Getting_gender_inclusive_from_the_ground_to_the_cloud and the podcast “Feminist autonomous
infrastructure: Technomagical fires to warm your hearts” atGenderIT.org: https://www.genderit.org/node/4921
18 At the first meeting, held in 2017, it was possible to see that there
is diversity among the participants: there are women of different
ages, most of them between 20 and 40 years old (there are noelderly women); there is racial diversity, especially among whites andblacks, and there are Brazilians with Asian ancestry who work with
Asian feminism. People also come from different areas of activity:
graffiti artists, designers, lawyers, digital marketing communicators,
journalists, physicists, high school students, academic researchers,
and feminist activists from different groups. They also come fromdifferent places in Brazil: there are women from the city of São
Paulo, from the interior of the state of São Paulo, from Pará, Bahia,
Pernambuco – although most are living in São Paulo at the moment,even if temporarily. Some are mothers, some not; there are cis
and trans women, queer and non-binary people, heterosexuals,
bisexuals and lesbians. The concern with diversity is expressed not
only in the composition of the participants, but in the organisation’s
efforts to try to anticipate demands to ensure that the space is reallywelcoming for different women. Before the course starts, for example,
the organisation surveys the participants via email or telephone tomap out demands for daycare, food aid and transportation, andaccessibility for people with disabilities.
19 https://encontrada.hotglue.me/?historico

46 / Global Information Society Watch

with routers and antennas was not enough to deepen the discussion about the possibilities of womenusing and sharing local services. In some of the
field experiences, the very idea of digital communication was thought of as only being about theinternet, something that this initiative sought todeconstruct.20
We then decided to take a concrete example,
choose some technology that the participants could
touch and experience, but that was not an unoriginal ready-made solution or an imported tool. Beingan external solution – as mentioned, in English by
default – and with little regionalisation in the “userexperience” design and objectives, this imposition
without establishing any dialogue with participantson the local context and on their understandings
about technology usually acts against community
and individual autonomy in our experience. Even
free software with its solid goals of supporting civilsociety and the free democratic access to knowledge, like MediaWiki21 or PirateBox,22 if applied in
an unchanged and unreflective way to any context,
would appear as a foreign technology and only intensify the distance women feel in anything related
to technology.
Therefore, we chose to work with a heavily customised version of PirateBox, a 2011 free software
project defined as a “DIY [do-it-yourself ] anony­mous offline file-sharing and communications
system built with free software and inexpensive
off-the-shelf hardware”.23 PirateBox is an operating
system for Raspberry Pi,24 which creates a wireless network – not connected to the internet – toexchange digital content such as images, videos,
audios, documents and conversations, prioritisinganonymity.
Initially the interface was translated into Portuguese and the pirate’s visual identity that is part ofthe product was replaced by an image that served
as a locally meaningful analogy. The intention was
to give meaning to the experience by bringing elements that were part of the women’s daily life: forfarmers, we used the idea of “seeding” – a space forexchanging indigenous seeds, where the content
exchanged could, by analogy, multiply as “Creole

20 There are, for example, other forms of digital communication that
we call attention to in our collective, such as digital television andradio and intranets.
21 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
22 https://piratebox.cc
23 Ibid.
24 According to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the Raspberry Pi isan affordable and capable little computer, which can be used inelectronics projects and for many of the things that a desktop PC
does. https://www.raspberrypi.org

seed”.25 For women on the outskirts of Bahia state,
we used the name of a little flower called fuxico,26
which is an image used in a very common craft technique from the interior of the Brazilian Northeastthat is more than 150 years old. By using pieces offabric left over from sewing, the women create individual pieces that look like fuxico. They then sew
numerous fuxicos together, producing clothes, decorations, tablecloths and bed covers. We called thislocalised solution “Fuxico”, alluding to other techniques developed by Brazilian women.
These analogies seek not only to create a senseof belonging in the participant experience, but togive a new significance to what we understand bytechnology. Women often do not see technology as
a “female thing” and all things considered, “feminine”, in our culture, is often classified as anything
but technology. One of our goals as feminist hackers is to change this correlation and question thepolitics of such classifications and the scale of power they represent. As the neuroscientist and artist
Christine Liu claims: “Knitting is programming.
Sewing is engineering. Baking is chemistry. Women
have been STEM [science, technology, engineeringand mathematics] pioneers longer than they’ve received credit for.”27
The use of metaphors and analogies expressed
here reflect the view of Diana Maffia28 who, in formulating her critique of the hegemonic sciences,
reveals that the production of “truths” is based on
false notions of objectivity and neutrality, which require the use of literal language and the exclusionof emotion. In doing so, metaphors, far from having
value for knowledge, create obstacles to meaning.
What was experienced with these women is exactly
the opposite: the metaphors are valued and build
bridges – often they are perfected by the participants, who also formulate their own comparisons totest the knowledge learned. The truth here appears,
therefore, in the sense proposed by Maffia, thatwhat is legitimated by different perspectives will be
25 The manual of feminist practices produced in 2018 by SOF – a Brazilian
feminist organisation – says: “Creole seeds are those grown andmaintained by traditional peoples and communities throughout
generations, perpetuating the natural wealth of our lands. Throughagro-ecological crops and seed exchanges, they remain alive.” This isan activity of resistance in a country where the agribusiness industry
poses a threat to traditional ways of tending the soil and Brazilian
people’s health as a whole. For more information, see: https://www.
hrw.org/pt/news/2018/07/20/320493
26 For some examples of fuxico, see: https://www.artesanato
passoapassoja.com.br/artesanatos-com-fuxico-passo-passo
27 https://twitter.com/christineliuart/status/856729454013366272
28 Maffia, D. (2005). Epistemología Feminista: por una inclusión delo femenino en la ciencia. In N. B. Graf & J. Flores (Eds.), Ciencia,
tecnología y género en Iberoamérica. México DF: Universidad
Autónoma de México/Plaza y Valdés.

Thematic reports / 47

true (in this case, from the perspective of the women who attended the activities) – it creates meaningthat is not finished, but which can be renegotiated.
The Fuxico project is a collective reflection on the expressions and wishes of Brazilian women and was
designed to connect people present in the same
physical space, such as feminist events and collective venues – but not limited to them. In addition tothe original PirateBox features adapted to this context, Fuxico includes by default educational content
about feminism, autonomy, technology and stories
about women. The device also includes a manual on
feminist digital security techniques and practices –since any digital experience that seeks to include
women and other social minorities must consider
that discriminatory violence is structural and could
always occur in both online and offline spaces.
The original PirateBox project, as many free
software projects do, focuses a lot on trust, anonymity and the absence of control or censorshipmechanisms. As feminists we worry that the lack of
built-in functionalities to delete content that proves
to be violent or harassing is a flaw that will distance
women and other social minorities in fear of online violence. In the context of digital territories as
facets of real-life territories, cryptography and thepossibility of adding security layers to specific spaces and files, and the ability to choose who you want
to share content with, is a form of resistance. The
guide29 we share by default includes information on
holistic tactics and alternative digital security software that the users should familiarise themselves
with, but in the future we wish to add media governance and cryptography features built into the Fuxico
interface.
In retrospect, this project encouraged us towork on the issue of autonomous networks froma different perspective. The aspects that unite andcreate networks, as well as common narratives
and experiences, were more important than therange a certain kind of technology had. Rather
29 The publication, called the Practical Guide to Strategies and Tactics
for Feminist Digital Security, aims to provide women with greater
autonomy and security on the internet by presenting strategies andtactics of digital defence for feminists. The content is directed to
women in Latin America and was developed considering different
women: blacks, trans, lesbians, organised activist movements ofwomen or those who act individually in the network, whether fromurban areas or rural peripheries, and with different levels of access totechnology. Each subject is connected to real cases of online violenceand has practical information on how to deal with adversity in similar
scenarios and understand where to focus on security efforts. The
second part of the guide is devoted to the use of mobile phones
and how to have a safer device. There is also information on what
to do on social networks to counter hate speech and the unwanted
spreading of intimate content. The guide is available in Portuguese
at: https://feminismo.org.br/guia-pratica-de-estrategias-e-taticaspara-a-seguranca-digital-feminista

than thinking about the extension and quantity ofnodes, we reverse engineered that logic by working
in the smallest as possible sphere: a single router– a single box with the potential to bring together
narratives, ideas, knowledge and desires. Once
this common territory is established, the intentionof the project is to encourage women to gradually
expand these connections, adding routers and antennas as far as it will make sense for them.

Rádia Mulheres Pankararu
The indigenous territory of Pankararu is located in
the backwoods of the state of Pernambuco, in the
Northeast region of Brazil. The population that lives
in the territory is approximately 7,200 and although
their land was demarcated in 1942 they still fightagainst outsiders to make them leave the territory
and to have their land rights ensured.30
Rádia Mulheres Pankararu (which means Pankararu Women’s Radia)31 was started in January
2018 and was the result of the effort of many women, but mostly the women associated with AMIGP(Associação Mulheres Indígenas Guerreiras Pankararu, which means Pankararu Indigenous Women
Warriors’ Association), a couple of radio lovers,32
and Thydewá,33 a partner NGO. The initial idea wasto organise a workshop on basic electronics withwomen, supported by Fundo ELAS, a local fund for
women’s rights.34 However, after talking with them
we discovered that they had an old dream of having
a local low-power FM (LPFM) radio station. So we
arranged for experimental low-power equipment
and provided workshops on basic maintenance andaudio content production using free/libre and open
source software (FLOSS).
The signal reaches almost the whole indigenous territory and the radia is open for women’s
participation only (they are still thinking about how
men can participate without taking the action out
of women’s hands). Before the radia, the only two
FM radio stations that could be heard in the territory were commercial stations from cities located in
30 More information on the land conflicts faced by the Pankararu
can be found in the following articles in Portuguese: https://jornalistaslivres.org/povo-pankararu-luta-para-concretizardemarcacao, https://jornalistaslivres.org/pankararu-seguem-naluta-para-ocupar-seu-territorio .
31 We use the term radia with an “a” instead of radio with an “o”,
reflecting the feminine vs. masculine word ending typical of
Portuguese, because the sexism in our language is an important
issue and has an impact on how infrastructure and machines areperceived as a male field.
32 Luiza Cilente as the coordinator of the project and Bruna Zanolli asradio and studio technician.
33 www.thydewa.org; see also the project Pelas Mulheres Indígenas(For Indigenous Women): www.mulheresindigenas.org
34 www.fundosocialelas.org

48 / Global Information Society Watch

Source: Associação de Mulheres Indígenas Guerreiras Pankararu - Pernambuco, Brazil

the surroundings. The day after the radia did its firstbroadcast, there were people knocking on the doorof one of the women’s homes at 7 a.m. asking whattime it was going back on air!
AMIGP is an association of women that fights
against domestic and sexual violence and advocatesfor sexual and reproductive rights for indigenous
women. The association is mostly comprised of indigenous teachers and local articulators,35 as well
as homemakers and students. They renovated asmall room at the back of the association’s headquarters, where the radia is currently located. In
May, another project came to the space, providing
a FLOSS laboratory for young women.
Although the radia project is still new and it ishard to measure its achievements regarding socialchange, it is undeniable that the community wasstrengthened by the LPFM radia and its voice wasamplified. We believe that the radia, where content production is shared, strengthens community
bonds and helps with collective thinking. Becauseof this, the dynamics of an LPFM radio are morecollective than the use of the internet on individual devices, and can be an ally when we think of thesustainability of collective relations, representing abroader view on community networks and autonomous infrastructure. We believe that an LPFM radio
is, in this context, a form of community network,
meaning that it provides a way of communicationand exchanging thoughts and ideas. The internet
connection in the indigenous territory is restricted(there is satellite only, and it is expensive and not reliable), so having a local radio station was a specific
35 A local articulator is a person who has a communication role in thecommunity and is politically active at a local level. It is a common
term in Portuguese.

choice that was made considering the low budgetof the project. At the same time, the communication
problems to be addressed in the Pankararu community were better attended to by broadcasting, being
able to amplify the voices of the community leaders
who are fighting for indigenous women’s rights
Additionally, an LPFM radia entirely led by indigenous women is unprecedented in Brazil, a country
that struggles with concentrated management andpatriarchal laws when it comes to radio spectrum.
The concentration of radio spectrum use in Brazil is
a historical issue and, although there is a law regulating licences for community radio networks, it isvery difficult to get a concession due to bureaucracy. Sadly, the technical restrictions imposed by theconcessions also end up lowering the potential ofsetting up a community radio initiative. The present
law establishes that only one frequency is available
for community radios to use nationally – and this remains the case regardless of the size of the city andits population. This is also limited to 25W of power
or a maximum 1 km of range, which is really low,
especially considering big cities with tall buildings
and rural areas that are vast.36 There is also a needfor a legal entity to apply for a concession, and dueto the fact that there is only one frequency available, communities within the same range of 4 km
become competitors for the same concession.
There are many other examples of how thehindrances imposed on community radio in Brazil
36 Changes in the law are currently being discussed, but thechanges, although significant, fall far short of addressing the realdemands in the field. For example, the power allotment would go
up to 150W and it would be possible to have two frequencies permunicipality. More information can be found (in Portuguese) at:
https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2018/07/10/
aprovado-projeto-que-aumenta-potencia-das-radios-comunitarias

Thematic reports / 49

above, nowadays LPFM radio stations in Brazil aremostly used by evangelical groups with religious
and economic purposes rather than cultural andpolitical objectives. New kinds of technologies thatuse radio spectrum and could decrease social gaps
are not being explored or are even undermined in
Brazil. This is the case of digital radio, which can enlarge the access to frequencies and even send otherkinds of data like images and videos, in addition
to audio. Digital radio could be a communicational
solution for communities in remote areas that lackaccess to basic services and the internet.

To destabilise, but not conclude

Source: Associação de Mulheres Indígenas Guerreiras Pankararu Pernambuco, Brazil

impact on communities. The net result is that moreradio stations operating without concessions areclosed down every year than new concessions granted, showing that the level of access to a concession
falls far short of attending to people’s demands.
The difficulties to access the spectrum are amplified when looked at through an intersectionallens, meaning that even among the groups that havebeen awarded concessions, women and minorities
are still marginalised and occupy secondary posts.
It is evident that in most community radio stationsin Brazil, women still occupy positions related tosecretarial duties and cleaning, and are very rarely
in positions of leadership and technical management. The fact is that the whole decision-making
process of the allocation of the radio spectrum isstill practically all male driven, from legislators
to regulators, leading to the lack of diverse andfeminist perspectives regarding the possibilities
of use of spectrum as a resource. This patriarchal
domain makes spectrum access difficult and hinders the increase of diversity in community radio
networks. Sadly, because of the facts mentioned

More than producing definitive answers, we expect with this report to create destabilisations thatenable us to rethink community networks, and tochallenge the current internet world order by following a different method, considering the local
context and demands from a feminist perspective
on infrastructure.
Shared experiences in processes of building
and maintaining community networks, or othercollective forms of ICTs, have the potential to challenge the way in which broadband, wireless or radio
connections have been implemented in rural areas
and the periphery of urban centres. Usually theseexperiences either attend exclusively to commercial
interests or aim at simply, quickly solving the problem of the digital divide through internet access.
It is unquestionable that the experience of community networks has the potential to address theinvisibility of infrastructures.37 At the moment these
networks usually occupy an abstract place in our
imaginary but their impact on our day-to-day lives
and the power relations they establish gain a bolder materiality. From our perspective, community andautonomous networks are not limited to a shortcut
for development or a “breadcrumb” offered to “disadvantaged” groups to access the internet. They
represent a possibility of establishing connections
based on grassroots rules and in which technologies can be re-appropriated, or creatively used or
repurposed.
However, it must be noted that any process ofinteraction with technology carries constraints andconventions that may reproduce hierarchies andinequalities even in collective processes. In otherwords, even community networks can reproduce
norms that alienate women and non-hegemonic groups from spaces of power and autonomy. In
addition, some collective experiences based on
37 Bowker, G., & Star, S. (1999). Sorting Things Out: Classification and
Its Consequences. Cambridge: MIT Press.

50 / Global Information Society Watch

“one-weekend workshops” and flash projectsof network implementation run the risk of being
detached from local demands, failing to build longterm autonomy and strengthen communities.
In this broader context, the presence of diverse women in the design and management of
infrastructure and networks – in addition to making
these spaces more democratic – seems essential tochallenge the androcentrism and colonialism that
contaminate our knowledge and practices in the
global South. In the experiences we quickly presented here, the presence of diverse groups and theabsence of pressure for a quick incorporation of acertain technique or for network expansion are inline with the time needed to mix knowledges and tomature human connections towards making our networks more communitarian, free and autonomous.
The presence of diverse women is fundamental
on several levels, from the implementation and management of a local network to institutional spacesof decision making. The lack of popular and community access to the radio spectrum, for example,
is another important community network issue that
it is clearly a matter of human rights and should be
addressed carefully by politicians and legislators,

and hopefully in the most intersectional way possible. The digitalisation of the FM signal could bea way of broadening access to this common good,considering that the digital signal occupies lessbandwidth than an analogue signal, and there istechnology to make better and more dynamic useof spectrum using software-defined radio (SDR)
and cognitive radio technologies. Brazil, however,is far from digitalising the radio signal and promoting a more democratic, less bureaucratic andprofit-based model of access to the radio spectrum.
Finally, as we have argued, we see evidence thatmere access to new technology could reinforce rather than reduce inequalities. This observation seems
important to break the invisibility not only of technological infrastructure, but also of the asymmetriesof power that are clear from an intersectional perspective. This means proposing alliances that do
not erase differences, but instead value the powerof diversity. It also means a commitment to an active
effort to link digital expertise to women’s different
grassroots technologies and skills already in use,
and to local daily life, aiming to create a welcoming
and safe environment for those who are outside thehegemonic norm.

Thematic reports / 51

Decentralising culture: The challenge of local content
in community networks

Nicolás Echániz and Florencia López Pezé
AlterMundi
www.altermundi.net

Introduction: A bit of history
Our first steps with community networks go backto 2003, with the beginnings of BuenosAiresLibre.
At that time, free networks were phenomena of big
cities (Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Seattle, Portland, Berlin, Rome, etc.). They were set up mainly
by “geeks”, the community that had ties to the free
software movement.
The networks were experimental spaces andwere usually set up to offer access to self-contained web servers, FTP repositories, games, etc.;that is, they functioned as metropolitan intranets,
and reflected the interests of those who set themup. At that time, these networks did not have theirown public IP resources, autonomous system numbering, or peering agreements with neighbouring
networks, and they were not linked to internet exchange points. In general, their members resolved
their individual internet connectivity needs throughcommercial providers.
Some networks of this first era evolved, suchas guifi.net in Catalonia,1 but many went down inhistory. The freenetworks.org website2 maintained
information about free networks in the world foryears, but today it is no longer online.
AlterMundi, like other similar organisations,3 focused its efforts outside the big cities and took themodel of community networks to disadvantaged anddigitally excluded areas. These communities havehuge socioeconomic and educational differencescompared to big cities and the most concrete communication need is to achieve internet connectivity.
Our perspective is that community networks
should be, mainly, a vehicle to allow the “unconnected” to connect themselves. Over time andthanks to some successful examples, the perspective on community networks in the areas of internet

governance – national and international – began tochange. Longstanding organisations such as the
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
and Internet Society (ISOC) developed plans andstrategies focused along these lines: a Dynamic
Coalition was created at the Internet Governance
Forum,4 a Special Interest Group was started in
ISOC,5 and a project on local access networks wasstarted in APC.6 Community networks started to be
seen as an effective solution to reduce the digital divide and became an important issue on the agenda
of various relevant actors.
This report focuses on the role that community
networks play in creating an inclusive and culturally
diverse internet. We discuss the concept of right toaccess, suggesting its limitations. We then introduce an alternative notion of the “right to co-create
the internet”. We also share some experiences thatgive us perspective on the history and future ofcommunity connectivity as a fundamental enabler
to the right to co-create the internet.

The right to co-create the internet
The right to access communications is one of the fundamental notions defended by sectors of civil society
devoted to issues concerning the digital divide andconnectivity in excluded areas. At AlterMundi we believe that this notion has to be challenged, and ask
ourselves if defending it is not, in some way, supporting the agenda of the concentrated powers of theinternet ecosystem and reproducing its operating
models. Is it possible to think about the constructionof the internet from another paradigm?
Other social movements help us reflect on thisproblem. Let’s think of the terms “food security”
and “food sovereignty”. The first is the term thatgovernments and food corporations use to referto the condition that exists when “all people, at
all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food whichmeets their dietary needs and food preferences for
4

1
2
3

See the Catalonia country report in this edition of GISWatch.
https://web.archive.org/web/20171204140813/http://
freenetworks.org:80/member-affiliates
Atalaya Sur, Coolab, Zenzeleni, Gram Marg, etc.

56

https://www.intgovforum.org/cms/175-igf-2015/3014-dynamiccoalition-on-community-connectivity-dc3
cnsig.info
https://www.apc.org/en/project/
local-access-networks-can-unconnected-connect-themselves

52 / Global Information Society Watch

an active and healthy life.”7 Governments are primarily responsible for guaranteeing this right andmust not interfere with individuals’ efforts to “earna living”. They must also “create opportunities” forthose who do not yet enjoy the “right to food”.
However, other actors use the term “food sovereignty”. Food sovereignty is the right of peoples,
communities and countries to define their own foodpolicies that are ecologically, socially, economicallyand culturally appropriate to their circumstances.
It also claims food as a right.8 That is to say, thedispute is not the right to eat but the right of thecommunities to food self-determination and therefore to define their own food policies. This meansbuilding a new social relationship that questions
oppression and inequalities.
The concept of “food security” is similar to the“right to access communications”, but there is noclear concept analogous to “food sovereignty”
in the field of communications. In this area, there
is a broad grouping that seeks to build anotherparadigm and does not identify with the “right toaccess”. The argument is that the widespread useof the term “access” is not casual. It implies looking
at the person as an individual user, in a consumption relationship which is unidirectional; people
access services and content that they do not control
and that do not belong to them. This is a model of“feed them” access.
Organised and self-managed communities thatbuild their own infrastructures and technologies
to meet their communicating needs work in a different direction. What they do is understood moreclearly as a right to co-create the internet. From thisperspective, they do not constitute themselves asconsumers, but as empowered citizens. They arealso cultural actors who manifest themselves online
using the ability to produce, control and host theircontent and services, efficiently solve local communication challenges and share their culture, whilestill accessing, at the same time, the global network
under equal conditions as peers.
In this view, mobile networks, public Wi-Fi hotspots, internet balloons or planes, and other stateand private initiatives that look okay from the perspective of “access”, fall short as a vehicle to fulfil
the right to co-create the internet.

To reach the internet or build the internet?
We understand that the internet is, like culture, ourbodies or land, a territory in dispute. And we understand it in a multidimensional way: with a physical7
8

www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-fs/en
https://viacampesina.org/es/seguridad-soberania-alimentaria

dimension (infrastructure, standards and network
protocols), a logical dimension (services and applications), and a cultural dimension (contents,
messages). The important thing, for those who intend to intervene in this dispute, is to understandthat in the three dimensions there are strategies,
practices and technologies that strengthen theco-creation of the internet, or in contrast, reinforce
the idea of mere “access”.
For AlterMundi, we understand that each newcommunity network is a new part of the internet
and it is necessary to work so that each of themstrengthens local culture and popular organisation.
So, those of us who work for the developmentof community networks: How will we guarantee that
their growth does not result in just adding consumers for the large, concentrated content and service
providers? How will we help preserve and increase
cultural diversity? How will we strengthen the people’s processes of local organisation instead of
invading them with global idiosyncrasies?

Experiences with local content
The struggle to counteract the expansion of the
global monoculture is unequal. Powerful actors
operate in all dimensions – physical, logical and cultural – generating an inclined field where the birthof local alternatives is difficult.
Our experience with the networks of the Paravachasca Valley in Córdoba, Argentina, has been andcontinues to be a complex challenge. In this region,
five community networks interconnect villages
through their own infrastructure, with more than
120 km of backbone links and about 100 nodes thatmake up the mesh networks of the villages. The setof networks has its own autonomous system number (ASN)9 and global IPv4 and IPv6 resources. The
bandwidth in the networks is symmetric and only
limited by the capacity of the links. All connected
devices receive a global IPv6 address and a dynamic name resolution system allows each connected
device to be reached by its hostname.
We can say that the physical dimension enables
an environment in which locally hosted services
and content have no impediments to flourish andbe accessible both to the community and to others
outside of the community who have access to theinternet. However, having fertile land is not a guarantee of being able to produce locally.
In the first years, while community networks
were being deployed in the Paravachasca Valley, experiments with content generation and sharing of
culture and communication were carried out locally.
9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet)

Thematic reports / 53

For a long time, QuintanaLibre – one of the fivecommunity networks – ran a captive web portal
with relevant information for the community: public transportation schedules, a map of the area,
a list and description of local organisations andinstitutions, cultural activities, a section of advertisements for local products and sales, etc. Chatand voice over IP (VoIP) services and streaming of
the local community radio were also provided. The
services, implemented on free software platforms
and low-cost hardware (embedded computers anddisplay-less notebooks), were successful during
the first years. Much of the cultural dimension of
the network was expressed through these local, alternative services and information.
However, different circumstances determinedthat these services stopped working or being usedover time. It is striking that much of the “failure” tosustain these alternatives in the upper layers (logical dimension) was largely due to success in thelower layers (physical dimension). The increase incapacity in the links that connect these community
networks with the rest of the internet, which in principle would represent an advantage, was promoting
practices that tend to favour global alternatives
over local. A clear example: people use global music
and video on demand services instead of downloading content to local devices and sharing them; evenwhen that content, such as music and children’s
programmes, was clearly displayed and accessible.
The growth of content delivery networks (CDNs)
with increasingly closer caching nodes also tilts thecourt in the same direction. Even local cultural products tend to be shared through global systems suchas YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp groups.
On the other hand, the emergence of smartphones as a dominant device (over 80% of theconnected clients) and the ubiquitous use of
WhatsApp as a tool for individual and group text,
voice and video communication – made more feasible by the improvement in connectivity with theoutside world – resulted in a difficult competition to
overcome for the local community network services,
especially for chat and voice calls. The implementation of local services using free but centralised
platforms was also a weak point. A single damaged
server represented the loss of one or more services
for the entire network. The low demand for these
services meant that local technicians lacked motivation to replace hardware and repair services,which remained off-line.
It is interesting to note that although the tools
used by neighbours to communicate are controlled
by global corporations, the groups that have been
set up in the main continue to play a role of localorganisation: network maintenance, political action,
cultural activities, disaster response, car-pooling,
local commerce, etc. That is, the physical dimension
is controlled and deployed by the community, thelogical dimension is controlled mainly by global corporations, but the cultural dimension still maintains
a strong component of local empowerment.
Nevertheless, it is true to say that in regions
where the quality of the collective connectivity
to the internet achieves levels comparable to thecommunity network performance, the successful
implementation of local services imposes morechallenges than certainties. In contrast, whereconnectivity with the global network is scarce or
non-existent, creative initiatives have been bornand have grown to represent, in all dimensions, asignificant part of communication in cultural life.
An example is Rhizomatica and REDES in Mexico,
who founded Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias together with the community operators.
The absence of fixed or mobile telephony services
served as a stimulus for the creation of a mobile telephony community network that has expanded tocover more than 63 locations through 15 networks
that are self-managed by indigenous communities.
Today they have more than 3,500 user-members.10
Cuba, where internet connectivity is very limited and expensive, also offers practical examples.
As an alternative to internet connectivity, creative
initiatives were born, such as “El Paquete” (thepackage), a sneakernet11 that every week distributes varied content such as videos, music, website
downloads, software, etc., across the island. The“package” – or content – is stored on high-capacity hard drives that are copied and then distributedby land transport. The people are responsible fortransportation, replication and then the partial distribution of content to each user. There is anothersimilar project administered by the state called “La
Mochila” (the backpack) that distributes educational content. Yet another case worth mentioning is theStreet Net or SNet, which consists of a metropolitan
network built by the neighbours. This network has
hundreds of nodes and covers tens of kilometresin the city of Havana and surrounding areas andprovides access to local services such as forums,
games and content.
In northern Argentina, in Jujuy, the organisation Atalaya Sur together with the local community
is building a community network in a region thatlacked access to the internet. The Chasqui network
provides local IP telephony services, video and
10 See the Mexico country report in this edition of GISWatch.
11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet

54 / Global Information Society Watchbook repositories, text messaging and a social network, all based on free software. Since the arrivalof a 3 Mbps connection to the internet, the use of
WhatsApp has begun to spread, although the community is still choosing the local social network toshare content.

Why all dimensions matter
There are numerous other examples of networks
and systems that facilitate communication andprovide local services in regions with little or noconnectivity to the global network. But, when they
are fully integrated with the internet, how will thesesystems adapt? How can they take advantage ofthe experience and continue to empower their communities? When local alternatives compete directlywith the offer of powerful corporations and theirsystems, will the creativity and ingenuity that madethem possible adapt and survive? Is it worth asking
these questions?
Returning to our initial comparison with thefield of food, we understand that true food sovereignty tends to be expressed in all its dimensions,which we could simplify as:•

Control over/access to the land for those who
farm it.

•Appropriation of tools, techniques, seeds, supplies, etc.

•

Fair and sustainable production and distributionof healthy food.

We would not hesitate to fight for food sovereignty
if Bayer/Monsanto controls the intermediate layer(seeds, techniques, supplies). So why would it beacceptable or reasonable that in our co-creation of
the internet, the logical layer, the systems and applications that host our culture and transport ourmessages, are controlled by the likes of Facebook
or Google?
We understand that this is where we must clearly demarcate the limit between the defenders of“access” and the promoters of internet co-creation.
At times we find ourselves in scenarios where actors
who structure their business in the logical dimension of the internet appear as partners, defending
positions that resemble ours. Their business, theirplatforms, live in this layer which is the most difficult to appropriate with local alternatives. While
we work to deploy more networks and expand thephysical layer, more people will participate in thecultural layer and will do so through the platforms
that these actors control. So, if community networks do not face the problem in all its complexity,
we will be reproducing logics that we wanted tomodify. The tools we use to transmit culture and tocommunicate will determine the type and reach ofour messages as much as the seeds we grow will
determine the food we can harvest.

The decentralised repository of culture
We are convinced that a powerful response to thequestions we have been asking is to develop andgenerate the conditions (technical, social, educational, budgetary, etc.) for the appropriation of
distributed and decentralised tools that take advantage of existing intercultural scenarios, enhancing
cultural diversity through peer-to-peer communication within and among communities.
Because of this, we began developing the decentralised repository of culture.12 It is a free tool
to deepen the experiences of appropriation of technology in community networks beyond the physicaldimension, in a real, efficient and valuable way thatallows sharing and distributing culture with a counter-hegemonic logic. The fundamental principle of
the repository’s design is simple: decentralised but
organised.
Historically,13 the systems used to share culture
directly between users have either taken the form ofpeer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing protocols and clientsor forums and specialised systems, mostly websites. The former, although they are more resistant
to attempts at takedown, do not allow an elaborate
and efficient organisation of the corpus of contents
they host. Centralised systems, such as forums andspecialised sites, allow the organisation and categorisation of content, but they are fragile in theface of attacks, both cyber and legal, and their accessibility necessarily depends on the quality of theinternet access to the centralised system.
The idea of “decentralised but organised” represents the best of these two approaches. In thedecentralised culture repository, the metadata thatmakes content organisation possible is replicatedalong with the content itself. Pieces of the repository that become fragmented still maintain theirclassification locally. The repository is a natural
partner of community networks with little connectivity that use sneakernet techniques to transport
information from and to the outside communities
that do not have access.
Each fragment of the culture repository, which
consists simply of a number of instances connected
in a network, makes sense in itself. This allows for atransparent evolution between the different stagesof connectivity of a community network.
12 https://github.com/Altermundi/openrepo-desktop
13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_file_sharing

Thematic reports / 55

Our hope in AlterMundi is that this newly born
project evolves over time to become a vehicle tore-appropriate portions of the logical dimension
in the same way that previous developments suchas LibreMesh14 and LibreRouter15 are currently enabling the re-appropriation of the physical dimension
for numerous communities.
If we think about the global scenario, where
the unconnected have the opportunity and therole of connecting themselves, it is vital and necessary to deploy community network infrastructures
but also to complement those processes with anecosystem that is coherent and does not reproduce the systematic exclusion and oppressionthat the unconnected have suffered so far. What
we have to contribute as social actors has to go
in the direction of developing tools that enablecommunities in their role as free, sovereign andempowered subjects to produce and share culture.
In this way, conditions are created so that the rightto co-create the internet can be engaged, appropriated and inhabited by all the people who coexist
in the great global network, creating, in all dimensions, their own internet.

14 https://github.com/libremesh
15 https://librerouter.org
56 / Global Information Society Watch

Country reports

GLOBAL INFORMATION
SOCIETY
WATCH
2018
COMMUNITY
NETWORKSGLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY WATCH

Community Networks

A SSOCI ATION FOR P ROGRESSIVE C OMMUNIC ATIONS (AP C)GISW_Prueba01.indd 1

13/9/18 15:51

Thematic reports / 57

Country report introduction

Cutting a line of sight for community connectivity

The political agency of community networks

Alan Finlay

The 43 country reports gathered here were selectedbased on our working definition of community networks, as “communication networks that are built,
owned, operated and used by citizens in a participatory and open manner”. While this definition was auseful starting point, the country reports also illustrate that what we think of as community networks
can be a lot more messy, and that a number of locallevel networks that self-identify as community networks are closer to hybrid or blended models ofcommunity access.
The networks differ in their purpose, their governance and sustainability models, their politics,
their stakeholders, their relationship to the state
and the economy, their size, and even their technological set-up, or what they “do” (some networks
are intranets, and do not offer access to the world
wide web). Even the notion of “community” is quite
loosely applied. Compare, for example, the storyof what is considered the first community network
in Ecuador – in a rural community of some 50 people – to guifi.net (Catalonia), also a “community
network”, but “with tens of thousands of working
nodes, and hundreds of volunteers, professionals
and public administrations involved.”
The country reports, as a result, offer a richentry point for comparing local access initiatives
across the globe that self-identify as community
networks to better understand points of comparison, agreement and departure. Although by nomeans comprehensive, the result can be read asa raw survey of community networks in different
contexts. To complement and enliven the pointsof comparison, country reports such as those from
Peru and Venezuela offer arguments contra community networks, due to factors such as the costof equipment, prohibitive laws, and the proliferation of mobile connectivity. Similarly, for different
reasons, community networks are not operating in
China and Seychelles, whose country reports can beread here.

A number of reports speak to the social and politicalagency of community networks, as well as actors inthose communities. Sulá Batsú (Costa Rica) argues
that “community networks should not be conceived as
small or weak organisations; they can be constituted
as large, sustainable and influential organisations thatare in the hands of the people they provide services
to.” Similarly, Sarantaporo.gr (Greece) shows how thehistorical social and political agency of communities
needs to be recognised, and drawn on – in this case,the rural and cooperative movements in Greece in theearly 20th century. The authors write that community
networks should be seen as constituted by “participants [as] rational social actors rather than docile
consumers” – communities, that is, have the “potential to muster collective power that can bring aboutsocial change.” Several reports refer to an economics of “solidarity”, where those who cannot pay forconnectivity are subsidised by those who can. Volunteering is encouraged as a form of active citizenship.
A sophisticated theoretical politics drives anumber of initiatives – particularly those in Europe.
In Italy, ninux.org “started as a ‘geek experiment’,and maintained this approach throughout its evolution. This gave it a specific ethical and ideological
purpose, and allowed it to actively contribute to thespirit and development of the European community
network movement.”
A sense of agency is critical to this ideological
purpose – a “do-it-yourself ” attitude is referred toin many reports, with Sarantaporo.gr referring to its
governance system of 10 people as a “do-ocracy”.
Freifunk in Germany is energised by a hacker
ethic, and enacts new forms of citizenship in its“free wireless network activism” connecting over
300 refugee shelters and centres:
In parallel to the traditions of establishedhacker organisations like the “Chaos Computer Club”, the Freifunk initiative provided thesocio-material practices to problematise theinfrastructural politics of refugee shelters andreception centres, but also sought to actively
reconfigure them.

Country reports / 59

This intervention is part of Freifunk’s ongoing workto establish it as a “legitimate form of ‘digital volunteering’, which includes a sustained engagementwith public institutions and a struggle in legallybacking up its own emerging practices.”
Community networks can also be “political” ina normative sense, whether to counteract internet
shutdowns in the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC), or to circumvent surveillance. While China“forbids significant organisation outside the purview of the state,” one author could not complete
a report because of a country context that was described as "extremely sensitive" – it was not safe,in this environment, to publicly disclose information
about community networks.

“Step-by-step” tech
Most community networks discussed here follow
the mesh network methodology – literally creatinga mesh through “organically” connected routersor “nodes”. The network can then have as few as
one connection to the internet that is shared by thecommunity.
One usefulness of a mesh network is that it
can expand in a step-by-step way as more nodes
are added as they are needed – and authors advisethat communities should not rush the process. Zen­zeleni in South Africa calls this a “model of slow
co-creation”. As WirelessPT in Portugal puts it, it isalso a system that can “self heal” when combinedwith software that detects breaks in the mesh when anode goes down, automatically looking for the nearest working node to keep the network functional.
Antennas are sometimes used to relay the signal over longer distances, including the backhaulinternet connection to/from the nearest town orcity, or extending it to nearby communities. These
are mounted on towers and other prominent points.
The number of antennas needed typically depends
on the geography of the region.
In one interesting description of hands-on practical methods (Ecuador), line-of-sight antennas are
set up at dusk so that the neighbouring city can
be clearly identified when the evening lights getturned on:
They advised us: Climb up to high places at dusk
to identify potential links, and then just try themost obvious link in the fastest, least expensive
way possible. Fastest in terms of just buying anantenna instead of making antennas yourselves,
and least expensive in terms of using a friend’s
internet connection instead of contracting yourown. In order to take a first step, let go of theidea of building a network for five communities

all at once – maybe that will happen, but it’s not
the first step. Start with a single link, and that
small, practical step will teach you things thatenable you to grow the network later.
Open source firmware for routers such as LibreMesh
or OpenWrt is commonly used, with the Wi-Fi signals typically transmitted on unlicensed 2.4 GHz
and 5.8 GHz bands. Backhaul connectivity is normally through licence-exempt or licensed wirelesslinks, or fibre. (Fantsuam Foundation in Nigeria tried
satellite but found it too costly.)
Sometimes the backhaul connectivity is donated through partnerships (e.g. with universities, or
through service providers who partner with a project looking for an expansion of their customer baseat the local level). Networks are also considering
the potential of TV white space (TVWS) for connectivity – in an interview, a pilot project underway in
Tanzania is discussed here.
Networks in both Mexico and the Philippines experiment with and promote mobile connectivity for
their community access solution.
In the absence of an electricity grid, or unstable power supply, community networks rely on
generators, solar energy or, in some cases, hydropower. Although these solutions give communities
more control over their power supply, Alternative
Solutions for Rural Communities (ASORCOM) in Myanmar found that alternative power solutions canalso be vulnerable:
There was no national electrical grid in the
project area, so the project had to depend onhydropower and solar. During the rainy seasons, hydropower stations were washed away
by flash floods, and solar power was made ineffective by heavy cloud cover. The network did
have a backup generator, but the diesel needed
to run it led to extra costs for the communities.
This meant that the use of the network was limited in the rainy seasons.
Not all of the community networks discussed here
have access to the internet – while a number havedeveloped an internet-intranet ecosystem, in thecase of networks such as Mesh Bukavu (DRC),
content such as Wikipedia, ebooks, and computerscience and English course material is downloaded onto the intranet. The community can also chatto others through an instant messaging system.
Similarly, one of the important functions of Network Bogotá in Colombia is crime prevention, andthe security cameras are an integral part of the
network set-up. These examples of network use

60 / Global Information Society Watch

highlight that setting up a community network
is not just about connecting to the outside world
via the internet, but about a community using
technology to attend to its local, sometimes morepractical needs.

Governance from the ground up
Community networks are a matter of perspective –suggested by the substitution of the phrase “firstmile” for “last mile” to signify the technical challenge of reaching citizens and homes. They workfrom the community outwards, rather than fromthe vantage of the state or the service provider inwards. “Access” is not just about access. As theauthors writing on ninux.org put it: “If the wholecommunity network movement turns into a ‘connectivity fac­tory’­­, its original and innovative push will
be strongly reduced.”
Reflecting this, most of the reports emphasise
a form of community ownership – these are, in themain, all bottom-up, grassroots initiatives, and theempowerment of local communities and members of
the communities is a shared concern. While government involvement is sought in several networks, andthe private sector is sometimes seen as a partner,
community ownership is a cornerstone of most of the
projects discussed here. Participatory governancemodels are typically promoted, with ownership by
the community being fundamental to the long-termsustainability of the network. While there are numerous variants of the community network model,collective approaches to governance can be considered a defining feature of community networks.
However, participatory models are not always
easy to manage or sustain. ASORCOM in Myanmar
shows how they can test our assumptions of community and collaboration and shared notions of the“common good”. Keeping a sense of “community”
in community networks can be hard work:
Sometimes users would fight amongst themselves. Some users downloaded videos andgames that affected connectivity for everyone.
Sometimes people wanted to charge theirneighbours for connecting to their router. We
have had to offer counselling to resolve thesedisputes. We have also had to install software
to monitor and control the system.
Colnodo (Colombia) describes how confidence in
new forms of community participation can wear
thin without the proper commitment from its
proponents:
This delay has begun to frustrate the participant
communities. Some leaders have withdrawn

their support and, as a consequence, the managers of the initiative have lost legitimacy, giventhat the communities perceive this delay as abreach of their commitment to the project.
Sensitivity to local processes is important, as Macha Works (Zambia) argues:
In the process of engaging the community, theorganisation exercises sensitivity to local contextual frameworks and understandings, forinstance, regarding time and space, affecting
both the practice of human interaction and theassessment of realities.
This is, the authors argue, “important to ensure thelong-term sustainability of the intervention.”
Particular attention should be given incommunity networks to the empowerment of marginalised groups or individuals, whether throughthe formation of governance structures, training
interventions, or other community empowerment
programmes. In India, women weavers are taught
how to upload their designs onto the internet, and“barefoot engineers” are trained to set up antennas
and perform other tasks typically seen as “men’sroles”.
Catalonia offers an example of an advanced
governance model, with clear roles and procedures(that can be used elsewhere). Two key questions
need to be asked: What is the objective of the network? And, is this a shared objective? This “helps
to focus […] efforts” and “increases certainty” by
reducing the “likelihood of misunderstandings andconflicts.” In the way that “different communities[have] different goals,” and “determining who that
community was and their goals created the profileof the network” in the Caribbean, governance models can vary, and depend on the objective of the
network, the size, and the stakeholders involved.

Getting the right support
Legislation governing community networks is un­
even, and frequent calls are made by authors tohave community networks recognised in law, andto cut away at the regulatory red tape that inhibits
their operations. This includes licensing exemptions
for the 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz band and TVWS, andsupporting community networks through universal
service funds. As the Internet Society Kyrgyzstan
Chapter found, registration requirements can breakthe spirit of a start-up initiative:
The main obstacle that made us lose all our
hope was the requirement to register the useof frequencies. We thought that we could use

Country reports / 61

certain frequencies, as long as nobody else
was using them. When we found out that weneeded to register them and that it takes half ayear just to go through the application, we were
devastated...
Part of the advocacy challenge is for governments
to recognise the practical and real contribution that
community networks make towards achieving theirown development targets. Instead, as WirelessPT
found, successful projects sometimes fall prey tothe whims of political opportunism:
Policies in favour of community networks had
never existed. The idea of sharing resources in
a community was always looked down on withprejudice or at least seen as something that
could not make money and was therefore un­
important. Any potential political champions one
could find would always want public credit andvisibility for their personal brand in exchange for
their support, sometimes demanding control andtrying to dictate how the project would work.
However, others find policy makers more readyto support them. In Nepal, for example, the government has been responsive to the needs ofcommunity networks, following a period of heavy
restrictions due to the country’s civil war:
A second regulatory obstacle was that to become an ISP in Nepal, it was necessary to pay
a huge licence fee. NWNP [Nepal Wireless Networking Project] lobbied the regulatory body,the Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA),
to reduce the licence fee. As a result the NTA
issued a new law that made the licensing procedure simple. It also reduced the fee to just
100 Nepalese rupees (around USD 1) a year for
those who want to work as rural ISPs.
Stakeholders can include the state and private
sector actors. While POPDEV Bénin argues thatgovernment community centres should be strengthened through participatory governance and meshnetwork infrastructure, in South Africa the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services
announced its intention to support and work with
Zenzeleni during a parliamentary budget speech.
Similarly, Gram Panchayats (village administrations) and the government's Common Service
Centre (CSC) programme are essential collaborators
in Gram Marg community-led networks in India.
Private sector partnerships are typically secured
for connectivity. In the Philippines, the VBTS-CoCoMoNets project describes its partnership model as
an “innovation”:

Our first major innovation is our public-private
partnership for sharing cellular spectrum witha large mobile operator. Given the absence ofregulatory support and spectrum access forcommunity cellular networks in the Philippines, we found it necessary to find a partnerthat shares the project’s vision and that would
allow the community network to operate under
their frequency licence. We found that partner
in Globe Telecom, a major telecommunications
company in the Philippines. Since our sites
have a smaller subscriber base than what theywould consider viable, our community network
deployments are placed under their corporatesocial responsibility programme.

Adaptability and resilience
Community networks appear to be highly adaptable. They connect municipalities in Catalonia, andthe urban slums of Kenya. They “work” in the highmountain passes of a sparsely populated natural
reserve in Georgia, and in the Amazon rainforests.
They are adapted to geography, socio-demographics, and scale – they “work” whether the network
has 35,000 nodes, or only a few. They help rebuild
broken communities after civil war, and connect refugees in temporary shelters to their families backhome. They are used by urban professionals andgrassroots weavers, activists, farmers, refugees, thepoor and tourists.
As Nigeria’s sectarian violence shows, they canbe vulnerable, torn down. But they can be resilient
too. In the United States, the Red Hook Initiative(RHI) community network was the only communication channel left standing following the devastationof Hurricane Sandy:
When Hurricane Sandy struck New York in
October 2012, flood-prone Red Hook was devastated. Cell phone service was down andinternet service went out in places. The neighbourhood was dark, with chest-deep water inthe streets – but with its small mesh network,
RHI was still able to connect to its staff andcommunities in parts of the neighbourhoodthat had no communications or power at all
for weeks after the storm. RHI organised volunteers using the mesh to help distributesupplies to elders and others unable to leave
the public housing towers in the neighbourhood, and gave the community a voice online
to broadcast what was happening. People allover the world following RHI’s Twitter feed put
together online shopping lists and shipped
supplies to Red Hook.

62 / Global Information Society Watch

Much of the resilience of community networks isdue to the attitude and experimental energy of theactors involved in setting them up. “Be revolutionary and dare to take a chance,” writes Miguel Vieirafrom WirelessPT, who had to figure out his network
solution from scratch:
My first trip to Moitas Venda [in Portugal] tostart the initial deployment was the hardest. I
had only three weeks to fix and deploy old broken hardware that was left abandoned by theprevious community wireless project, and I had
no skills or knowledge on how to do manage it.
“One of the key characteristics of ninux is its hacker
nature,” write Leonardo Maccari and Claudio Pisa:
Ninux.org […] was the initiative of a computer science engineering student, Nino Ciurleo.
Nino had grown technically in the ham radio
community as well as the Italian hacker scene
and was influenced by the punk do-it-yourself
attitude.

Similarly, an early music streaming network in Australia, TS Wireless, existed because of the energyof enthusiasts who simply wanted to try something
new. “TS Wireless may not have sustained an online community for more than six months, yet there
was community around us, tweaked by a crazy idea
all along,” writes Andrew Garton. “It was there,
and still exists, through the network of softwaredevelopers, web coders and designers, passionate
wardrivers and NetStumbler aficionados.”
He adds: “We didn’t bridge any digital divide,
we didn’t fill a development void nor provide critical information where it could not otherwise bereached. We experimented with a new idea...”“Our network exists because we want it to exist,” state the authors from the small community
network in Ecuador. “We build it, we maintain it,
and we use it – and sometimes we break it, we argue about it, we insult it when it goes slower than
we like or cuts off entirely, and we get frustrated
about it... but mostly it works and we are thankful.”Country reports / 63argentina
Convergences: AlterMundi’s experiences and challenges

Asociación Civil AlterMundi and Red Comunitaria
QuintanaLibre
Jésica Giudicehttps://altermundi.net, https://librerouter.org

The real and the ideal
Access to information and communication is a rightfor all human beings, and it is the state that must
guarantee our rights. In some cases, the state fulfils the role of providing access to information andto means of communication directly; sometimes it
is met through the work of different social actors;
and sometimes it is not fulfilled at all, and it is thepeople who end up resolving their basic needs and,
therefore, enabling their rights.
José de la Quintana is a small town of some
2,000 people in the mountains of the province of
Córdoba, Argentina, which does not have a local
government, and the regional government does
not participate actively in the community life. The
neighbours and the organisations of the town have
had to meet more than one need on their own – forexample, organising festivals, repairing the streets,
cleaning up the riversides, creating and maintaining
the cemetery and a cultural centre, and much more.
The town has families that have lived there forgenerations, as well as “newcomers” to the community, those who return periodically to their rural
holiday houses, and also some seasonal tourists.
There is a school for each level of education: kindergarten, elementary and secondary school. There is
no dominant type of work in the town, no factories,
no companies. Many of the inhabitants work in the
nearby cities (15 to 30 km away) or in the provincial capital (some 60 km away), which is also thesecond largest city in the country. Currently, twowireless internet service providers (ISPs) offer theirservices there, and their offices are based in towns
more than 20 km away. To provide internet accessin a way that everyone would like, with the stability
that everyone would like, and at a price that everyone can afford, seems a utopia.

QuintanaLibre: A network seedbed
In 2011 a group of neighbours decided to start asmall network to share the internet link one of themhad. QuintanaLibre was conceived.

That is how it started, but the idea quickly
proved too small and more neighbours wanted tojoin. For this there were two strong drawbacks: thenarrowness of the bandwidth and the maintenanceof the local network.
In order to have more bandwidth than the initial
512 Kbps, we spoke with the two ISPs in the area. We
hoped to arrange a discounted collective purchasing
agreement with one of them in exchange for reducing
requests for technical assistance, but this proposal
did not succeed. We ended up upgrading to a 2 Mbps
connection, which was the best one available.
However, a barrier became apparent when we
wanted to combine our community project perspective with that of a commercial enterprise. Although it
seemed (and still seems to us) that both approaches are absolutely compatible, and that they evenempower each other, the ISPs did not want to takethe risk, or begin the journey of discussing ways ofcollaborating with our network. We also believe thatthey thought our project could not prosper and survive over time: it was, at best, a nuisance.
In parallel, we thought it was necessary to design a network model in which local people could
take care of its maintenance. The logic was: all
the nodes should be the same, so that their maintenance would be similar; we all get together andlearn how the node is maintained, and those whohave difficulties can ask a neighbour who has already learned by fixing their own node. This is how
we distribute the maintenance load.
Following this path, we called friends with technical experience in networks, who helped us define
the technical aspects of mesh networks for small,digitally excluded populations like ours. Then we
dealt with the obstacle of deploying a point-to-pointlink to the nearest city in the absence of a cooperation agreement with the ISPs.

The first network of community networks
in the country
There were a number of things we still had to do
before we were in the position to set up a meshnetwork that we could rely on. We defined a hardware reference (routers, antennas, casing, etc.) anddeveloped our first mesh firmware, which greatly
simplified mesh deployment.

64 / Global Information Society Watch

These first steps were decisive for the expansionof our network and for connecting to the other community networks that were emerging in the region:
AnisacateLibre, LaSerranitaLibre, LaBolsaLibre and
NonoLibre. The first network of community networks in Argentina!
These networks all took QuintanaLibre asa reference point to get started. However, each
community organises and manages its network in
different ways. Only AnisacateLibre was initiatedby a person with a technical background; the restof the communities gathered their courage, organised and informed themselves and consulted with
us when they had problems. They learned more andmore from their own experiences, and two or threemembers in each village ended up going deep into
the technical side of the network.
Today we are in contact, we are friends, andsometimes they ask for help; but we also help eachother and work together in improving the backbone network that interconnects us. This organic
growth allowed us to form a community, despite
the distance and the fact that we are from different
localities.
This union also strengthens us internally andexternally. It is easier to advance when there are
more of us; the impact in the region is greater andwe can share the achievements of each network.
However, this growth brought with it the needfor more bandwidth. We managed to solve it, firstwith a residential connection managed by AnisacateLibre and then through an agreement with Silica
Networks,1 which donated a symmetrical 20 Mbps
connection for a two-year period. Then we signed
another agreement with the National University of
Córdoba2 to take advantage of its idle bandwidth.
Currently, QuintanaLibre has more than 60 interconnected nodes that cover the territory of thevillage and San Isidro, the neighbouring community. This network also includes the secondary school
and the cultural centre and offers coverage in public
spaces, some streets and two important bus stops.
The rest of the networks have between 15 and 25
nodes, but all of them are also planning a major expansion at this time.

Building our own router
For AlterMundi, the spread of this idea and the collective enthusiasm gave rise to a project to create
our own hardware. Despite all the difficulties andthe complexity of the process, we managed to design and produce the LibreRouter.
1
2

https://www.silicanetworks.com
https://www.unc.edu.ar

By developing our own hardware and software(the first of many developments!), we no longer
have to deal with the endless caprices of the market, nor reverse-engineering to enable the disabledfunctions of commercial hardware, nor the constantneed to adapt free software.
Now we decide how our most important hardware is constituted and how the systems andapplications that control and assist it are developed. In short, we have increased the technologicalsovereignty that community networks can offer.
During this process, what stands out above all is
the will and tenacity of the network members who
sustain and give meaning to all of this effort.

In all this, what about the state?
At the time of writing, the National Communications
Agency (ENACOM)3 published its first regulationon community networks.4 This is the first time that
community networks have been defined by thestate. For now, this resolution enables us to request
a licence for non-profit operators, exempt frompayment of fees. It also affirms the importance of
supporting and promoting community networks.
Although this is a great step forward, it also
poses new challenges and makes obstacles more
visible in pursuit of the realisation of a more complete regulatory framework that understands,
recognises and favours the emergence and development of community networks.
On the part of ENACOM, it is important that itrecognises an error in its drafted definition of community networks. The initial idea of the state wasto limit the scope of regulation to networks located in localities of no more than 5,000 inhabitants.
However, this limitation was included as part of thedefinition of what a community network is, leaving
several pre-existing community networks out of
the concept. One of the challenges that this error
reveals is the need to agree on a shared definitionof what is (and is not) a community network, which
serves as the basis for any other field. Developing
such a shared definition is already work that is being
done at the Latin American Summit of Community
Networks5 and it is expected that the definition will
be periodically reviewed.
Soon we will test the licence application process for non-profit operators. We will also request
resources from the Universal Service Fund when a3
45

https://www.enacom.gob.ar /Resolución 4958/2018. https://www.boletinoficial.gob.
ar/#!DetalleNorma/190061/20180817
cnsig.info/cumbre/lac/2018/08/30/Cumbre-Latinoamericana.html

argentina / 65new call is opened. This fund is nourished by a small
proportion of the profits of the large telecommunications companies, and is reserved for solutions inneglected areas such as ours. The method of allocating these funds, through the Non-Refundable
Contributions (ANR), must be adapted so that community networks can participate.
This first regulation is a small step forward, but
is not comprehensive of the universe of situations
that need to be regulated to protect community
networks. It is necessary to complement the regulation, for example, covering issues such as the useof spectrum, access to infrastructure, free peeringagreements, hardware homologation for our devices – starting with the LibreRouter – and otheraspects mentioned in the International Telecommunication Union’s Recommendation ITU-D 19,6 citedin the considerations of the regulation.
It will be a long process until the state and other actors recognise and capitalise on the efforts ofcommunity networks and consider us allies in thetask of connecting the disadvantaged regions ofArgentina.
In general, there is an incompatibility between
the organic structures that have developed in these
disconnected communities, and the mechanismsthat the state uses to try to reach them. One of themost frequent reasons for the failure of these initiatives is the lack of anchoring in the community,
which also results in solutions that its inhabitantscannot understand, adopt and sustain over time.
Community networks evolve in these different
aspects at the same time. The coordination, the design, the technology, the hardware, the software,
the policies, the management, the maintenance...
everything progresses in the way and at the rhythmof each community. This characteristic makes thetechnological and human network more resilient.
In summary, we want to work for community
networks to cease to exist in a legal gray area thatmakes it difficult for new initiatives, projects andbusinesses to rise locally.

Sustainability of the right to information andcommunication, a collective responsibility

from the community. The most important aspect isthat the complex structure that guarantees the rightto information and communication must be sustainable. By directly contributing to the materialisationof a non-negotiable right, we deserve to be integrated as part of this structure.
From a socioeconomic perspective, community
networks should be considered a sustainable option because they save the state expenses needed
to guarantee a right that the state is clearly unable
to fulfil.
The collective work of these networks resolves
moral debts that the state has with rural communities and other vulnerable and excluded areas.

Action steps: Collaborating, assisting,consulting and helping each other
AlterMundi and community networks in Argentina
have some specific proposals to make:•Allow us access to resources from the Universal
Service Fund.

•

Consider the use of LibreRouter in state connectivity projects.

•

Enable community networks to have free transit
through the Federal Fibre Optic Network (REFEFO)7 and other state infrastructures.

•

Prioritise localities with community networks
when the national or provincial government designs projects and developments.

•

Encourage direct communication between thestate and the managers of the community networks in a way that enables mutual recognition.

•

Develop laws and regulations for community
networks in consultation with representativesof community networks.

•

Reduce administrative expenses through, for example, doing away with stamp duties and otherred tape that burdens community networks.

•

Reduce the financial reporting responsibilities
for community networks.

•

The most important aspect of sustainability is notwhether or not a community network can generate
revenue, or how it can survive through contributions

Facilitate access to credit and financing for community networks.

•

Promote collaborative projects between thestate and community networks.

6

7

https://www.argentina.gob.ar/modernizacion/comunicaciones/
planfederaldeinternet

Recommendation ITU-D 19: Telecommunication for rural andremote areas. https://www.itu.int/rec/D-REC-D.19-201003-I

66 / Global Information Society Watch

Australia
TS Wireless: The rise and stumble of a community network forelectronic music makers in Melbourne

Media and Communications, Swinburne
University of Technology
Andrew Gartonwww.swinburne.edu.au

Introduction
It was a Thursday winter evening in Melbourne.
Around 30 or so people had either walked fromnearby tram stops or pedalled across the city to Toy
Satellite’s1 two-story warehouse in North Fitzroy.
Some, their faces lit by open laptops, were using
Netstumbler2 to find us. We had emailed GPS coordinates and the name, or SSID, of our now freely
open wireless hub. The more intrepid would use our
network’s signal strength to get them to the front
door. It was 11 July 2002 and everyone was gathering for the launch of TS Wireless, a joint project with
London-based Free2Air, a free community wirelessnetwork. The plan was to stream royalty-free music
produced by local artists 24 hours a day to anyone
within a three-kilometre radius. It took around 48
hours to have our server hacked and the whole operation halted! But it started off great!

In the beginning we shared
In the beginning BBSes, or Bulletin Board Systems,
were the earliest publicly accessible computer, thefirst one known to have gone online in Chicago in
the United States, on 16 February 1978. The Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS)3 was basedon software written by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, considered the fathers of public access1

2

3

Toy Satellite was a multidisciplinary producer of works for screen,
installation and performance spaces. Founded in 1995, Toy
Satellite was incorporated into APC.au, a non-profit organisation
providing hosting and consultancy for communities in Australia
and Southeast Asia. This added an international dimension to Toy
Satellite’s work. It was shuttered in 2005, leaving a vast portfolio
of interactives, museum installations, publications, soundworks,
video and online initiatives. https://toysatellite.org
NetStumbler is a tool for Windows that facilitates detection of
wireless LANs using the 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g WLAN
standards. It first appeared in 2001, with development of the app
continuing up to 2004. It was the de facto tool for “wardrivers”,“warbikers” and “warwalkers” – people who searched for Wi-Fi
networks with a wireless-equipped device together with a GPS
device to record and share the location of unsecured wirelessrouters. www.stumbler.net
Christensen, W., & Suess, R. (1989). The Birth of the BBS. www.
chinet.com/html/cbbs.html

networks. The internet’s precursor, ARPANET,4
was still in its infancy. People would dial in to BBS
computers, exchanging software, documents andgraphics. Data rates were slow at the time, commonly 300 characters per second, and modems
were devices known as “acoustic couplers” whichwere mounted onto telephone handsets; the ear
piece would receive data while the mouthpiece
would send it.
Individual BBSes were the earliest equivalent ofa website, each supporting communities of common
interest. Perhaps the first BBS style of network established for artists was Robert Adrian X’s ARTEX,5
an electronic mailbox for sharing ideas and organising intercontinental telematic artworks. A Canadian
who spent his entire adult life in Vienna, Adrian X
had pioneered politically charged artistic practices
within electronic and broadcast networks. ARTEX
foreshadowed “store and forward”, the share andcopy potential of the future internet. It was a kind of
precursor to the ubiquitous Dropbox, a micro-cloudstorage utility when clouds still hung in the sky. It
was cheap too, costing artists a few cents a day fordata storage only.
By the 1990s the internet was well underway,
and artists were not only wanting to share: they
were being found. I held the view that an increasing
number of people began looking for music beyond
radio and music stores. There was plenty available
if you knew where to look. The global reach of theinternet meant it was easier to share far more music
than anyone could possibly hear, and so much morethan anyone had ever heard on a radio or found inmusic shops. The problem, in my opinion, was not
piracy that would afflict the music industry, it wasdiversity. There was so much more diverse music
and so many artists appearing online than there
would ever be on any of the industry charts listing
the 100 most popular recording artists of the day– the measure by which royalties were not only dispersed, but guaranteed.

45

Advanced Research Projects Agency Network.
ARTEX (Artists’ Electronic Exchange System) was conceived in 1979
as a simple “intercontinental” email service for artists. It was usedby some 35 artists worldwide between 1980 and 1991. alien.mur.
at/rax/ARTEX

australia / 67

The royalty collection agency

We saw an opportunity. How could we share allthis independently produced music to people who
didn’t know where to look for it? How could we makethis happen legitimately and accessible to anyone
for free? No sooner had we published a white paper
describing TS Wireless than we found a partner inthe London-based wireless network host, Free2Air.6
Enthusiastic about our project, they arranged for
an aerial antenna and several metres of specialised
cable to be shipped out to us. Things were moving
quickly. Now we had to find a server, the technicalnous to pull it all together, and permission from thebody corporate to mount an antenna onto the roofof the building. There was no shortage of music toshare, no shortage of skills to make it happen and awhole lot more to learn. TS Wireless was underway!

Streaming music locally
By 2002 streaming audio had become easy, video
less so. However, streaming anything over wirelesswas still in its technical infancy. With the help of aninternational network of open source software developers and visiting and local Wi-Fi expertise, wegave it a good, decent, thoroughly robust crack. But
before we had the server up and running we encountered our first and most challenging problem.
6

free2air.org described itself as “open distributed public network
infrastructure.” It was set up in London by Adam Burns in 2001,
growing to support a freely accessible and widely distributed
cluster of wireless networks and projects. This included ambienttv.
net, NewsFilter and RayLab, East End Net, Air Shadow, Wireless Ant
Farm and TS Wireless.

The original plan was not to stream ambient music– which we ended up doing – it was to share locally
produced music in all its myriad forms. Along with
Free2Air, we wanted to make bandwidth a community concern, not a commercial one; we wanted tomake access to local music a community concern,
not a commercial one. We wanted to share our infrastructure to offer local households and businesses
access to music that had yet to find an audience. We
wanted to create an online community that could
evolve around its own interests with music as thefire around which we would gather. But to do so we
had to pay a licensing fee to the Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA). We immediately saw
another opportunity. APRA did not.
Around 2000/2001, on behalf of their member
composers, authors and songwriters, APRA expanded its performance licensing usage to encompass
any venue in which music was publicly heard or
performed. This included hair salons, cafés andmany work spaces. Even Toy Satellite received a notice from APRA urging us to pay an annual fee forany music we played in our studio. Internet service
providers (ISPs) were not immune from such fees
either. Any music stored or streamed online wasconsidered a public performance of said works.
We contacted APRA and asked how we could
list any of the music heard over TS Wireless so that
artists would be paid royalties. If we were to pay
an annual performance licence fee, surely we could
submit a playlist ensuring all local artists, their own
members, would have royalties distributed to them.
They replied stating they had not the means to do
so. APRA, a national royalty collection agency withan annual turn-over in the millions, did not havethe means to allocate royalties to any of the artists
being played in any of the venues nor streamed
from any ISP being charged an annual performancelicence fee. Wow! So, who does? The answer was
simple. Royalties are distributed to the popularartists of the day on the assumption that most, if
not all music being heard would be popular music;
otherwise it wouldn’t be popular. That meant thata small number of artists were the beneficiaries ofmost of the performance licence fees whether they
were heard in any local café, which they were not,or streamed over TS Wireless, which they absolutely
were not.
We offered APRA an opportunity.
We were prepared to share with APRA all TS
Wireless playlists. We would even write software toemail them the playlist in a form that could be imported into their database or spreadsheets. These

68 / Global Information Society Watch

playlists would be filled with all sorts of fascinating
metadata, enabling APRA to apportion royalties toall local artists on our server. That’s all artists.
APRA replied stating they did not have themeans to interpret that data into meaningful outcomes for artists legitimately being heard on ourservers nor in any of the venues that would sign
to TS Wireless. We had considered adding a feature where custom playlists created by TS Wirelesssubscribers could be sent to APRA. But given APRA
could not make use of this information, no matter
what form it could be sent to them in, we had toconsider our options. How do we proceed with TS
Wireless knowing the music we would have to pay
APRA the rights to stream would not result in any
additional royalties to the Melbourne music makers
we would host?
It was at this point that we decided to only
stream generative, ambient music for which APRA
had neither the means to register it as being “composed” by anyone, nor an argument to warrant aperformance licence. In short, music that was constantly changing was not in APRA’s interests to haveon their books. Our generative pieces were works
that were never heard the same twice; some ofthem were hours, days and even weeks in length.
APRA did not have the means to support such original works no matter how they were composed nor
by whom. Even before we got underway, we knew
an audience for generative ambient music would be
limited. We forged ahead nonetheless.

The team
Visiting Australia at the time was Spanish-born
Alberto Escudero-Pascual, who brought with him
extensive wireless networking expertise. He had
the technical skills and real-world experience andhe grew fond of Melbourne, often saying it was thefirst place he had visited where no one asked where
he had come from. At the time Alberto was an associate professor at the Royal Institute of Technology,
Sweden, where he was completing a PhD in masselectronic surveillance systems. Alberto knew athing or two. He also knew how to modify Orinoco
network cards so that they would converse with Linux operating systems.
Remote expertise came in the shape of the quietly spoken Adam Burns, who once told me it was
through the study of high mathematics that hehad come closest to God. Adam was the founder of
Free2Air and had worked with me at Pegasus Networks, Australia’s first publicly accessible ISP.
Our local team included web coder par excellence Justina Curtis. Justina wrote up most of ourdocumentation, coded our front-end and hosted

with unyielding generosity the many late nights it
had taken to construct the entire project. Justina
brought expertise in training in information andcommunication technology (ICT) media literacy, andinteraction and accessibility design. She was alsoa co-founder of Toy Satellite. Every project needs asocial binder and Justina was ours.
Supporting us all with no end of bad jokes,
rigorous system administrative skills and an ability to work insanely long hours and remain not
only focused, but thorough, was Grant McHerron.
Both he and our in-house technical director, Bruce
Morrison, were determined to not let any problem
impede them. Bruce had also worked with me at
Pegasus Networks and, like Grant, had the giftof tolerance and fortitude. It is impressive to see
people work at problems as if they were puzzles,
applying game theory within their deliberations.
Another member of our team was Linux aficionado
Dennis McGregor. I can’t recall much about Dennis other than the long hours we spent together
stitching the entire project together with good humour and collaborative ease.

Network design
TS Wireless was accessible from within a three kilometre radius of our 2.4 GHz omnidirectional aerial
mounted on the roof of our studio in North Fitzroy,
Melbourne. We made use of the full capacity of theaerial, which provided the most extensive coveragefor the technology available at the time.7 Yes, we
did get permission from the body corporate to climb
over the top of several premises. We made sure we
could provide maximum line of sight to all participants. This included local members of Melbourne

7

Had we wanted to extend the reach of our network we would haverequired repeaters, or wireless network amplifiers, which would
necessitate far more infrastructure than the notion of “local”
warranted.

australia / 69

Wireless,8 arts practitioners (the Melbourne Fringe
Festival had their office space nearby), our neighbours and random visitors.
The antenna was mounted to an existing television aerial with U clamps. Waterproof electrical tape
was used to insulate the connection between thecable and antenna mounting. Thirty metres of heavily insulated cable was wound around the perimeterof the roof and into the building through a rear window where it was plugged directly into Hermes, ourwireless server. Hermes also administered an ADSL
connection to our broadband provider as well as afirewalled gateway to the internet.
Hermes was installed with a basic setup of Mandrake Linux.9 We used Firewall Builder,10 an open
source application, to create and manage the firewall, and X-Windows11 from which non-tech teammembers could run diagnostics tools such as KOrinoco12 to generate signal strength charts. A second
server, Yuri, was set up to run the generative music
software, SSEYO Koan Pro.13
For streaming we used ffserver14 and FFmpeg,15
the latter for its ability to do on-the-fly encoding tomultiple formats concurrently, thus avoiding beingbound to platform-specific, or rather, biased codecs.
FFmpeg does capture and encoding and then outputs
to ffserver and/or to file(s); ffserver then provides
streams to clients connecting over a network. Due
to limited resources and the heavy processing demands of multiple format encoding, we chose to use
the MPEG codec for both audio and video.
We encoded two MPEG streams, one of a highquality, and another of a lower quality for those withless bandwidth. The encoder component of FFmpeg
8

A non-profit club set up to help the community in setting up
publicly owned and operated residential area networks. www.
wireless.org.au
9 Mandrake Linux was first released in July 1998, gradually evolving
into an extremely user-friendly version of the Linux operating
system. Its creator, Gaël Duval, was particularly focused on both
first-time Linux and non-tech users.
10 fwbuilder.sourceforge.net
11	X-Windows is a graphical user interface (GUI) for operating
systems such as Linux and Unix. It was developed at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984.
12 KOrinoco is an open source application used to configure andmonitor wireless LAN PC cards. korinoco.sourceforge.net
13 Koan Pro was developed by UK-based brothers Tim and Peter
Cole in their studio on the River Thames. It was released in 1994.
In 1997 I used the Coles’ software in the first streamed broadcast
conducted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Titled “Sensorium Connect”, the sound work was produced incollaboration with the performance artist Stelarc and consisted of
a composition six weeks in duration.
14 https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html
15 FFmpeg’s own website claims it is “able to decode, encode,transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty muchanything that humans and machines have created.” It’s true! It can.
It’s as widely used today as it was in 2000 when it first appeared.
https://www.ffmpeg.org

had the ability to output to multiple destinations,so we sent one stream to a local ffserver, to an ffserver in Sweden, and to a hard drive for archival
purposes.
Free2Air.org had also mirrored our two MPEG
streams – or MP2 stream – by running a client fromthe server in Sweden and then re-serving it over an
Icecast16 server in London. A web server threw up a
web page for users who would find a link to the live
audio stream, with FAQs and a contact form. It waspretty much a BBS with internet server softwareand hardware. It was a private internet. It had all
the features of the internet without the reach to it.
This was a useful backup to our wireless streaming
experiment, because, at the time of deployment,
it was illegal to provide access to the internet
from a wireless node, that is, piggy-backing off acommercial ADSL provider. The Australian Communication Authority regulated all spread spectrum
radio communication, including the 2.4-2.4835 GHz
radio-frequency band our wireless network would
operate in.

TS Wireless on air
Back at the launch, curious and eager, everyone
was invited to have their hands scanned as they entered the building. These were hurriedly compiled
into a video and projected as large as we could
possibly make it onto the interior walls of the Toy
Satellite studio at the moment TS Wireless was officially launched. Adam Burns was video streamed
live from London gifting us with his wisdom, describing access to free and reliable bandwidth as afundamental right. Alberto Escudero-Pascual concluded the evening with an impassioned appeal forcommunity as the locus of new ideas, what artist
Brian Eno describes as “cooperative intelligence.”17
Once up and running, at our peak, TS Wirelesssupported 50 simultaneous users. We have no idea
who these users were. We had no need to know; but
we knew audio streams were frequently served.
This was after we had secured our servers ensuring they had no internet capacity whatsoever.
Initially we had an internet connection via a local
ADSL provider. This meant we could have our audio
streams mirrored by servers anywhere in the world,
including Free2Air. But if you recall, dear reader,
within 48 hours of our launch we had been hacked.
16 Icecast is a streaming media server that is commonly used forinternet radio and jukebox services. It was created by Jack Moffitt
and Barath Raghavan in 1998 and released in 1999. The authors
described it as an “open source audio streaming server thatanyone could modify, use, and tinker with.” www.icecast.org
17 Steven Johnson interviews Brian Eno for the public education blog
Be You: https://redefineschool.com/brian-eno

70 / Global Information Society Watch

In short, someone had literally sat in a car opposite
the studio and pulled gigabytes of data throughour internet connection. It nearly sent us broke.
Australia has some of the most expensive broadband charges on the planet. If we breached our cap,
which we had after our launch, we were charged
for every single byte of data that moved across it.
We learned that if someone wants bandwidth badly enough they will come with every means at theirdisposal to nab it.
A second location was proposed by a small business in a neighbouring suburb where we could trial
a semi-commercial operation amid shopkeepers.
Every shopkeeper had been approached by APRA
to pay that annual licence fee. As such, many werekeen to see local music makers benefit from thisexpense. TS Wireless provided a model many werekeen to subscribe to.
Smith Street Wireless was to launch in 2004,
but yet again APRA was unable to work with ourplaylists. Subsequently no one would subscribe to
Smith Street Wireless if licence fees paid to APRA
did not result in royalties to local artists. Smith
Street Wireless was doomed.

Reflections
We didn’t bridge any digital divide, we didn’t fill adevelopment void nor provide critical information
where it could not otherwise be reached. We experimented with a new idea to find that no one wasparticularly interested in a perpetual music streaming service. Free too! Portable MP3 players were ascommonplace then as smartphones are now. Most
people we knew were content with curating theirplayers.
There was also no interest in the metadata weoffered to share with royalty collection agencies, inspite of all the public spaces, businesses and venues paying annual performance licence fees. This
left independent music makers with fewer means to
accrue royalties in a marketplace adapting to newtechnologies. But we did, as we had done so manytimes prior, find that the community we had sought
to nurture had been with us all along.

The community that preceded the network
TS Wireless may not have sustained an online community for more than six months, yet there wascommunity around us, tweaked by a crazy idea allalong. It was there, and still exists, through the
network of software developers, web coders anddesigners, passionate wardrivers and NetStumbler
aficionados. These are the people we rarely see,
who had created some of the more experimental

and wildly innovative networks of their time. We had
worked in remote villages in Africa, Southeast Asia
and Indochina. We provided training and advice toregional and rural telecentres in Australia, including
creating some of the earliest websites for community groups, non-government organisations and small
businesses in the country. We had, at personal expense, established the means for anyone interested
to learn about wireless networks and how they may
foster community, belonging, nurturing curiosity
and innovation where it may otherwise languish.
Our experiment may have failed on paper, but it succeeded in bringing together a group of people whoshared an experience that we had all grown from,and the ripple effect of that gathering expands still.

Epilogue
Sixteen years since TS Wireless rose and stumbled,
APRA draws annual performing rights fees fromhotels, pubs and taverns, restaurants and cafés,
fitness centres, numerous work spaces such as doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries, corporate reception
areas, service stations, salons and nightclubs, motels and other forms of accommodation. They havespecial licences for skating and ice rinks, community bands and choirs, recreation and leisure centres,
schools, universities and colleges, sporting events,
local government authorities, transport systems,
funeral directors and funeral providers.
APRA now applies music recognition technology
described as a “digital fingerprint” that each piece ofmusic carries which is matched against a database
containing the work’s metadata “enabling the owners of each matched work to be identified and paid
accordingly.”18 They still have no clear mechanism
for allocating royalties from all the performance licence fees they collect from public spaces, but they
do have a term for where such fees reside: “distribution by analogy”. This means that “licence fees
are added to an existing distribution pool that ismost similar in terms of its music content.” I’m notsure I understand what this means, but what I do
know is that if any of my music is played at Frankie
God of Hair where I get my hair cut, I’ll get a decent
trim, but not a single cent in royalties.
What remains of TS Wireless are its antenna
and cables sitting in a Melbourne storage unit. The
servers Hermes and Yuri and all our wireless workstations were taken to an e‑recycling centre, theCRT monitors thrown into an awesome open bin
along with routers, modems, metres of ethernet
18 APRA Distribution Practices, APRA AMCOS, November 2017.
apraamcos.com.au/media/Distribution-Rules-and-Practices/
APRADistributionPractices.pdf

australia / 71

cable, keyboards, spare motherboards, and memory cards.
There was nothing graceful about this kind ofclosure, but there was comfort knowing that muchof this gear would find reuse elsewhere.

Action steps
This is a story about how internet service providers,or intermediaries, are being coerced into licensing
agreements for the content accessible throughthem. If the water we drink is foul we do not prosecute the plumber, an intermediary: we head tothe source of the contamination. Moreover, we do
not require the plumber, an intermediary, to pay alicence fee for the water that will flow through thepipes they install, nor do we license the pot, also anintermediary, in which our rice is cooked.
Author and activist Cory Doctorow’s third law for
the Internet Age is “information doesn’t want to be
free, people do.”19 This is about a free and open internet. This is about what we stand to gain from aninternet that continues to give us the means to learn
from each other through sharing, how the works ofartists inhabit and become part of our private lives
and our personal stories.
APRA is not at fault here. They are merely protecting the interests of a system that protects its
apex inhabitants, from a small number of publishers to the artists that sustain their businesses.
What can change are the laws that protect theseinterests. To change these laws, from how copyrightfunctions to international trade agreements, weneed to know how they function and what alternatives we can advocate for.
As such, what follows is a reading list for how
best to inform yourself so that you may come toyour own conclusions, and so that you may contribute to the critical debates around these issues. I
have then suggested ways you can participate.

Reading list
Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World,
Timothy Garton Ash, 2016, Atlantic Books, ISBN
9781848870925
Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free: Laws for
the Internet Age, Cory Doctorow, 2014, ISBN
9781940450469
Digital Rights Resources for Children and Young
People, Angela Daly, Digital Rights Watch, https://angeladaly.com/resources/digital-rights-resources-for-children-and-young-people

Ways to participate
Modernising Australia’s copyright laws, Department of Communications and the Arts, AustralianGovernment
https://www.communications.
gov.au/departmental-news/
modernising-australias-copyright-laws
Electronic Frontiers Australia
https://www.efa.org.au/get-involved
Digital Rights Watch
https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/join

19 Doctorow, C. (2014). Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free: Laws for
the Internet Age. San Francisco: McSweeney’s.
72 / Global Information Society WatchbeninReaching out: Extending the participatory function of community
centres in Benin

POPDEV BéninSênoudé Pacôme Tomètissi

Introduction
Access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) is still an issue in Benin, especially inrural areas where both fixed and mobile technology
is limited. To improve accessibility and to address
inequities, the government has developed several
public policies and projects implemented by a dozenof its public agencies. Through the Universal Accessto Information and Communication Technologies
project, two state-owned companies, the Benin
Agency for Universal Electronic Communication andPostal Services (ABSU-CEP)1 and Benin Postal Company2 joined forces to set up community centres infour localities with no or limited ICT access.
This report highlights the need for both a humanrights and participatory governance approach to betaken in these centres – both prevalent approaches
in the global community networks movement – inorder to improve the benefit of the centres to thecommunities. It concludes by suggesting that government community centres offer a useful starting
point for a community network that is run and maintained by the community. Given the proliferation ofthese centres across the developing world, it is useful to consider how they can be a bridge to low-cost,autonomous community access to the internet,
with countries like India offering useful models forconsideration.

Policy, economic and political backgroundIn 2003, Benin’s government developed a strategy
for the revitalisation of ICTs in the country.3 In 2016,a Declaration of the Digital Economy Sector Policy
was developed and adopted during the weekly cabinet meeting by the newly elected president Patrice
Talon.4 The declaration highlights six core projects

1
2
3
4

www.absucep.bj
laposte.bj
https://researchictafrica.net/countries/benin/Plan_%20TIC_%20
Benin.pdf
www.fraternitebj.info/conseil-des-ministres/article/
conseil-des-ministres-du-26-5484

in the digital sector as part of Talon’s four-year
action plan for the country.5 Following the development of the plan and the declaration, the Digital Lawof the Republic of Benin6 was promulgated in April
2018. It builds on domestic laws and on the African
Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal
Data Protection.7 Three categories are applicable
to broadcasters and service provider activities: thelicence regime (where a licence is needed to operate), the authorisation regime (where authorisationis needed from the regulator to act as a broadcasteror service provider), and a third category where no
authorisation is necessary.
In principle, community networks do not needauthorisation to operate, but there are some limitations. The law states that the establishment of any
electronic communications network or the provisionof any electronic communications service that does
not fall under the licence or authorisation regimes
is permitted if the service declares itself with theregulatory authority.8 This service will also be subject to compliance with any legal and regulatory
provisions that are in force. However, independent
private networks and devices that have low power
or offer short-range connections do not require any
declaration.9

Benin’s human rights status
In 2017 Benin committed to implement some 191
recommendations during the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR).10 Some of theserecommendations relate to arbitrary detentions,
extrajudicial executions, excessive use of force by
the security forces, freedom of expression and of

5

www.cir-benin.com/images/Pdf/PAG_Portefeuille_des_Projets_
par_Secteur.pdf
6 sgg.gouv.bj/doc/loi-2017-20/download
7 https://www.au.int/web/sites/default/files/treaties/29560treaty-0048_-_african_union_convention_on_cyber_security_and_
personal_data_protection_e.pdf
8 ARCEP, Autorité de regulation des communications électroniques
et de la poste. https://arcep.bj
9 Where necessary, the regulatory authority sets emission
and frequency bands used by low-power and short-range
devices (Article 55 of the Digital Code). https://sgg.gouv.bj/
documentheque/lois
10 https://www.upr-info.org/sites/default/files/document/benin/
session_28_-_november_2017/responses_to_recommendations_
upr28_benin.pdf

benin / 73

the media, and the arbitrary suspension of media
outlets.11 In 2018, La Nouvelle Tribune, a privately
owned daily newspaper, was suspended by HAAC,
the institution in charge of media regulation in
Benin.12 However, delegations participating in the
dialogue under the Benin UPR indicated that the
adoption of the Government Action Plan 2016-2021,
the laws and policies to protect children, as wellas measures taken to improve access to social services were likely to strengthen human rights in the
country.13

State-owned centres for communities
The digital economy in Benin is subject to numerous challenges, including a lack of infrastructure
and investment by electronic communications
and business actors. In 2015, the ICT sector in the
country represented about USD 300 million, andcontributed 6% to Benin’s gross domestic product.
The 2013 government strategy on ICTs14 statedthat there were 1.2 million inhabitants who still
did not have access to ICT services. Marginalised
groups included rural populations, women, youthand people with disabilities who did not have access because of their social, cultural and economic
status, suggesting that the extension of universal
service must take these factors into account. In May
2014, ABSU-CEP adopted the national strategy andshortly after that, together with the Benin Postal
Company, launched the community telecentres infour municipalities: Glazoué and Malanville in 2015,
and Azovè and Ouaké in 2016.
There is no internet or mobile service in Glazoué,
Malanville, Azovè and Ouaké. The municipalities
also have poor connection to the electricity grid,with many areas suffering frequent power outages.
The centres were expected to impact on about
411,000 people, offering them access to the internet
and multimedia services, technology-based financial and postal services, and e-governance services,

11 www.lanationbenin.info/index.php/societe-2/146-societe/166303e-rapport-sur-l-examen-periodique-universel-du-benin-la-societecivile-s-impregne-des-recommandations
12 www.agenceecofin.com/regulation/2907-58938-benin-lesite-de-la-nouvelle-tribune-egalement-suspendu; www.rfi.fr/
afrique/20180525-benin-le-quotidien-nouvelle-tribune-suspenduautorites
13 www.bj.undp.org/content/benin/fr/home/presscenter/articles/2017/03/20/de-l-eau-potable-pour-les-mnages-ruraux-au-b-nin.html; www.africanchildforum.
org/clr/Legislation%20Per%20Country/benin/
benin_children_2007_fr.pdf
14 MCTIC. (2013). Etude pour la définition de la stratégie d’accès
universel télécom et tic et du plan d’actions pour la mise en œuvre
de projets pilotes en république du Bénin. Cotonou: MCTIC. www.
absucep.bj/fichiers/telechargeables/rapportFinal_SU_Volume1.pdf

while also introducing them to the use and potential of ICTs in general.15
While the postal company provided space forthe centres, ABSU-CEP recruited a local manager
for each centre and equipped each of the centreswith a solar power system to run 15 computers,
one multifunction printer (used to print, scan andphotocopy), and satellite internet connectivity. The
centres are now under the responsibility of therespective municipalities with technical support
provided by ABSU-CEP and the postal company.
The centres also offer services such as training
for women, students and community groups, andtraining on document scanning, computer usage,
photocopying and web-based research. They provide
basic financial services to the population through aquick and cheaper money transfer service in colla­boration with the postal service and e-banking,­
as well as access to basic energy services throughtheir solar power system, such as recharging mobile
phones or flashlights.
Most training is offered free of charge but users
pay for services: printing is USD 0.045 and accessto the internet about USD 1 for two hours. These
fees contribute to covering the cost of running thecentres.
In March 2016, ABSU-CEP adopted the National
Programme for Universal Electronic Communication
and Postal Services,16 which continues to support
the idea of the community centres for local-level
access.

Limitations of the state-run model
While the state-run model for community accessclearly has benefits for the community, there are two
key areas where it is limited: the lack of participation in the initiatives by the community, especiallythe most marginalised; and a lack of a clear human rights-based approach to the access initiative,
which means it is not necessarily used to its fullest
potential to enable the rights of the community.

Need for an inclusive governanceand management approach
According to the 2016 National Programme for
Universal Electronic Communication and Postal Services, the purpose of community centres is
to empower marginalised rural communities that
15 For population data see www.insae-bj.org/12_departements.
html?file=files/enquetes-recensements/rgph/RGPH4; ABSUCEP (2016). Rapport annuel d’activités. Cotonou: ABSUCEP.
www.absucep.bj/fichiers/publications/94wlua_absuceprapport2015publicversion.pdf
16 The programme covers 2016-2019, available at www.absucep.bj/
images/projets/PNSU.pdf

74 / Global Information Society Watch

do not have access to ICTs: young people, rural
women, many of whom are unfamiliar with newtechnologies, and people living with disabilities,
who encounter practical difficulties to access them.
The strategy aimed to address their needs
specifically – needs that have not been taken into
account by commercial service providers. Yet one
has to ask how this is possible if these groups are
not involved in the governance and day-to-day management of the centres?
With regards to women, the 2016 programme
draws on the National Gender Promotion Policy(PNPG),17 which is in line with the United Nations
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).18 The PNPG
is mentioned in the programme as a way to enable
women’s access to ICTs. Although the PNPG does
not explicitly mention women’s access to ICTs, someof its five strategic axes include women’s effective
access to education, literacy and decision-making
structures in all spheres. It also ensures the empowerment of women and mainstreaming of women’sissues in municipal plans. Adapting the strategy of
the PNPG to ICTs and putting women at the centre ofcommunity initiatives is therefore in line with stateplans. Learning from successful projects that havetrained groups of women with low literacy levels intheir native languages using ICTs can be helpful andmake centres more open and interactive.19
It is the perspective of this report that including vulnerable groups in the governance of thecentres will further improve the centres’ value tothe communities. The problem with the current
structure is that they are managed by local staff
under the supervision of municipalities and the
postal company. While access to services is equal
for everybody, involving vulnerable groups such as
women’s organisations, young people and people
living with disabilities can increase their interest
and participation.
On the occasion of International Girls in ICT
Day, Aurélie Adam Soulé, the minister of the digital economy and communication in Benin, argued
that the low representation of women in ICTs comesfrom the fact that the sector is wrongly considered
as a domain for men. For her, initiatives to promote women’s involvement in ICTs therefore need
to be encouraged and women’s groups need to be

17 http://www.inpf.bj/IMG/pdf/politique_nationale_promo_
genrebenin.pdf
18 https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/cedaw.pdf
19 One example is the ICT training for women’s groups througha partnership between the local NGO APHEDD and Boite A
Innovations. www.bai.alphaomedia.org/gal_news18.php

empowered so as to enable equality of access.20
This could be done, among other strategies, by using affirmative action schemes in telecentres.
Participatory governance of community centres, although often complicated, can improve theuse and usefulness of community services offered,make the centres more relevant to the needs of thelocal community, and even contribute towards theirfinancial sustainability in the long term.

Involving the community as rights holders
At the same time, the community centres shouldbe framed within human rights discourse. A humanrights-based approach to their governance will help
promote the development and dissemination of local knowledge, and increase community dialogue
and action.21 A human rights approach can be understood to foreground participatory approaches
to decision making, while focusing on empoweringcommunities in a non-discriminatory way. A humanrights approach also places an emphasis on theeconomic, social and cultural rights of the community, and emphasises the well-being and dignity ofrights holders as individuals. Through a participatory approach, the centres would empower women,
young people and people with disabilities to advocate for policy reform, and to lobby duty bearers tomeet their obligations.

Conclusion: Democratising accessinfrastructure at the local level
The aim of setting up the community ICT telecentres was to increase access to the internet and its
services for marginalised groups such as women,
young people and people living with disabilities.
Since then, they have been helpful to many people.
Among other things, the centres help people withlow literacy levels edit and print their documents,
and communicate with each other via Skype – introducing valuable new ways of engaging with theworld to the communities. Local schools also use
the community spaces for field work and otherschool exercises. As public infrastructures, they
are managed as common goods and are community oriented. As all municipal infrastructures,
their implementation and management details areaccessible to everyone. They are under the supervision of the local government representatives,

20 https://www.lanationbenin.info/index.php/actus/159actualites/16075-journee-internationale-des-jeunes-filles-dansles-tic-encourager-la-cible-a-evoluer-dans-le-secteur
21 Figueroa, M. E., et al. (2002). Communication for Social Change:
An Integrated Model for Measuring the Process and Its Outcome.
omec.uab.cat/documentos/com_desenvolupament/0154.pdf

benin / 75

all elected by the community for a period of four
years.
But to what extent can they be considered communal while their governance and management
do not involve the most vulnerable groups in thecommunity? How accessible are these centres if theinfrastructure is not used for functional literacy, forexample? All people regardless of their cultural, political or social status are part of the community andshould be empowered to play a role as part of thesocial ecology of that system.
Democratising community ICT centres can contribute to their development. This also extends
beyond governance to the democratisation of theinfrastructure. The people’s contribution to extending their internet access through mesh networks,
and consequently to their geographical, economic
and physical accessibility, can make them truly community networks. There are examples in other partsof the world – such as Community Service Centres
in India – where government centres are used tobridge the digital divide along with community network roll-out. Given the proliferation of government
e-centres across the world, they present an opportunity to leap-frog the digital divide; they can be auseful starting point for community networks, which
do not always have to break the soil first.
In law, community networks can be implemented without any authorisation. However, theirimplementation in rural areas, especially in remoteregions, means that solar power will need to be
used, making the overall set-up costs, including
the ICT hardware, costly. The setting up of such a
network can also face many other challenges, suchas the sustainability of its management structure,
the openness of its governance structure, and local
dynamics that emerge when collective projects are
set up. These challenges, however, do not detractfrom the potential of community centres that may

be the unique way to bridge the digital divide forvulnerable people, and may already have started todeal with some of the challenges that community
networks will face on the ground.

Action steps
To be more open, community access initiatives needto learn from the global community network movement and:•Adopt a human rights-based approach to theirroll-out plans and strategies. The community should be involved in all aspects of accessinitiatives, which should be accountable andtransparent.

•

Create open and inclusive steering committees that include right holders so that they
participate in decision-making processes. In
particular, women, young people and people
with disabilities should be included in governance processes.

•

Use local access networks as an opportunity tofoster interaction on local development at the
local level, and to boost community dialogue
and action.

In addition, local internet access initiatives should:•

Train facilitators at the ICT centres in local languages to encourage participation of people
with low literacy levels.

•

Involve community-based organisations in thedesign and implementation of any access networks, including government projects, so thatthe development potential of the access initiative is maximised.

•

Consider extending internet access in the community through implementing a Wi-Fi meshnetwork or using any other suitable networking
technology.

76 / Global Information Society Watch

BRAZIL
How community networks in Maranhão are helping quilombolas
promote their rights

Instituto Nupef
Oona Castro, with the collaboration of Carlos Alberto
Afonso and Paulo Duarte
https://nupef.org.br

Introduction
Although access to broadband internet has been
growing in Brazil, one still finds a huge access gap
in some regions and among certain populationgroups. This is the case of many quilombola communities in the state of Maranhão, situated in the
Northeast region of Brazil. A quilombo is a settlement inhabited by descendants of Afro-Brazilianslaves who escaped from plantations before theabolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888. These communities are mostly located in rural areas, where
quilombolas preserve their culture and the environment. They still need to fight for lots of basic
rights – such as access to lands, to public services
such as health, education and communications. In
these areas, telecommunications operators barely
provide access to the internet and, when they do,
the service is usually of very low quality and notaffordable.
This situation motivated Instituto Nupef –Núcleo de Pesquisas, Estudos e Formação, in
partnership with local communities, to develop apilot programme creating two community meshnetworks in these communities, connecting quilombolas from different municipalities.
This report discusses the process of setting up
these networks, and points to the benefits for the
local communities.

The context
In 2017, two networks were implemented in Maranhão: the first one, which has been operational sinceJune last year, in the municipality of Penalva, andthe second in the municipality of Cajari, in operation
since December 2017. Both cities received an internet link in August.
Both Penalva and Caraji contain part of the Baixada Maranhense Environmental Protection Area,1 asustainable use conservation unit created in 1991.

The municipalities are officially considered “extractive reserves”, according to Brazilian law. A river
divides the two municipalities, and, depending on
the season, this can be dry or in flood, with the water at different levels due to rains or river tides.
The estimated population of Cajari, according
to the 2010 census, was about ‎18,751 inhabitants.2
Nevertheless, the population in the community
where the network was implemented was about
300 people. The population of Penalva, according to
the same census, was estimated at 34,246 inhabitants,3 but the community in the rural area has about
26,000 people, and there are about 1,000 people
living in the area served by the network.

Brief history: Choosing the communities
and the model
The two communities in Penalva and Caraji werechosen based on an analysis of their socioeconomic conditions and after talking to different groups.
Among these was a project called New Social Mapof the Amazon,4 located in the social anthropology
programme at the federal University of Amazonas.
The project builds knowledge about the Amazon
region and its inhabitants by mapping informationthat regular cartography usually ignores, such asconflict areas, and relations between peoples andterritories. As a result, their work serves as a tool
for strengthening social movements. The project
identified communities for Instituto Nupef to starttalking to.
A few conditions were necessary to have acommunity network implemented: the first andmost important was the local need and motivation to get one in place and ensure continuity. The
second and very crucial condition was that a community governance association had been set up in
the communities that we could engage with. Affordable connectivity provided by the market alsoneeded to be absent, while the geography needed
to be amenable to a mesh network being set up.
After some deliberation, we decided that the best2
3

1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Baixada_Maranhense_Environmental_Protection_Area4
brazil / 77https://censo2010.ibge.gov.br/sinopse/webservice/frm_urb_rur.
php?codigo=210250
https://censo2010.ibge.gov.br/sinopse/index.
php?dados=21&uf=21
novacartografiasocial.com.br

communities to run the pilot were the quilombos of
Bairro Novo in Penalva and Camaputiua in Cajari.
After initial discussions, Instituto Nupef
planned how to set up the networks. The first idea
was to install a tower that would connect the twomesh networks set up in the communities. However,the costs related to setting up the tower were toohigh. The city hall in Penalva had a telephone towerthat was in use and we considered the possibilityof using that to connect the radios; but in the end
it proved to be cheaper and easier to contract a satellite internet link that would connect the network
access points to the internet.

Setting up the networks
Building the networks involved about 20 people
from inside and outside the community. Nupef’s
team managed the process. With the help of community volunteers it also mapped the areas todetermine the spots where radios should be installed, offered technical training to community
members so that they could fix common problems,and developed software and hardware solutions forthe networks. The community volunteers helped
engage other people in the community, and also assisted with some technical issues such as installing
the routers.
The first step was to do a site survey (orgeo-referencing) in each community, establishing
the coordinates needed to create the mesh. In the
quilombo of Bairro Novo, seven radios were used,covering a perimeter of about 520 metres and anarea of about 17,770 square metres. In the quilomboof Camaputiua, which is a much smaller community,
five radios covered a perimeter of 1,020 metres andan area of about 20,600 square metres.
In Penalva, 75 users received a password toconnect to the internet. They then shared theirpasswords with other community members, reaching a total of over 465 connected devices.
In Cajari, where 118 families live, 20 people received passwords and use the network regularly.
Besides that, 200 people have been benefiting fromintermittent internet access, and have been issued
with daily passwords when necessary. Many ofthese are people from other communities that commute to Cajari in order to use their network.
Using the network, Camaputiua’s quilombola
association has helped over 400 community members get their national identity numbers (CPFs)
and other documents which are required for participation in social and government programmes,
economic transactions, and securing individual rights (such as support for family agriculture,

funding opportunities, opening bank accounts, andthe recognition of land access rights).

Applications and systems
As the networks are connected to the internet
through satellite links, they both have access tostandard internet services such as VoIP telephony,email, social networks and video streaming (initially this was provided using Elastix).5
Nupef’s team used LibreMesh on the routers,
an OpenWrt/LEDE-based firmware for wirelessmesh nodes. Community members were taught
how to change passwords and other system configurations, and even how to perform some advanced
tasks like saving customised configuration on thedevices using the LibreMesh “cook” function.

Sustainability
It is important to note that a key decision with regard to the sustainability of the project was to makeuse of common and easily accessible equipment.
The initial purchase of equipment was made by the
Nupef team. A computer, routers, cables, boxes toprotect the radios, and other hardware and accessories were bought, as well as extra routers andother items so the community had spare equipment available in case of the need for replacement(they have already replaced some). The equipment
purchased is easily available in the capital of Maranhão, São Luis, in case the community needs to buy
new hardware.
Through the two community associations, local
managers (who are leaders in those communities)
have been collecting very small amounts of money
each month from community members to pay for thesatellite link and make improvements to the project.
Bairro Novo’s community association has alreadybeen able to buy a printer – as many users said theyneeded one. In Cajari, the community is smaller andso is the group of regular network users, so they
have not been able to make improvements to the
network so far. However, they are managing to cover
the costs of the satellite link.

Women in the network
Women are active in both networks, especially inPenalva, where the leadership of two women fromthe community was key for achieving success: Maria Nice Machado Aires and Geovania Machado Aires
have played and continue to play very important5

Elastix is a unified communications server software that offers
tools such as IP PBX, email, instant messaging, fax and otherfuncionalitites. Available at: https://www.elastix.org/pbx/
small-business-phone-system

78 / Global Information Society Watch

roles in setting up the network and in its sustainability. From the very beginning they demonstrated
strong interest in getting the community to embrace
the new project.
Maria Nice was born in 1954 in Penalva and represents communities such as quilombolas, babassu
oil harvesters, smallholders and other traditional
communities. Geovania, 30 years old, a quilombola
and a teacher with a master’s degree, became thenumber one assistant in the network in Bairro Novoand coordinates the project locally. She handles
both technical and management issues. While Maria
Nice and Geovania are mainstays for the community
network in Penalva, both contributed enormously tothe set-up of the network in Cajari too, by connecting us with local leaders (they introduced us to a
local leader there, Ednaldo Padilha, also known as“Cabeça”) and by providing organisational support.
Through testimonies from community leaders
we learned that women have benefited significantly
from the networks. Mothers have been able to apply for maternity leave government support, while
many have embraced the project as they were used
to paying about 150 Brazilian reais (over USD 35) amonth so their children could go downtown to do
homework and research, apply for public exams andprogrammes and take care of other school-related
needs in LAN houses6 – that is, they paid for transportation and for using computers at the centres by
the hour. Now they pay 20 Brazilian reais (less than
USD 5) per month through a cooperative model tohelp the local association keep the networks running so their children have access to the internet
within their communities whenever they need it.

Legislation and enforcement
The regulatory framework related to telecommunications and spectrum control and allocation
is made up of a wide variety of laws, resolutions
and norms, defined by the Congress and the federal government as well as Anatel, the regulatory
agency. There are many bills under debate in theCongress, among which is a bill to change the General Law of Telecommunications7 (Lei Geral de
Telecomunicações). Spectrum allocation is the responsibility of the Ministry of Communications (forradio and TV) and Anatel. A complex mosaic of different laws apply to different services related to theuse of the spectrum. The National Frequency Plan in

Brazil8 dates from 20169 and dozens of resolutions
by Anatel regulate the use of frequencies and radio
communications, as well the provision of broadband services. Describing and analysing all thislegislation would result in a paper itself – and a very
complex one, since there are lots of gray areas andrules to be defined.
In our context, what is most important is that
according to Resolution No. 506/2008,10 broadband
wireless access systems for local networks were exempted from authorisation when providing accessto no more than 5,000 people. However, this resolution was revoked by Resolution No. 680/2017.11
While the exemption remains, Anatel seems torequire, as of 2018, registration on Mosaico,12 aplatform meant to manage spectrum allocation.
There have been controversial decisions by different courts on the issue of spectrum. In April 2018, adecision by the Superior Court of Justice stated that“the principle of insignificance did not apply to cases of clandestine transmission of internet signals
through radiofrequency that is characterised as acriminal act in article 183 of Law No. 9472/1997.”13
The principle of insignificance is one that judges apply
whenever they analyse the infringement as one that
did not cause a significant harm. This decision conflicts with a decision by the Supreme Federal Court
from 2017, according to which habeas corpus had
been granted to acquit a defendant accused of practising clandestine telecommunications activities, basedon the principle of insignificance.14 This may affect the
principle of legal certainty and impact on innovationand social changes due to fear of being punished for
creating networks that are not protected by the law.
The networks in Penalva and Cajari are not yet
registered on the Mosaico platform or with any othergovernment body. However, these networks operate
within the confines of the law, under the exemption
granted to wireless networks for fewer than 5,000
people in the 2.4 GHz and 5 Ghz frequencies.
8

9

10

11
12

6
7

LAN houses are commercial initiatives that provide access to theinternet, similar to cybercafés.
www.anatel.gov.br/legislacao/leis/2-lei-9472

13
14

brazil / 79

www.anatel.gov.br/Portal/verificaDocumentos/documento.
asp?numeroPublicacao=346331&assuntoPublicacao=null&caminhoRel=null&filtro=1&documentoPath=346331.pdf
A new one was approved in June 2017, but was later revoked in
January 2018, due to debates over criteria, frequency bands, andother issues.
www.anatel.gov.br/legislacao/resolucoes/23-2008/104resolucao-506; also available in English: http://www.
americascompliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/506English_1.pdf
http://www.anatel.gov.br/legislacao/
resolucoes/2017/936-resolucao-680
https://sistemas.anatel.gov.br/mosaico/login/login?service=http%3A%2F%2Fsistemas.anatel.gov.
br%2Fmosaico%2Fportal%2FportalInternet
https://www.estrategiaconcursos.com.br/blog/sumula-606-stj
HC 138134/BA, rel. Min. Ricardo Lewandowski, julgamento em
7.2.2017. Informativo STF 853.

Action steps: The futureand final considerations
The networks in Penalva and Cajari are meant toserve as a vital tool for the quilombola movements– those who struggle for the rights of these communities. Feedback has been extremely positive. With
the success of the community networks in Penalva
and Cajari, people in surrounding communities now
want the networks to be expanded to give them access, and have requested Instituto Nupef’s support
to find the resources and to implement the new networks with them.
For Instituto Nupef, despite its significant
experience in implementing information andcommunication technology (ICT) projects for populations with no access to the internet, this pilot
improved the organisation’s know-how on social
and technical aspects related to building networks
in rural areas. Nupef is now in dialogue with otherorganisations and social movements interested in
implementing similar projects in their communities,
including babassu oil harvesters.
On the advocacy level, our experience has
reinforced the importance of keeping our eyes
wide open in the field of community connectivity,
though it is a considerably vast one that requires

a dedicated group of people watching and trying
to influence decisions with a social and public-interest perspective. It is not an easy task, as there
are resource constraints related to people, money
and time; but it is definitely a key one if we want
to see the enforcement of communication rights
in Brazil.
Finally, we propose setting up a programme inBrazil on community networks that will serve as adynamic reference point for the application of networking at the community level. The purpose of thisprogramme will be to produce and share knowledge and information on community connectivity,
and to develop the capacities of individuals andorganisations. In particular we are interested in theinnovative use of ICTs which may support sustainable development, human rights, social justice, good
governance and democratic values.
This involves not only creating and maintaining a periodically updated repository of rules andregulations that affect spectrum policies and practices which impact on networking initiatives in local
communities, but also building knowledge and capacities by directly implementing local community
networks where they are socially needed and where
the market does not provide the means to make access happen.

80 / Global Information Society Watch

BRAZIL
Off-the-grid, autonomous community networks in Brazil

Fonias Jurua Project
Anna Orlova and Rafael Diniz
https://fonias.submidia.org/en

Introduction
To understand how high-frequency radio community networks were developed in the Brazilian
Amazon, it is important to reflect on the geographic
characteristics and historical and socioeconomic
background of Brazilian Extractive Reserves. By
drawing on these factors we explain the novelty ofour technical solution – building local autonomous
connectivity in the Amazon rainforest using digitalradio in the high-frequency band – and how it is themost appropriate solution in this context. We put
into perspective aspects of available infrastructure
and the local context as the main factors defining
the solution that can best serve the needs and wishes of the local population to provide informationand communication solutions.

Socioeconomic and historical background
The Amazon region, which extends through many
South American countries, is one of the least developed in terms of information and communication
technology (ICT) infrastructure, as in these areas
there is insignificant investment in infrastructure.
For many communities here the only available communication technology is the high-frequency radiotransceivers that are practical and affordable andhave already been in use for decades.
Although the first Amazon digital radio network1
using the high-frequency radio band in the Brazilian Amazon forest was created in Acre in 2014-2015,high-frequency radio transceivers – bi-directional
radio transceivers that allow communication directly between the two transceivers without any
intermediate points – existed and were used by
the local population for a long time before that.
Locals remember the use of high-frequency radiotransceivers by the patrãos (bosses) who owned
and managed the rubber plantations in Brazil. Until
the early 1980s, the seringueiros (rubber tappers)
were the many generations of migrants from the1

Northeast region of Brazil, along with some indigenous people populating the Amazon rainforest
who were often enslaved and forced to work in therubber tapping industry. Looking to end this oppression and hardship, rubber tappers mobilisedwith the labour movement and with environmentalists. This led to the liberation of rubber tappers andthe establishment of the first (legally recognised)
extractive reserve in the Brazilian Amazon in 1990
– the Alto Juruá Extractive Reserve.2 As a result of
this struggle, rubber tappers claimed their right tolive, work and organise their lives themselves on
the land where previously they were forced to workin harsh conditions.

Geography of the Alto Juruá Extractive
Reserve
The Alto Juruá Extractive Reserve is located in thestate of Acre, on the border with Peru, and comprises an area of 506,000 hectares of forests andrivers. It is a federal administrative territory set up
as a natural conservancy that allows traditional
communities to live and earn their livelihoods, including through natural resource extraction, inside
the conservation zone, based on the assumptionthat their traditional way of life favours and enhances the protection of natural areas.3 Therefore,
inhabitants can live from the land and rivers of theextractive reserve; however, they also face the needto find sustainable ways of farming and maintaining
their lives inside the reserve without depleting thenatural environment. This form of coexistence withthe environment would guarantee protection of theforest and of the people living inside the reserve.
For years the main challenge for traditional andindigenous communities of the Amazon forest was
being isolated and scattered throughout the foreston their own without any access to communication.
The only available means of transportation is by2

3

https://fonias.submidia.org/en
brazil / 81

www.icmbio.gov.br/portal/unidadesdeconservacao/
biomas-brasileiros/amazonia/
unidades-de-conservacao-amazonia/2776-resex-alto-jurua
Antunes Caminati, F., et al. (2016). Beyond the Last Mile: Fonias
Juruá Project – an HF Digital Radio Network Experiment in Amazon(Acre/Brazil). In L. Belli (Ed.), Community Connectivity: Building
the Internet from Scratch. Annual Report of the UN IGF Dynamic
Coalition on Community Connectivity. https://internet-governance.
fgv.br/sites/internet-governance.fgv.br/files/publicacoes/
community_connectivity_-_building_the_internet_from_scratch.pdf

rivers and there is no electricity power grid inside
the reserve, which leaves people with the option ofeither gasoline-powered generators or solar energy.
Therefore transportation and energy are expensive4
and not accessible for the majority of the extractive
reserve population.
Precarious public infrastructure in the reserves
also makes it almost impossible to access public
services. For example, many families receive financial support from the government programme Bolsa
Família,5 through which a monetary allowance isprovided to the female head of the household forevery child, on the condition that the children attend school. Schools in the extractive reserves aresupposed to provide transportation for the children
inside the reserve to bring them to school. In practice, however, this often does not work, and insteadchildren are staying at home. This has a direct effecton girls in particular: without any primary education
they have no option of continuing their education
or being employed outside of their immediate surroundings, and are left with the only choices of
early marriage (at the age of 13 or 14) or staying at
home to look after the children and the household.
Today Amazon rainforest reserves are endangered. With massive territories without any
oversight or protection from the army or state, extractive reserves represent an easy target for illegal
extractive activities, such as logging, hunting, andthe mining of precious metals and other natural
resources like oil. After the decline of the rubber
tapping industry in Brazil, rubber tappers alsoneeded to find ways of sustaining their lives inside
the reserve, and recently many have opted to leave
for urban areas in hope of better lives and jobs.
All of these aspects were taken into consideration when our community work began. There wasa clear need for a means of communication andinformation technology that could help locals monitor their territory, mobilise and coordinate theiractions, exchange information with the municipal
centre and receive assistance with basic services
like health care and education. Taking into consideration the lack of any infrastructure and the long
distances between communities separated by animpenetrable rain forest and their expressed wishes
to use radio transceivers, the solution for community connectivity in this context was to build anautonomous, affordable solution for connectivity
using old, existing infrastructure.
4
5

Petrol prices are one and a half to two times higher compared toother states of Brazil.
www.mds.gov.br/assuntos/bolsa-familia/o-que-e; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsa_Fam%C3%ADlia

The Amazon high-frequency digital radio
network in Acre
A high-frequency digital radio network as a solution
to provide community connectivity has been implemented and is currently operating in the Brazilian
Amazon forest in two states: in the Alto Juruá Extractive Reserve in Acre and in the Terra do Meio
region in Pará state.
The Alto Juruá Extractive Reserve has a networkof seven radios inside the reserve and one main
hub-station in the city of Marechal Thaumaturgo. This
network is a result of a long-term collaboration thatstarted in 2013 between traditional and indigenous
communities in Acre, and researchers and professors
from the University of Brasilia,6 Sao Paulo State University7 and University of Campinas.8 The network wasdeveloped as part of the academic research project“Fonias Juruá” to provide information and communication infrastructure to rural Amazon communities
that are under-served by regular and commercial
information and communication networks. It was
based on the requests for two-way voice radios from24 traditional communities in the Alto Juruá Reserve
and aimed at engaging locals in the process of political participation and empowerment through joint
sustainable experience. At the moment the estimatednumber of users is around 500 people.
It took four years from the beginning of talks
with the community to purchasing equipment andtaking the first trip to the extractive reserve where
the first six radio stations were installed with thecollaboration of community leaders and locals living
inside the community. Five of the radios were installed inside the extractive reserve and one station
was installed in the city of Marechal Thaumaturgo,
which served as a hub to connect and exchange information between all the stations. The idea wasthat Marechal Thaumaturgo would provide sociallyand politically important information and news to
the extractive reserve that would serve as an incentive to foster communication and the exchange of
information inside and outside of the reserve. It wasalso necessary for people living inside the reserve
to talk to their relatives living in the city of Marechal
Thaumaturgo, exchange information about local
production and prices of goods and services, ask for
medical assistance and advice about social services, and access other locally important information.
Another important aspect of communication was toreport illegal activities taking place in the reserve,such as illegal logging, hunting and mining.
6
7
8

www.unb.br
www.unesp.br
www.unicamp.br/unicamp

82 / Global Information Society Watch

Today the Acre high-frequency radio network is
composed of eight two-way radios – a point-to-multipoint broadcasting set-up allowing every stationin the network to receive the transmission and tocommunicate among each other. This system isautonomous, low maintenance and easy to use by
any member of the community after basic training.
The solution is composed of standard high-frequency transceivers, common wire horizontal
dipole antennas that are positioned to work in nearvertical incidence skywave (NVIS) mode, and software-defined radio (SDR)9 techniques for digitalcommunications. As there is no power or electricity
infrastructure available, each radio station is powered by a solar panel and batteries, making it anenvironmentally friendly set-up.
Since its inception the network has been in
regular use by the local communities without any
major problems. In 2016 we successfully accomplished trials with a digital transmission system
based on the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) standard (this was first attempted in 2015 but was only
partially successful). The solution for digital transmission is made up using an embedded computer,an interface to the radio and the SDR software. We
managed to send text files and images over the radio in the 80-metre HF band (3545 kHz) to locations
100 km apart.

Comparing the two networks: A look at the
Terra do Meio Digital Radio Network
The network in the state of Pará has no formal
name, but we refer to it here as the “Terra do Meio
Digital Radio Network”. The network operates witha main station set up at the NGO Instituto Socioambiental10 (ISA), with other independent stations(around 10 stations) in the urban area of Altamirathat provide special services and communication. In
the rural area of the Amazon forest there are at least
50 stations, meaning that, like the Fonias Juruá
network, this network can be considered predominantly rural. The network has been set up by ISA,SDR Telecom11 (a company founded by a member of
the Fonias Juruá Project) and the local people of the
Terra do Meio region. The network has more than
4,000 users.
In comparison to the Acre community network,
the Terra do Meio Digital Radio Network is significantly larger, with around 60 radio stations spread
across the region. The Terra do Meio region is also
bigger and therefore the network connects many
9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio
10 https://www.socioambiental.org/pt-br
11 https://sdrtelecom.com.br

more communities, creating a high demand for radio use. The daily use of radios is vital to the local
population. For example, in some cases when people are travelling to another place in the region theytake their radios with them and upon arrival they assemble the radio to be able to talk. At one meeting
we witnessed a queue of people waiting to use theradio to talk to their relatives and acquaintances,for personal or business reasons. This potential of
the network would not be possible if the network
was small. As a result, the size of the network plays
a significant part in its usefulness.
Despite the very similar social and geographic
contexts, the way the two networks operate is also
different in terms of ownership (the way the radios are owned and shared), as well as the economic
incentive to use the radios. Here the economic capacity of community members plays a defining rolein the ways the radio network develops and extends
inside the forest territories, as well as how community members attribute importance to the useof radios. From our observations we can say that in
Pará, the use of the network is more economically motivated. People in the communities run daily
business over the radios and therefore use it moreregularly and more frequently. This factor appeared
to impact on the maintenance of the network.
In Acre we observed only one community where
the maintenance of the radio was given importanceby the members of the community, as opposed tothe maintenance support received from the project
team. In this community, the head of the household
where the radio station was installed had a personal interest in maintaining the station because
he was using it for running his own business – inother words, there was an economic incentive. He
purchased a new battery at his own expense to
keep the radio working when the initial one broke
down. This suggests that networks that enable theeconomic agency of communities have a stronger
prospect for sustainability.

Empowering women
There is a clear division of labour in the Alto Juruá
Extractive Reserve that was established throughout
the years and was defined by the way of life inside
the reserve. Most hard physical work like hunting
and farming is done by men, whereas women tend
to stay at home to cook and take care of the family
and the household. However, when it comes to thedecision-making process, women take equal partand participate actively.
When one community had a meeting to decideand vote on the house where the radio would beinstalled, one woman openly voted against her

brazil / 83husband when he proposed to have the radio in
their house. In another community women werevery proactive at the community meeting, expressing their concerns and asking questions. They
became so engaged that they even participated in
the process of installing antennas and helping to
dig holes and install wooden posts along with men –something that only men did in other communities.
The first volunteers to test and use the radio were
teenage girls, who appeared less shy than some of
the young men who resisted using the radio for the
first time in front of everyone else.
Because they tend to take care of household duties, women naturally stay closer to the radio during
the day and seem to be more keen to talk and sharenews with others compared to men.

Action steps
Today one challenge for community networks operating over the high-frequency radio band is thelack of licences for community use. In the Brazilian
Amazon many networks or high-frequency radios
operate without a licence. Partly this happens because some are not aware that they should havelicences as network providers (for example, recently
some radios were seized by Anatel – the Brazilian
telecom regulator – in the city of Altamira), whereas
in other cases the remoteness of the Amazon region
and lack of any form of oversight gives a certain freedom for the use of spectrum without licences. There
are ongoing discussions and requests from network
operators and researchers submitted to the ministry of communication for community-use licences
to be formalised; however, so far the ministry has

refrained from taking action towards a new type of
licence being introduced. Instead it has asked forworking examples of communities operating community networks as a basis for further discussion.
Community networks that want to operate mobile phone networks also cannot use any mobile
phone radio bands for their own needs. There are nocommunity licences for this purpose. Nevertheless,Anatel allows, for example, Wi-Fi internet providers
to operate without licences, with certain restrictions such as a maximum of 5,000 users and with
only certified equipment (Resolution No. 680, 2017,
Anatel).12 Even in these cases, however, community networks fall under the same category as small
for-profit network providers.
Today there is a lack of telecommunication
access and infrastructure for millions of Brazilian
citizens: people living in isolated rural areas without commercial telecoms coverage, and the poorand socially disadvantaged that cannot afford expensive commercial telecom services. As a result,
there is a clear necessity to declare and convey theneeds of non-commercial network operators for a
new type of telecommunication licence for community use at the policy-making level.
Since 2015 a group of implementers and supporters of emerging GSM (mobile telephony),high-frequency radio and Wi-Fi community networks have been working together to advocate forcommunity connectivity at the level of policy making and to establish and articulate the concept of“community network” in the Brazilian telecommunication law. However, there have been no significant
achievements so far.

12 www.anatel.gov.br/legislacao/
resolucoes/2017/936-resolucao-680
84 / Global Information Society Watch

CanadaFirst Nations community networks and the First Mile
Connectivity Consortium

First Mile Connectivity Consortium
Rob McMahon and the First Mile Connectivity
Consortium
www.firstmile.ca

Introduction
First Nations are leading local and regional community networking initiatives in Canada. From
trenching fibre backhaul along gravel roads to installing Wi-Fi antennas on the roofs of homes andbusinesses, community champions and regional
technology organisations are connecting rural, remote and Northern regions. These projects respondto persistent divides, demonstrating ways that communities drive infrastructure development while
retaining ownership and control of networks andservices. Many of these indigenous community networks have been in operation for years, and range
from local internet service providers (ISPs) to complex regional organisations that provide services tomultiple communities.
Along with the passion of community networking champions, indigenous community networks
involve an array of other activities, such as seeking
policy support, engaging in technical development,
and responding to high demand for digital services.
Lower-cost equipment can now be easily transported and set up by local technicians. If adequate
backhaul is in place, these networks offer robustinternet services to households and organisations.
Once service becomes available, people quickly
adopt online education, health and e‑commerce
applications, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and mobile apps. For example,
the Atlantic Canada First Nations Help Desk basedin Membertou First Nation is developing a seriesof language apps to protect and revitalise theMi’kmaw language.
Adoption in these communities reflects a“whole community” understanding of and approachto digital technologies for social and economic
development that counters models focused on“individual” and “household” metrics. A broader
ecology of community support enables local innovators to build, shape, manage, operate and utilise
these tools – activities reflected in networking

projects such as the Mamwapowin Technology Society in Maskwacis, Alberta.1 Although it is locatedless than an hour from the province’s capital of
Edmonton, few commercial internet services areavailable in Maskwacis. Many residents are unable to afford residential services, which can cost
up to CAD 132 (roughly USD 100) a month – an expensive service in a region with few employment
opportunities.
In 2016 Bruce Buffalo, a member of Samson
Cree Nation, set up a free Wi-Fi hotspot that redistributed his personal internet connection to several
local neighbourhoods. The self-taught technician
invested his own money to build a wireless systemwith two switches and an online access portal. Since
then, Bruce has expanded the network, upgradedhis wireless equipment, and founded Mamwapowin
as a non-profit. He is now working with Maskwacis
Cultural College to secure a 100 Mbps backhaul link,
which will provide bandwidth he can use to connect
Wi-Fi users to public safety resources, community
services and online education. Once connectivity
has been enhanced to support video, Bruce would
like to create a community tech hub where he canbring all ages together to learn how to use theinternet for education opportunities, business development, and to explore technology in an open
learning space. Bruce is also engaged in public
outreach about his project, and is currently fundraising to expand it. He has given presentations togroups including the Canadian Internet Registration
Authority (CIRA) to share his project as a potential
template for others.2
Mamwapowin Technology Society is just one
recent example of many digital innovations taking
place in First Nations across Canada – many moreindigenous community networks have been in place
for years, with some operating since the earlier daysof the internet, almost 30 years ago. In the next section, we highlight some of the political, economic
and policy conditions that support and constrain
their work.
1

2

canada / 85

Max, C. (2018, 22 June). Maskwacis man making
Internet accessible to the community. Wetaskiwin
Times. www.wetaskiwintimes.com/2018/06/22/
maskwacis-man-making-internet-accessible-to-the-community
https://cira.ca/newsroom/events/cira-meet-calgary

Enabling digital self-determination: Political,
economic and policy contexts
In Canada, indigenous community networking advocates have fought hard to establish and sustain
policy and regulatory frameworks that enable digital self-determination. Almost 20 years ago, theNational Broadband Task Force released a report(2001) that identified the digital access divides
facing rural, remote, Northern and indigenous
communities, and proposed a national broadband
strategy to connect all communities – with priority
placed on affordable access.3 Five years later, theCanadian Telecommunications Policy Review Panelreport (2006) noted that community networks provide both technological and social infrastructures
for digital technology access, adoption and use.4
Starting in the mid-1990s and continuing to thepresent, government departments have establishedfunds to encourage the deployment and operationsof infrastructure in under-served regions.5
But despite billions of public dollars invested,
many indigenous communities still lack adequate,
affordable access. Canada still does not have a national broadband strategy, and First Nations, Inuitand Métis communities continue to be challenged
with limited connectivity. Many people living in indigenous communities are struggling to pay thehigh costs of accessing and using digital technologies – though research also illustrates they are
eager adopters if connectivity is affordable, reliable
and meets their needs.
In recent years the government of Canada has
paid increasing attention to the challenge of rural and remote digital divides, and to the First
Nations community networks working to address
it. To drive infrastructure deployment, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications
Commission (CRTC) established a new basic service
objective (BSO) for broadband in December 2016.6
This new standard recommends speeds of 50 Mbps
download/10 Mbps upload, among other conditions. It was established after years of advocacy
by indigenous and public interest groups in CRTC
3

4

5

6

Industry Canada. (2001). The New National Dream: Networking the
Nation for Broadband Access: Report of the National Broadband Task
Force. publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/C2-574-2001E.pdf
Industry Canada. (2016). Telecommunications Policy Review Panel
Final Report. https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/vwapj/
tprp-final-report-2006.pdf/$FILE/tprp-final-report-2006.pdf
Blake, S., McMahon, R., & Williams, D. (2016). A Guide toFederal Funding for Indigenous Broadband in Canada. First Mile
Connectivity Consortium. firstmile.ca/wp-content/uploads/FMCCGuide-to-Federal-Funding-for-Indigenous-Broadband-in-Canada.pdf
CRTC. (2016). Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2016-496: Modern
telecommunications services – The path forward for Canada’s digital
economy. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2016/2016-496.htm

proceedings concerning access in Northern territories, including 2012 hearings on Northwestel’sModernization Plan7 and a 2014 inquiry on satellite
services.8 Unfortunately, the government of Canada
and the major telecom providers serving remoteand rural communities continue to deliver connectivity services and infrastructure capable of lessthan the CRTC’s recommended speeds.
With regard to affordability, the CRTC has generally encouraged competition, though it has stepped
in to regulate retail rates in some remote/Northern
regions that lack competition.9 The importance of affordable services was raised in proceedings leading
to the BSO decision – with a debate emerging between parties calling for an affordability subsidy for
individual consumers, and groups who responded
that regulations should instead focus on encouraging funds for community networks. The “wholecommunity” approach noted earlier encourages acommunity-wide funding regime that supports therequired networking solutions for everyone.
The government has also set up a series ofbroadband funding programmes. Most recently
these include the CND 500-million Connect to Innovate (CTI) programme managed by Innovation,
Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)
to establish regional backhaul networks,10 and abroadband fund currently being set up by the CRTC.11
The CTI fund contributed to several major projects in
Canada’s North, including the Mackenzie Valley Fibre
Link in the Northwest Territories,12 the Dempster fibre project in the Yukon,13 and funding for satellite
infrastructure in Nunavut.14 Despite these gains, critics note these projects are operated by incumbents
rather than community networks, and lack a publicdefinition of “open access” requirements.
Importantly, after pressure from indigenous
and public interest groups, infrastructure funding
programmes were made available to non-profits,
7

8
9
10

11

12
13
14

CRTC. (2013). Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2013-711: Northwestel
Inc. – Regulatory Framework, Modernization Plan, and related
matters. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2013/2013-711.htm
CRTC. (2014). Satellite Inquiry Report. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/
publications/reports/rp150409/rp150409.pdf
CRTC. (2013). Op. cit.
https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economicdevelopment/programs/computer-internet-access/connect-toinnovate.html
CRTC. (2017). Telecom Notice of Consultation CRTC 2017-112:
Development of the Commission’s broadband funding regime.
https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2017/2017-112.htm
https://mvflproject.com
https://yukon.ca/en/dempster-fibre-fact-sheet
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. (2017,14 September). Communities across Nunavut will benefit
from faster Internet. https://www.canada.ca/en/innovationscience-economic-development/news/2017/09/communities_
acrossnunavutwillbenefitfromfasterinternet.html

86 / Global Information Society Watchcooperatives and community-based organisations.
Examples of First Nations CTI projects include initiatives led by Matawa First Nations in Ontario,15
Clear Sky Connections in Manitoba,16 and Arrow
Technology Group in Alberta.17 The deployment,
operations and sustainability of these community
networks require a complex balance between local
innovation, regional cooperation, and supportive
policy and regulatory conditions. As noted in the2017 GISWatch country report for Canada, residents
of affected communities must be involved in theprovision of digital services.18 They should not be
restricted to act only as consumers of broadband –they can also contribute as producers, owners andoperators. Such opportunities utilise broadband
not just as an enabler for economic development inother industries and services, but also as a locallyowned and managed resource in and of itself.
This perspective reflects “first-mile” solutionsin the design, development and operations of tele­communication infrastructure and services – thatis, those which invest in connections and organisations rooted in affected communities and regions.
Such an approach is proposed for communities thatlack a business case for private sector companies tobuild and operate required infrastructure and services. Locally oriented first-mile solutions contrast
with “last-mile” initiatives that focus on upgrades
to urban-based infrastructures in the hope that they
will eventually serve remote and rural regions.19 The
15 Northern Ontario Business. (2017, 6 October). Matawa First
Nations lands nearly $70 million for high-speed internet. https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/industry-news/aboriginalbusinesses/matawa-first-nations-lands-nearly-70-million-for-highspeed-internet-734490
16 Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. (2018,
9 January). More than 100 rural communities in Manitoba will
benefit from faster Internet. Cision. https://www.newswire.ca/
news-releases/more-than-100-rural-communities-in-manitobawill-benefit-from-faster-internet-668464203.html
17 Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. (2017,11 July). Western Canada to benefit from faster Internet. https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/
news/2017/07/western_canada_tobenefitfromfasterinternet.html
18 Riahi, A., Lambert, M., & Couture, S. (2017). Indigenous
disconnect: Canada’s divide in internet governance. In A. Finlay(Ed.), Global Information Society Watch 2017: National andRegional Internet Governance Forum Initiatives (NRIs). https://www.giswatch.org/en/country-report/internet-governance/
canada19 Strover, S. (2000). The First Mile. The Information Society, 16(2),151-54; Paisley, L., & Richardson, D. (1998). Why the first mile andnot the last? In L. Paisley, & D. Richardson (Eds.), The First Mile ofconnectivity: Advancing telecommunications for rural development
through a participatory communication approach. Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). www.fao.
org/docrep/x0295e/x0295e03.htm; Whiteduck, T., Beaton, B.,
Burton, K., & O’Donnell, S. (2012). Democratic Ideals Meet Reality:
Developing Locally Owned and Managed Broadband Networks
and ICT Services in Rural and Remote First Nations in Quebec andCanada. Keynote paper for the Community Informatics Research
Network (CIRN) Conference, Prato, Italy, November.

drive to secure affordability and access throughself-determined first-mile broadband development has supported the emergence of indigenous
community networks in Canada governed by, anddirectly accountable to, the communities they
serve. For example, the Kuhkenah Network (K-Net)
began their local broadband network development
work in 2000.
Without a means to interconnect with regional
backhaul networks, local initiatives remain points
of isolation. Local providers can interconnect
through “open access” infrastructure, but a clear
definition of open access is often lacking – leaving
backhaul providers indirect means to obstruct adequate interconnection, such as by charging highrates for access. This issue was debated at a 2017
CRTC proceeding, after which the Commission denied an application by Northwestel requesting
forbearance from the regulation of its Wholesale
Connect service in the communities served by the
Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link network, since forbearance would not be in the public interest of users inaffected communities.20
Community wireless providers face a related
challenge: while spectrum allocations are regulated by the federal government and sold in auction,
licences typically cover huge areas at high cost –leaving smaller providers unable to purchase andutilise wholesale spectrum.21 Historically, Canada
developed the Rural Remote Broadband Systems(RRBS) policy to support spectrum utilisation bysmall providers servicing rural and remote regions.22 However, while RRBS “offers a clear casestudy of a bold policy initiative to bring service todifficult regions and introduce new smaller players into concentrated wireless markets,” over time
it failed, due to “speculative license holders, poor
economies of scale and, most importantly, faintgovernment support.”23
Another challenge relates to the sustainability of community networks. Larger-scale services
support broadband-enabled applications such as
20 CRTC. (2017). Telecom Decision CRTC 2017-300: Northwestel Inc. –Request for forbearance from the regulation of Wholesale Connect
service in the communities served by the Mackenzie Valley Fibre
Link network. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2017/2017-300.htm
21 First Mile Connectivity Consortium. (2014). Submission to
the Consultation on Policy Changes in the 3500 MHz Band
(3475-3650 MHz) and a New Licensing Process in Rural Areas.
Reference number (DGSO-003-14): Canada Gazette, Part I, August
2014. firstmileconnectivity.myknet.org/wp-content/uploads/
sites/1687/2014/10/FMCC-Comments-3500MHz-ConsultationOct7.pdf
22 Taylor, G. (2017). Remote Rural Broadband Systems in Canada.
Telecommunications Policy (in press). dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.
telpol.2018.02.001
23 Ibid.

canada / 87

figure 1.

First Nations e-Community Framework

e‑health and education that also provide steadyrevenue streams, even in small populations anddispersed communities. To interconnect communities and regions, local systems can link to regional
backhaul networks in ways that allow organisations
to balance autonomy with cooperation, such as
through sharing bandwidth across regions while
supporting local service delivery. For example, Opiticiwan First Nation and the regional First Nations
Education Council (FNEC) in Quebec set up a fibre
optic network to share infrastructure and network
support services with public service that sustain theongoing operation and maintenance of the network.
This work reflects the e‑Community Framework developed by Judy Whiteduck in 2010 and endorsed by
the national Assembly of First Nations.24 The framework, illustrated in Figure 1, reflects the importantrole of community organisations, services and activities in sustaining broadband connectivity. These
organisations meet many essential needs, provide
sustainable local employment, and support community, social, political and economic development.
The First Mile Connectivity Consortium (FMCC)25
introduced the “whole community” approach totelecom development and funding programmes toensure communities are able to plan and sustain
their local networks to address their needs andpriorities.26
In the next section, we discuss some of the workthat community networking advocates are doing tobring these elements of the e‑community together,focusing on the work of the FMCC.

On-the-ground innovators like Bruce Buffalo buildand operate community networks. But without ameans to aggregate on a broader scale, even withfunding and regulatory support, local networks canremain insular pockets. Through regional community intermediary organisations, local projects gaina means to exchange knowledge and expertise,achieve economies of scale, and gain more politicaland economic clout.
In Canada, broadband-focused regional community intermediary organisations include First
Nation Councils such as Keewaytinook Okimakanak (which established K-Net – see below),27

24 Whiteduck, J. (2010). Building the First Nations E-Community. In J.P.
White, J. Peters, D. Beavon, & P. Dinsdale (Eds.), Aboriginal Policy
Research: Learning, Technology and Traditions, 95-103. Toronto:
Thompson Educational Publishing. apr.thompsonbooks.com/vols/
APR_Vol_6Ch6.pdf
25 firstmile.ca/fmcc-2

26 Beaton, B., McMahon, R., O’Donnell, S., Hudson, H., Whiteduck, T.
& Williams, D. (2016). Digital Technology Adoption in Northern andRemote Indigenous Communities. Prepared for Innovation, Scienceand Economic Development Canada. First Mile Connectivity
Consortium.
27 knet.ca

Indigenous regional community intermediaryorganisations in Canada

88 / Global Information Society Watchregional governments such as the Kativik Regional
Government,28 and non-profit advocacy groups set
up by Northern residents, such as the (now-defunct)
Nunavut Broadband Development Corporation. These
organisations perform a range of functions, including
broadband deployment, operations and maintenance,purchasing, IT support and training, legal and advocacy support, and so on. They play prominent roles inboth advocating for and administering ICT infrastructures and services. They represent (and are governedby) groups of communities, acting as mediators
between local interests and external entities like government funders or corporations.
Some of these regional organisations have been
providing services for decades. For example, K-Net
was founded in 1994, during the early years of theinternet. Its services, which encompass the wholecommunity framework discussed above, now reachover 80 communities across Ontario and in otherprovinces. It partners with First Nations, government programmes, telecom transport providers andother groups to facilitate the largest indigenous
network across Canada, and probably the world(see Figure 2).
In 2013, several regional community intermediary organisations united to form a national

association called the First Mile Connectivity Consortium. The FMCC’s members collaborate closely
to engage in policy and regulatory advocacy, as wellas in research, outreach, and digital literacy initiatives. The FMCC’s 11 current members (listed from
West to East to North) are:•First Nations Technology Council (British Columbia)•

First Nations Technical Services Advisory Group
Inc. (Alberta)•

Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre Inc.

•

Clear Sky Connections (Manitoba)•

Broadband Communications North (Manitoba)•

Keewaytinook Okimakanak K-Net Services(Ontario)•

Western James Bay Telecom Network (Northeastern Ontario)•

Matawa First Nations Management (Ontario)•

First Nations Education Council (Quebec)•

Atlantic Canada’s First Nations Help Desk (Atlantic region)•

The Native Communications Society of theNorthwest Territories.

figure 2.

K-Net network map

28 Information about the government’s internet provider Tamaani isavailable at: tamaani.ca
canada / 89

Along with participating in the CRTC hearings
and ISED funding programmes noted above, andcontributing to other government consultations,
FMCC members are currently working to support
connectivity planning and monitor broadband
quality and usage. These initiatives reflect efforts
to develop and share appropriate digital literacies
that make effective use of telecommunications services and facilities in rural, remote, Northern andindigenous environments. This definition of “digital
literacy” extends beyond an individual’s ability to
use a computer, software like Microsoft Office, or
social media – it also supports the planning, management and maintenance of telecommunications
infrastructure and services.
This work also aims to train community technicians – an important area of economic developmentin these regions. For example, the Eeyou Communication Network,29 a regional non-profit network
operating in northern Quebec, has trained technicians, and 33 graduates have found work in ICTs in
the Cree communities. In British Columbia, the First
Nations Technology Council recently establishedthe Bridging to Technology programme, which
focuses on digital skills training and professional development.30 Other digital literacy initiatives include
workshops provided by the Gwich’in Tribal Council in
the Northwest Territories and a digital literacy campdeveloped by Piikani First Nation in Alberta.
Digital literacies also include the ability to conduct internet performance monitoring tests. This isa key issue given the gaps in existing coverage inindigenous regions highlighted by parties like theCRTC, which established a monitoring initiative called
SamKnows, and CIRA, which developed an online
portal to measure internet performance.31 The FMCC
is working with Northern communities and their regional organisations to pilot a first-mile approach tointernet measurement. In northern Ontario, community members are invited to use the KO eCommunity
Facebook group to share ideas on how they are using
technology in their communities, and to plan together for the future of community networks. In anotherproject, several FMCC member organisations and Cybera (Alberta’s not-for-profit technology accelerator)
will use CIRA’s platform to establish a methodology
to conduct ongoing community-based internet performance measurement monitoring.32 These projects
29 www.eeyou.ca/en/home
30 technologycouncil.editmy.website/talent-development/
bridging-to-technology
31 https://performance.cira.ca/
32 Cybera. (2018, 11 June). Testing the Gaps in First Nations’ Internet
Access. https://www.cybera.ca/news-and-events/news/
testing-the-gaps-in-first-nations-internet-access

aim to highlight the important role that community
members play in monitoring and enforcing CRTC basic service obligations.

Conclusion
2018 is an exciting year for indigenous community
networks in Canada. Politically, rural and remotebroadband is a growing public issue. For example,
in April 2018, the House of Commons Standing
Committee on Industry, Science and Technology
presented its report Broadband Connectivity in Rural Canada: Overcoming the Digital Divide.33 Amongother points, the report provided recommendations
to encourage non-traditional network operators toapply for federal funding, including, but not limited to, cooperatives, non-profits, partnerships andlocal governments. Similar calls for community
networking support are seen in CIRA’s report The
Gap Between Us: Perspectives on building a better
online Canada, which “captures the experiences,opinions and proposed solutions of 70 grassroots
organizations across Canada working to make theinternet better for Canadians.”34
Another key development is the second Indigenous Connectivity Summit, which will be hosted
by the Internet Society in Edmonton, Alberta andInuvik, Northwest Territories in October 2018.35 The
summit provides a space for advocates of indigenous connectivity to discuss and debate community
networks, and the policy and technical conditions
that might enable their widespread growth andsustainability.
Looking ahead, the government of Canada
has announced it will launch a review of the Telecommunications Act and the Broadcasting Act.36
A seven-member panel has been appointed to thereview, and public consultations have been announced for September 2018.37 This review will
update and modernise the legislative framework,
33 https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/INDU/
report-11/page-ToC
34 CIRA. (2018, 13 June). CIRA report: Grassroots organizations sharegaps and solutions for Canada’s internet. https://cira.ca/pressreleases/cira-report-grassroots-organizations-share-gaps-andsolutions-canada-internet
35 https://www.internetsociety.org/events/
indigenous-connectivity-summit/2018
36 Canadian Heritage. (2018, 5 June). Government of Canada launches
review of Telecommunications and Broadcasting Acts. Cision.
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/government-of-canadalaunches-review-of-telecommunications-and-broadcastingacts-684595661.html
37 Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. (2018,
28 June). Update on the Broadcasting and Telecommunications
Legislative Review Panel. https://www.canada.ca/en/innovationscience-economic-development/news/2018/06/update-on-thebroadcasting-and-telecommunications-legislative-review-panel.
html

90 / Global Information Society Watchsupport the principle of net neutrality, and address
how to best promote competition and affordability
for internet and mobile wireless.
These consultations provide opportunities forindigenous community networks to contribute topolicies and regulations impacting on broadband
infrastructure and services. Importantly, this work
must recognise the range of telecommunications
development approaches documented through theFirst Nations Innovation (FNI) research project at
the University of New Brunswick, which concluded in the spring of 2018 after more than 12 years
partnering with indigenous regional intermediaryorganisations across Canada. As a final task of the
FNI research project, the partners collaborated in abook celebrating and highlighting the research andadvocacy undertaken over the years. This free online publication is titled Stories from the First Mile:
Digital technologies in remote and rural Indigenous
communities.38

Action steps
We suggest the following steps to support thecontinued development and sustainability of indigenous community networks in Canada:••Continue to advocate for adequate, affordable, accessible connectivity infrastructure andservices (local and backhaul) in all regions ofCanada.

self-determination through community-driven
initiatives grounded in First Nations concepts
such as the e‑community, the “whole community” approach to broadband adoption, and“first-mile” connectivity.
•

Build on the efforts of groups like the FMCC andits member organisations, CIRA and the InternetSociety to ensure adequate consultation andengagement in decision-making processes.

•

Ensure that community networks are supported
through local and regional initiatives, including
affordable access to wholesale, open accessbandwidth.

•

Continue tracking infrastructure deployment
and monitoring internet performance, including
through community-based projects.

•

Support appropriate digital literacy initiatives
that fit the unique contexts and desires oflearners based in rural, remote, Northern andindigenous communities.

•

Use the whole community model to plan andsupport local and regional funding and development initiatives serving remote and ruralcommunities as an alternative to the individual/
household model.

•

Monitor the implementation and outcomesof recent government initiatives, such as the
CRTC’s basic service objective, the CRTC Broadband Fund, and ISED’s Connect to Innovate
programme.

Continue to push for an enabling environmentof policies and regulations that support digital

38 firstmile.ca/new-book-stories-from-the-first-mile-digitaltechnologies-in-remote-and-rural-indigenous-communities
canada / 91

The Caribbean
ISOC’s Task Force for Latin American and Caribbean
Community Connectivity (TFLAC3) and Caribbean
community networks

Internet Society Chapters in St. Vincent and the
Grenadines, Guyana, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago,
Puerto Rico, Barbados and Panama and ISOC
Blockchain Special Interest Group
Renata Aquino Ribeiro
https://netcollective.wordpress.com

Introduction
This report offers an overview of community networks in the Caribbean and of the northern regionof South America. It is based on the work of the Task
Force for Latin American and Caribbean Community Connectivity (TFLAC3),1 a forum for discussion
about community network projects in the Caribbean
Communications Treaty (CARICOM) region. It holds
webinars and meets at internet governance events,
including national and regional Internet Governance Forum (IGF) initiatives (NRIs).
The countries that are part of the forum are
represented through their Internet Society (ISOC)
chapter members: Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago,
Dominica, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines,
Panama, Puerto Rico, and Brazil’s Amazonian andNortheastern Region, via an ISOC Blockchain Special Interest Group (BSIG) member.2
The community networks discussed in thisforum are various and in different stages of implementation. Some are urban and connected tocommunity centres, others are rural and connected
to universities and NGOs. Many are still in the planning stages. In the Small Island Developing States(SIDS) countries, these networks were described ashaving gone through rebuilding since most of thecountries were affected by hurricanes and othernatural catastrophes. Together, all the members of
the chapters in the countries that are part of this forum represent an average of 200 members.

The clarity in approach and thinking and theexperimentation necessary to build community networks in complex scenarios can be learned from the
TFLAC3 participants. The forum also highlights theimportance of having allies to support community
networks, as well as forums for discussions such as
the NRIs,3 LACNIC4 and LACNOG,5 and the Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity (DC3),6 thedynamic coalition at the global IGF which deals with
community networks.

Setting up TFLAC3
TFLAC3 was created at the ISOC chapters workshop
at the 2017 Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Internet Governance
Forum (LACIGF). This was a one-day pre-event meeting where participants of several chapters could
choose topics for debate, form groups, and build
a collaborative project on a theme. The Caribbean
representatives came together as a group becauseof the diverse languages they shared – with Spanish, English and French, among other languages, allspoken in the region. People from the Amazonian
region, which comprises nine countries, with its
multitude of languages and dialects, also became
part of this group, while two Central Americancountries, Panama and Puerto Rico, also identified
similar challenges to ours and joined the group.
From the beginning, the group showed different approaches to community networks, different
stages of implementation, and dealt with genderchallenges in different ways.
The participants in the task force are listed in Table 1. It is important to note that these participants
3

4
1

2

TFLAC3 was created at the 2017 Latin America and the Caribbean
Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Internet Governance Forum(LACIGF) and was expected to continue until June 2018. However,since then, TFLAC3 initiatives have continued, and TFLAC3 has
become a permanent forum, albeit less active. It can be thought ofas a project that transformed into a forum.
The Internet Society Blockchain Special interest Group (ISOCBSIG) is a group that unites global members of ISOC interested
in blockchain technologies. Some of these members carry out
projects in their regions. Two ISOC-BSIG members (one from Brazil
and another from Guyana) founded TFLAC3.

56National and Regional Internet Governance Forum Initiatives (NRIs)
are national and regional Internet Governance Forums (IGFs) suchas the Brazil IGF or the Caribbean IGF. They are all part of the
network of the global IGF, promoted by the United Nations (UN).
The Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre(LACNIC) is the organisation responsible for internet address
registries in the region.
The Latin America and Caribbean Network Operators Groups(LACNOG) is a community of network operators, organisations andprofessionals responsible for internet connectivity in the region.
The Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity (DC3) of the
IGF is one of the intersessional bodies of the event which gathers
annually. There is a group of members discussing community
connectivity in a discussion list, and during the global IGF,
a session on the topic is held and an outcome document ispublished.

92 / Global Information Society Watch

Table 1.

TFLAC3 members
NameRodney Taylor
Talya Mohammed
Craig Nesty
Malisa Richards
Willis Williams
Renata Aquino Ribeiro
José R. de la Cruz
Russell Bean

Chapter
Barbados Chapter
Trinidad and Tobago Chapter
Dominica Chapter
Guyana Chapter / Blockchain SIG member
St. Vincent and the Grenadines Chapter
Blockchain SIG member
Puerto Rico Chapter / Cybersecurity SIG member
Panama Chapter

were representatives of their national chapters andnot necessarily the leaders of those chapters. They
would still involve their local colleagues in conducting research or implementing community networks,
among other activities. Some had already studied
community networks (Brazil and Guyana),7 butothers were still to begin looking for useful casestudies that were relevant to the challenges they
faced at the local level.

Starting to identify community network
challenges in the Caribbean
The forum has held periodic webinars where participants have been able to share their findings andexchange ideas about the particular theme underdiscussion. Thematic aspects like the interaction ofcommunity networks with local operators, possible
governmental support, and dealing with communities with different languages and cultural profiles
were some of the most important topics. However,the dates of the LACIGF and Caribbean IGF to be heldin 2018 were rapidly coming up, and both of thesewere to be important opportunities for the forum
to meet and lobby for support for their activities,
convincing possible partners to fund activities orprovide hardware which could be helpful. Becauseof this, the project held periodic online meetings,
presentations and debates on community networks
ahead of these forums.
In our first preparatory meeting ahead of the
Caribbean IGF, general observations about the
local chapters were made, and some challenges
identified:
Barbados – The definition of “community” itself
impacted on how the participant planned researchand identified community networks. Barbados
7

Brazil and Guyana had studied community networks as part ofgovernmental projects previously implemented in the region which
distributed low-cost laptops to students and experimented withwireless networks.

Role in the forum
Research
Secretary
Timekeeper
ResearchResearch
LeaderSecond leader
Researcher

has community centres and telecentres that areused for internet access. The community decided
on the uses of these centres, and the educational
programmes run there. However, their infrastructure was not autonomous and was dependent on
government resources. Different communities in
Barbados had different goals (regional commercial
development, increasing quality of education, etc.),
and determining who that community was and what
their goals were created the profile of the network,
according to researcher Rodney Taylor of ISOC Barbados. Barbados was one of the Caribbean nations
heavily affected by floods and hurricanes in 2017.
Much of the groundwork for community networks
was destroyed or disrupted. There was a long hiatus
before the networks could be rebuilt.
Trinidad and Tobago – The Trinidad and Tobago
IGF has suggested new participants in TFLAC3 forthe 2018 IGF. According to ISOC Trinidad and Tobago
member Talya Mohammed, there are many community network initiatives being discussed in parallelin the region. For example, there is the proposal toform an IEEE SIG on Humanitarian Technology,8 as
well as an ISOC SIG on community networks.9 Talya
is one of the women involved in the ISOC SIG.
Dominica – This ISOC Chapter was founded in2017 and Craig Nesty was the member who joined
the community networks project as a researcher.
Although the chapter has fewer than 100 members,
the participation of women is proportionally slightly better off than in the Latin American chapters. In
fact, most of the Caribbean chapters have a higher
participation of women compared to the Latin American chapters, with some being board members.
8

9

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is anorganisation of professionals and enthusiasts on engineering
topics. Its members form special interest groups, including theIEEE Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT).
See: https://www.ieee.org
ISOC is a non-profit organisation which has groups themed under
specific topics in Special Interest Groups. At the IGF 2017, theCommunity Networks SIG was announced as approved. See: cnsig.info

the caribbean / 93

Some chapters have about 60% participation by
women. Despite Craig having been involved in the
project, one of the members who was going to takeon and continue the research he had started was awoman, a university student. Unfortunately, Dominica was also hit heavily by hurricanes in 2017 andthis member had to drop out from her volunteer
work on the project to rebuild her home.
Guyana – This was the chapter most active
throughout the initial duration of the project (fromJuly 2017 to June 2018, but the project continues
as a permanent forum, albeit less active and more
informal) and helped spin the TFLAC3 into otherprojects such as a Chapterthon10 contribution andputting the theme on the map in the first Guyana
IGF. Malisa Richards, the Guyana ISOC member who
participated in the forum, is an educator who became involved in the One Laptop per Child (OLPC)
programme in her school.11 She became a true believer in the importance of connectivity for regional
development. Malisa was among the founders of
the ISOC Guyana Chapter12 and the Guyana IGF, andis also a member of the ISOC Blockchain SIG.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines – This chapter,
formed in 2017, is also among those that have a close
to equal gender distribution among their members.
Willis Williams joined the TFLAC3 project in 2017,
but the project was also helped greatly by Roxanne
John, who is a researcher collaborating with the St.
Vincent and the Grenadines ISOC Chapter, and also
participated in the first IGF in the country in 2018
where the theme of community networks became
an integral part of the debates. Although it is a Caribbean SIDS, St. Vincent and the Grenadines was
not among the islands most hit by hurricanes andother natural disasters in 2017. This helped greatly
in advancing the plans of building access infrastructure, including community networks.
Puerto Rico – ISOC chapter member José de la
Cruz joined the TFLAC3 forum during the LACIGF
2017. Soon after, Puerto Rico was devastated bynatural disasters which impacted specifically ontechnology and infrastructure. The ICANN61 meeting13 was a few months away from happening in San
10 The Chapterthon project “Be a hero of your own community”
introduced debates at schools on how community networks
and other independent and decentralised technologies, such as
blockchain, can help shape the society’s future. The Chapterthon
produced an online video in Portuguese: https://youtu.be/FuO5thVEIoQ
11 The OLPC programme ran in Guyana until 2016. However, many
schools are still using the laptops.
12 Malisa Richards published a blog post on the founding of ISOC
Guyana: www.circleid.com/posts/20171029_internet_society_guyana_chapter_officially_launched
13 https://meetings.icann.org/en/sanjuan61

Juan, the commonwealth’s capital. Fortunately, despite the federal government not being helpful, thetechnology community gathered in several volunteer efforts to help rebuild the island. The planned
meeting happened and there were several occasions when ISOC Puerto Rico could make its work
known. At a civil society organisations roundtable
the president of ISOC Puerto Rico, Eduardo Díaz,
spoke about their efforts in working on several access initiatives, including community networks.
Panama – The LACIGF 2017 happened in Panama City, and is where TFLAC3 was born. Despite notbeing an island, Panama, like many other Central
America countries, faces challenges similar to the
SIDS and has treaties with the nearby islands. One
member of ISOC Panama was particularly engaged
in this project: Russell Bean. As a professional in atelecommunications company, Russell was also a
representative of the technical community. He gave
us hints and insights into implementing community
networks. Panama also hosted LACNIC29,14 where
ISOC St. Vincent and the Grenadines was present,
and ICANN62,15 where many ISOC members in thesecountries met again.
The many indigenous communities and theirdifferent dialects in the Caribbean – as well as
in the Amazon region – add to a composition of avaried landscape where community networks need
to be mobile and can always be rebuilt whether
due to migration or other reasons such as natural
disasters. The relationship between mobility andmigration is a dynamic typical of the Caribbean.
Tribes may move to the inside of the forests if lands
are devastated and may merge with other tribes. So
adaptability and working with Wi-Fi routers and mobiles are key.
Sometimes the originators of these networks
were specific people, a technology professor, a digital rights lawyer and even a public school teacher.
The infrastructure might be funded from someone’s
own pocket, or through a collaborative effort at a
specific instant in time. In the Amazon region, thecommon use of transportation by boat to forest areas made routing Wi-Fi via mobiles on the river theeasiest and quickest form of communication.
Communication apps like WhatsApp were used
to offer educational courses, like maths or science.
The largest cities could host test periods at the endof a semester or teacher conferences, but the actual
teaching, the communication between the communities, was all done via smartphones.

14 www.lacnic.net/2386/44/evento/welcome-to-lacnic29
15 https://meetings.icann.org/en/panamacity62

94 / Global Information Society Watch

Another innovative characteristic was the participation of the Blockchain SIG, which explores theimpact of blockchain technologies16 on society. The
idea of identity,17 currency and even whole governmental systems being reinvented is what brought
the BSIG close to the community networks theme.
Blockchain can be an ally technology, especially inunderserved and less populated regions, which isthe case of the Caribbean and the Amazon region.

the previously recorded discussions from our online meetings.19 These are key resources that help
continue the conversation, even if informally, andhelp the Caribbean professionals in community networks communicate.

Conclusions•

Greater collaboration between stakeholders –While telco operators are usually absent from theregion where the networks exist, the community
networks “break ground” and create a new consumer market. In the end, partnerships with telcos
are possible when an operator catches up with
the new demands for services. Perhaps it would
be useful to have a dialogue among all stakeholders to map out areas where networks should exist
and for strategic sharing of resources.

•

Learning from the other side of the world – SIDS
have commonalities which change the framework of the continent they are in or even theeconomic distribution of income, being the touristic spots graced with much more infrastructure
than inland areas. During our project in 2017and 2018 we learned greatly from exchanges
with the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC),20 an organisation that conductedwebinars on rebuilding networks after natural
disasters. Asia Pacific islands are also hit byhurricanes and other natural phenomena. The
rainforest in Southeast Asia has different characteristics but similar challenges to the Amazon
region. Different geopolitical arrangements andcommunications are needed for the future. Civil society should engage in a multistakeholder
dialogue to demonstrate that underserved regions like the Caribbean need quality accessinfrastructure, not only where the major tourist
hotels are, but for all the people in the region.

•

More engagement: We urgently need more actors engaged in the area of community networks
in the Caribbean and solutions which are more
long-term, although adaptable. This presents itself as a challenge because the populations wedeal with are small in number and in largely ruralor forest areas. By building community networks,
we are at the same time building communities
and pathways for the future of the region.

The idea of community networks in the Caribbean
region is still new, but the practice of sharing andenabling access for specific groups and excluded
communities has long existed. What each ISOC
country chapter has found is that the reasons forthem implementing a community network havebeen similar: the need for access to knowledge/
education, local communication, e‑commerce, andaccess to health and governmental services.
Reinvention and readaptation are key in areas
where major natural forces (whether hurricanes,
tsunamis or climate change in deep rainforests)
impact the local economy and governmental infrastructure. The impromptu build-up of community
networks in a boat on the Amazon River or in a family house in the Caribbean is a “pop-up” connectivity
choice, one which can be changed or abandoned if
a new implementation is needed or cheaper infrastructure is found.
A lack of telecommunications infrastructure iscommon in many countries in the region, especiallyin underserved and indigenous areas. However, there
is a collaborative sense of engagement with telecommunications operators. For example, Digicel, one of
the largest operators in the Caribbean, joined us ina panel on community networks in the Caribbean
IGF. This makes community networks not necessarily
opposite to the goals of the local telecommunications service providers. In fact, community networks
sometimes break ground in underserved regions andafter some time the telecommunications services arrive, usually one operator at a time.
With regards to the TFLAC3 project, the groupalways resorts to the project webinars organised by
ISOC Latin America and Caribbean (ISOC LAC)18 and
16 Blockchain is a decentralised technology platform which can servefor digital currency, digital certificates and even an alternative
to the domain name system (DNS), called the Ethereum Name
System, an innovation by one of many blockchain companies.
17 Blockchain can be used for digital certificates and the possibilityof an online notary. Some projects have already started
experimenting with a blockchain ID for refugees, which can berecognised across borders.
18 See, for example: https://nancyquiros.wixsite.com/misitio-2/
inicio/community-networks-the-situation-in-the-caribbean

Action steps
We see a few scenarios for community networks in
the Caribbean in the future:

19 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TLnrDpmv2umzSzYLR8x0
3QCuI1v27MaOsssI7sgQ9og/edit?usp=sharing
20 APNIC is the organisation responsible for local domain nameregistries and fosters education and technology programmes in
the region. https://www.apnic.net

the caribbean / 95

catalonia1
guifi.net: Scaling up a community network

guifi.net community
Roger Baig, Leandro Navarro, Ramon Rocaand Felix Freitag
https://guifi.net

Introduction
Citizen-driven access initiatives such as community networks are often considered as the last andleast “serious” option to bring connectivity to regions or sectors of the population unattended by
the “serious” options – that is, private sector andpublicly funded deployments (which in many cases
are carried out by the same companies doing themarket-driven deployments).
guifi.net is a community network with tens of
thousands of working nodes, and hundreds of volunteers, professionals and public administrations
involved. It proves that community networks not
only can deliver “serious” services to unattended
areas (e.g. fibre to rural areas), but that this canbe done in a very efficient way, converting almost
all investment in deployment into profitable deployments, socially and economically. This in turnrefutes another globally accepted assumption imposed by “the establishment”: that some regions
as well as some sectors of the population will always need to be subsidised.
guifi.net is a bottom-up, citizenship-driven
technological, social and economic project withthe objective of creating a free, open and neutral telecommunications network based on acommons model. The development of this common-pool infrastructure eases the access toquality, fair-priced telecommunications in generaland broadband internet connections in particular,
for everybody. Moreover, it generates a model forcollaborative economic activity based on proximity
and sustainability.2

12

Although the country names used in Global Information Society
Watch are normally based on the United Nations’ list of member
states (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states#List_of_states), APC has adopted the decision to use thename “Catalonia” for the guifi.net report. The use of Catalonia asa country name best represents the authors and the content of
the report and is consistent with values that are important to APC:
community self-determination and freedom of expression.
https://guifi.net/en/what_is_guifinet

guifi.net started in 2004 as a telecommunications technological project in the county of Osona(Catalonia) to solve the broadband internet accessdifficulties in rural areas, given the lack of traditional operators to provide services there. By means ofradio links built with commodity Wi-Fi routers, theneighbours deployed their own network to interconnect different locations (the so-called nodes)
such as houses, offices, farms, public buildings,
etc. to be able to access telecommunications andthe internet wherever they needed to. A foundation
was created in 2008 by the guifi.net community togive a legal identity to the guifi.net project.3
The guifi.net community has five main stakeholder groups according to their roles in theecosystem and their motivations for participating
in it: the volunteers, the governing bodies, theprofessionals, the customers, and the public administrations. These are non-profit, for-profit, andpublic interest groups.
As of August 2018, guifi.net accounted for morethan 35,000 operating nodes. The majority of thesenodes are located in Catalonia and the Valencian
Community in Spain, but the network is growing inother parts of the world. The network is self-organised and operated by the users, using unlicensed
wireless links and open optical fibre links.
This report shares the key factors that have enabled the scalability and the positive socioeconomic
impact of guifi.net. It is based on our experience ofover a decade of involvement in guifi.net, each of us
in several different roles (volunteers, users, scholars, professionals). We hope this helps to establish
the next steps for guifi.net, as well as to provide input to other initiatives interested in scaling up theirefforts.

Policy, economic and political background
guifi.net has developed under the regulatory
framework of the European Union (EU),4 that is, alegislative body that has created a set of European
guidelines that member states must fulfil, complemented by regional and local rules. As a result of
the European policy, the telecommunications sector
34

https://fundacio.guifi.net/en_US/page/aboutus
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/
national-regulatory-authorities-member-states

96 / Global Information Society Watchacross the region is fully liberalised, and everybody, including those running citizen initiatives, isentitled to participate in the delivery of electronic
communication services.
Despite this, frequently at the state, regionaland sometimes local level, guifi.net has had to deal
with actors defending very particular vested interests. This has translated into lost opportunities thathave damaged the project and the citizens too.
The guifi.net response to access at the local level has been about a positive and creative attitude
and persistent work. The achievements include a
proposal for a municipal ordinance, based on the legal and regulatory framework in Catalonia, to sharetelecommunications infrastructure. This ordinancehas already been adopted by several municipalities
and a highly successful county-level practice aimed
at deploying optical fibre to all households in Garrotxa (see below).
From the socioeconomic viewpoint, guifi.net carries out its activities in a European country (where
the average population has their basic needs covered) under the principles of solidarity (nobody canbe excluded for social or economic reasons) and social economy (its activities are non-speculative andnon-extractive). Several pre-existing community
networks have merged with guifi.net and currently
operate jointly.

From the tens to the tens of thousands
What are the key factors that led a local initiative toscale up to tens of thousands of nodes?

Precise definition of objectives and scope
and full commitment to theman open, free and neutral network). Whichever solution is adopted or action taken at any time must be
entirely compatible with these values and promote
them.
The example of local content is illustrative.
Obviously, a sympathy for open and local content
and services can be presumed among most of theparticipants. Nonetheless, the rule on openness is
imposed only on the content and services that arestrictly necessary to run the project. Access to any
other content or service is left to the criteria of theproviders. (Strictly speaking, the only reason to impose a rule on openness on content and services isbecause openness is the only option possible when
implementing an open network infrastructure, andnot because of any personal choice).

The network infrastructure as anopen common-pool resource
The commons is a resource management principle
by which a resource is shared within a community.5
In guifi.net the network infrastructure is held as anopen common-pool resource (CPR). CPRs typicallyconsist of a core resource which provides a limited quantity of extractable fringe units. In our case,the core resource is the network, which is createdand maintained by the network segments that theparticipants deploy to reach the network or to improve it, and the fringe unit is the connectivity theyobtain.6 The participants can keep the ownershipof the fraction of the assets they have contributedor they can donate it to the project (among otheroptions).

The governance system

There are many initiatives and objectives that canbe seen as fully aligned with the guifi.net project(e.g. those that defend freedom of speech, or promote local content). As a result, it makes sense tointegrate or involve these initiatives in guifi.net.
Nevertheless, a clear definition of the goals of a
project, the precise delimitation of its reach andthe strict observance of these goals and limits, atleast (i) helps to focus the efforts, as it is clear what
the project is about and is not about; (ii) broadens the community, as not necessarily everybody
must share the same opinion on all issues – theymust just share the common objectives; and (iii)increases certainty and reduces the likelihood of
misunderstanding and conflict.
In guifi.net the objective is to build and operate
a computer network that is fully inclusive (open) interms of access and use as well as in terms of construction, operation and governance. The guifi.net
leitmotif is fent xarxa oberta, lliure i neutral (doing

The management of CPRs is challenging because
usually they are made of rivalrous and limited resources, so they are congestion prone. This is thecase of computer networks, as connectivity is subtractable – it gets used – and the capacity of thelinks is limited.7 The challenges are even greater
when the resources are non-excludable, as in thecase of guifi.net, where the non-excludability isintentionally imposed. Non-excludability in thiscontext simply means that people cannot be excluded arbitrarily from an open network.
After in-depth studies of several CPRs, Elinor Ostrom identified a set of principles for their successful
5
6

7

Frischmann, B. M. (2012). Infrastructure: The Social Value of
Shared Resources. Oxford University Press.
Baig, R., Roca, R., Freitag, F., & Navarro, L. (2015). guifi.net, a
crowdsourced network infrastructure held in common. Computer
Networks, 90, 150-165.
Well-managed fibre links have virtually unlimited capacity. The
governing rules must be adapted to this circumstance.

catalonia / 97

management.8 Ostrom’s works remained unknown to
the guifi.net community for quite some time. Nonetheless, the evolution of most of the concepts andgovernance tools developed by the guifi.net community perfectly match Ostrom’s findings.
The key components (the so-called “systems”)
of the self-developed governance tools of the guifi.
net community are:•An investment declaration system that allows
the recognition of the investments made by theparticipants.

•

A resource monitoring system that allows theaccounting of resource consumption.

•

A cost compensation system that balances contribution9 and consumption.

•

A conflict resolution system with defined procedures (conciliation, mediation, arbitration).

•

A gradual sanctioning system as the last resource to settle disputes. It includes temporary
or permanent expulsion.

In the process of its development, the community
has developed a comprehensive body of normative
agreements whose components can be classified
as (i) ground rules, (ii) contractual agreements, (iii)
regulations, and (iv) good practices, depending on
their relevance and the aspects regulated, with thelicence10 for participation in the commons being thefundamental rule. These agreements establish theobjectives and scope of the project and the rights
and duties of the participants, and set the basis forthe development of the rest of the governance tools.
Their acceptance is mandatory for participation.

Legal certainty for the socioeconomic ecosystem
Undoubtedly, the fact that most of the componentsof the body of normative agreements are written
documents has proven to be critical in establishing
the legal certainty necessary to build a competitive
general-purpose infrastructure that has enabled
the development of a flourishing socioeconomic
ecosystem.
The guifi.net Foundation is a non-profit organisation that gives a legal entity to the projectand is responsible for its core governance activities, which include the maintenance and thedevelopment of the critical components of the
body of normative agreements, but also their

8

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of
Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press.
9 Contributions can be in money, labour or hardware.
10 English translation: https://guifi.net/en/FONNC (outdated).

enforcement.11 However, the network allows
for-profit activities (see below).
The different stakeholders can be classified
based on their unique and non-transferable roles.
Service providers sell their services (e.g. internet
connectivity) over the network to the customers
who pay for them according to service contracts.
The volunteers are do-it-yourself non-profit participants that may organise around formal or informal
non-profit organisations, associations or groups.
Public administrations must participate because
they are responsible for regulating the interactions
between the network deployment and the public
interest (e.g. use of the public domain for network
infrastructure).12 In addition, they can also play
more active roles like promotion of the project orparticipation in it, given the benefits to the public.
The social and economic relations within theguifi.net community are driven by the principles
of non-speculation and non-discrimination, whichmeans that prices are cost oriented and costs areshared according to the resources consumed,
making sure that nobody is excluded for economic reasons. Cooperation among service providers is
also well established.

Sustainability and growth
Enabling for-profit activity has two direct positiveeffects on the CPR. On one hand, it brings in incomethat makes the ecosystem economically sustainable and, on the other hand, it encourages themaintenance and upgrading of the infrastructure by
professionals, as their income depends on it.13
guifi.net has developed a sophisticated system to ensure the sustainability and growth of the
network infrastructure. The system is rooted in the
obligation of certain participants, including theservice providers and those who make significant
use of the network, to participate in the economic
compensation system and to fulfil the obligations
resulting from it.
The economic compensation system14 establishes who is responsible for paying for what,based on the information from traffic monitoring,
11 Its roles also include offering technical advice, creating bufferfunds, providing business bailouts, etc.
12 Also called public land disposition.
13 Equivalent to “traditional” commons, such as irrigation systems.
Farmers share the water and the agricultural products can bedirected to self-consumption or for sale in the market.
14 Baig, R., Dalmau, L., Roca, R., Navarro, L., Freitag, F., &Sathiaseelan, A. (2016). Making community networks economicallysustainable: The guifi.net experience. Proceedings of the 2016
Workshop on Global Access to the Internet for All (GAIA 16). ACM.
http://dsg.ac.upc.edu/sites/default/files/dsg/acm-sigcomm-gaiaguifi-econ.pdf

98 / Global Information Society Watchthe investment declaration system, and the rulesof participation. The rules are applied as clearing
houses for each scope with its own ledger for recording and totalling economic transactions fromeach participant, and each participant represented. The scopes for clearing houses are defined
per services or segments of infrastructure andmay vary over time.15 The clearing houses candefine new rules as long as they are compatible
with the rules of higher rank. The clearing houses
periodically apply the calculation rules of capital
expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenses(OPEX) in the scope of the network segment orservice of concern. The resulting amounts might
not be settled immediately but accounted in anadvanced ledger of deposits with the Foundation
as intermediary. Clearing houses also have rules
to decide on future investments.

XAFOGAR, a concrete success story
XAFOGAR16 is an ongoing guifi.net project aimed
at deploying fibre in all of the 21 municipalities of
the county of Garrotxa in Spain. All of these did nothave fibre access, except the capital (Olot). It is led
by a public development agency in the county andsupported by the guifi.net Foundation, four local
service providers and many local businesses andsmall investors.
What this experience highlights is the extraordinary catalytic power of the honest involvement of apublic administration. With EUR 1.5 million alreadyinvested, out of the total estimated budget of EUR
10 million, the development agency is providing
irreplaceable political support and has taken the
responsibility of the daily management of the project. The fact that for each euro invested by a public
administration, another 12.7 have been provided byprivate initiatives (direct beneficiaries, service providers, investors), underlines the positive impact ofthese actions on the confidence of investors and the
population in general.

Conclusions
guifi.net offers irrefutable evidence that large-scalecompetitive network infrastructures can be built andoperated as an open common-pool resource. Cheaper and better quality services, higher inclusiveness,fairer salaries, local empowerment, technologicalsovereignty, extraordinary capacity to raise local
funding, and investment coordination in a single

shared infrastructure are some of the numerous
benefits of this model. To realise its vision, guifi.net
has developed a comprehensive governance tool
set which includes mechanisms for dispute resolution, investment recognition, cost sharing, etc., andhas established a non-profit institution responsible
for their improvement and enforcement.
Despite this, guifi.net is still working on improving its socioeconomic ecosystem.
Many lessons can be extracted from the guifi.
net case and many of the tools have already beenreused in other contexts. The conception of the network infrastructure as a common-pool resource isfully in accordance with the non-speculation principle, and the relative ease with which the network
can be extended and the flexibility of the uses of
its capacity allow an unprecedented level of inclusiveness. To allow and promote the utilisation of
the network by local commercial service providers
to deliver their services has enabled a thriving economic activity.
The inclusion of measures to ensure the necessary reinvestment of a fraction of the benefits ascore components of the governance has proven tobe effective to prevent the depletion of the CPR andtowards the redistribution of wealth. The honest cooperation with public administrations has provided
evidence that the public sector has many resources
to promote the open CPR model beyond providing
funding.
From the theoretical perspective, the guifi.net
model seems general and flexible enough to be
applicable worldwide. Nevertheless, the practicalimplementation requires significant effort, because
most of the current solutions must be redesigned
to fit different contexts. To avoid bias and ensure
effective implementation, these efforts must be
overseen by an international organisation.

Action steps
What does guifi.net teach us?
Taking guifi.net as a reference, any community thatwants to scale up in a sustainable manner shouldtake the following steps (in this order):•Precisely define the scope and the aim of thecommons.

•

Develop a governance system (as defined by
Ostrom).

•Develop a resilient and inclusive ecosystem ofservices around the commons (the network)with special emphasis on making it inclusive
and empowering the local stakeholders.

15 An area such as a town or region sharing an infrastructure, or aresource such as a set of internet uplinks.
16 www.xafogar.cat

catalonia / 99

What does it need to do to encourage actors
to support it?

What is the most urgent thing it needs
to do right now?

••

Consolidate the documentation of good practices incorporating the accumulated experience,
not only on technical issues but also socioeconomic and governance issues.

•

Improve communication to lower the barrier of
adoption and boost collective knowledge transfer and the sharing of tools.

•

Develop tools (mostly software based) toautomatise the operation and assist the implementation of open governance, including using
last generation technologies.

•

Ensure that the community network has effective and appropriate support for developing in
the real world. A key component of this support
is the regulatory framework. It must effectively
prevent conflicts of interest with privative models and the incumbents.

•

Show theoretically but also by example that its
proposal is serious. To do this, commitment on
the above points and an action plan to achieve
them must be proven. A useful response fromactors interested in supporting guifi.net could
come in the form of funding, technical help,
making infrastructure available, etc. Good actors to engage include public administrations,service providers and local businesses, in addition to the direct beneficiaries (the communities
of users).
On the specific case of funding, we propose micro-funding strategies; that is, many iterationsof small funding made available based on immediate capacities and needs.

100 / Global Information Society Watch

CHINA
Where community networks may not go: E-commerce
claims to bridge the rural-urban gap in China

by community networks. This begs the questionof whether they then also provide sufficient substitutes for the access and advantages of suchnetworks.

Hudson Lockett

Introduction
Much international coverage of China has focusedon policy and practices related to what happens online rather than the infrastructure that makes thoseconnections possible. But since the mid-1990s,
when the country’s central government began linking up the data networks of dozens of major cities,
China has brought more people online than any other country on earth.1
Yet as is the case in many developing countries there remains a “digital divide” between thewealthy and impoverished in China, the latter ofwhom are found primarily in the countryside.2 And
despite Beijing’s nominal command over the stateowned companies that dominate the domestic
telecoms sector, they have been slow to build out
the final miles of telecommunications infrastructureneeded to bring the country’s most remote and impoverished citizens into the digital age.
In some countries such underserved populations might have their needs met through setting
up community-owned networks, which can offer
cheaper entry level prices and more transparent
pricing than private companies, as was found in areport on 40 community-owned internet service
providers in the United States published by Harvard
University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet &Society.3
However, China’s governance model forbids
significant organisation outside the purview of thestate. Thus state telecoms operators and state-supported e‑commerce companies have co-opted (orfenced off ) niches that might otherwise be filled
1

2
3

Harwit, E. (2004). Spreading Telecommunications to Developing
Areas in China: Telephones, the Internet and the Digital Divide.
The China Quarterly, 180, 1010-1030. https://www.cambridge.
org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/spreadingtelecommunications-to-developing-areas-in-china-telephones-theinternet-and-the-digital-divide/2CE1A395D9023512C10487BCEC23
D16B
Ibid.
Talbot, D., Hessekiel, K, & Kehl, D. (2017). Community-Owned
Fiber Networks: Value Leaders in America. Berkman Klein
Center for Internet & Society. https://cyber.harvard.edu/
publications/2018/01/communityfiber

Policy and political background
China’s telecommunications services and facilities are ultimately controlled by four state-owned
companies – China Mobile, China Unicom, China
Telecom and the much smaller China Broadcasting Network – on sovereignty and national security
grounds.
In 2015 the State Council, headed by Premier Li
Keqiang, said China would invest an estimated RMB
140 billion (USD 20.9 billion) by 2020 to expand
broadband internet to 98% of the country’s 500,000
administrative villages.4 But things have not beenthat easy.
Reforms in the late 1990s broke China Telecom’s
effective monopoly under which rural service expansion was subsidised by more profitable urban
branches.5
Now state firms supposedly tasked with ruralbuild-out also compete with each other and are ostensibly subject to targets for returns and growth
rates set by China’s state-owned enterprises regulator. These contradictions in policy contribute toa persistent gap in internet penetration between
cities and the countryside, as developed urban
centres with existing network infrastructure offer
cheaper opportunities for profit.
Although China’s national internet penetration
rate was 55.8% in 2017, the penetration in urban
areas (71%) stood at roughly double the rural rate
(35.4%). The nearly 36 percentage point gap between the two was more than double that of 14
percentage points recorded in 2005. And of the 611
million people in China who did not use the internet, 62.4% were rural residents.

4

5

china / 101

Reuters. (2015, 14 October). China to invest $22 billion to extend
broadband to 50,000 villages. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/
article/us-china-telecoms/china-to-invest-22-billion-to-extendbroadband-to-50000-villages-idUSKCN0S819L20151014
Peng, S. (2004). Universal Telecommunications Service in China:
Trade Liberalization, Subsidy, and Technology in the Making ofInformation Equality in the Broadband Era. Asian-Pacific Law &Policy Journal, 4, 21-49.

figure 1.

China internet penetration 2005-2017
Urban

Rural

Urban-rural gap (percentage points)

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

Source: China Internet Network Information Center

This would appear to highlight gaps more
readily filled by community-owned networks, but
multiple factors in China work against this model,
including an opaque pricing mechanism for fees
charged by major operators for competitors’ useof their networks.6 The central government in any
case is now focused on boosting efficiency rather than introducing new competitors. In 2015 themajor carriers were forced to spin off their network
infrastructure assets into China Tower Corp to avoid
additional reduplication of infrastructure that had
resulted from competition.7 Insofar as this research
could find there are currently no national-level
regulations specifically pertaining to community
networks.

com.8 (The Chinese for Taobao 淘宝 can be translated roughly as “bargain hunting”.)
Alibaba has framed this drive as a programmethat is equally aimed at bettering the lives ofChina’s rural residents, and to great effect. The programme has garnered much positive attention frominternational press, with headlines such as “Oncepoverty-stricken, China’s ‘Taobao villages’ havefound a lifeline making trinkets for the internet”.9
Chinese media descriptions of Rural Taobao
frequently echo the following excerpt from a story
published by Xinhua, China’s state news agency:
Rural Taobao is an ambitious effort by Alibaba
to turn China’s hundreds of millions of rural residents into online shoppers and sellers. It also
underscores the potential of e‑commerce to fueleconomic activity and eliminate poverty in the
country’s poorer, largely agrarian regions.10

The development of “rural e-commerce”
With widespread creation of community-owned
networks unlikely thanks to government policy,
e‑commerce companies have sought to cast themselves as the internet-enabled saviours of China’s
rural hinterlands. The most high-profile of efforts bythese companies has been Alibaba’s Rural Taobao
programme, officially launched in 2014 to improve
market penetration outside of cities for Taobao.
com, its online marketplace comparable to Amazon.
6

7

Wu, I. (2015, 20 September). Electricity and Telecom
Regulation: China in Context. Competition Policy International.
https://www.competitionpolicyinternational.com/
electricity-and-telecom-regulation-china-in-context
Reuters. (2014, 11 July). China’s three state-owned carriers form
telecoms tower firm. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/
us-china-telecomunications/chinas-three-state-owned-carriersform-telecoms-tower-firm-idUSKBN0FG11X20140711

As of December 2017 the company said it had invested about US 1.6 billion to establish 30,000
service centres across China to enable faster deliveries and allow villagers with little or no access to
8

Soo, Z. (2018, 19 April). Alibaba invests 4.5 billion yuan in online
services firm to boost rural strategy in China. South China
Morning Post. www.scmp.com/tech/china-tech/article/2142380/
alibaba-invests-45-billion-yuan-online-services-firm-boost-rural
9 Freedman, J. (2018, 21 June). Once poverty-stricken, China’s“Taobao villages” have found a lifeline making trinkets for theinternet. Quartz. https://qz.com/899922/once-poverty-strickenchinas-taobao-villages-have-found-a-lifeline-making-trinkets-forthe-internet
10	Xinhua. (2017, 11 July). UN, Alibaba cooperate to improve China’s
rural e-commerce infrastructure. Xinhua. www.xinhuanet.com/
english/2017-07/11/c_136435314.htm

102 / Global Information Society Watchthe internet to use the Taobao shopping platform,and had partnered with local governments to provide easier access to computers and training on
how to use the internet and online payments.
Alibaba has made a special effort to depict Rural
Taobao as also connecting rural producers of local
goods with potential buyers in China’s more affluent and populous cities – a substitute for the kindof market access that community-owned networks
can provide as they link underserved communities
to the broader internet within a country and beyond
its borders.
Videos produced by Alibaba showcase successstories like that of one turquoise seller from a village in Hubei province. “Since starting the Taobao
shop, instead of so few youths staying in theirhometown now young people don’t go out of town
for work,” she says in one video.11 That developmentaligns neatly with the central government’s goal of
slowing migration from the countryside to major cities, which leaves behind vulnerable populations of
the elderly and children.
The link between Alibaba’s programme and theState Council’s standing call for a more networked
countryside got an official boost in 2015 when
Zhang Gaoli, then vice-premier under Li, visited a“Taobao village”, which Alibaba defines using thefollowing three criteria:
1. Residents got started in e-commerce spontaneously primarily with the use of Taobao.
2. Total annual e-commerce transaction volume isat least RMB 10 million (USD 1.5 million).
3. At least 10% of village households actively engage in e‑commerce or at least 100 active online
shops have been opened by villagers.12
According to local media coverage of his visit,
Zhang “praised again and again” the way villagers’
incomes had risen and their quality of life increased
thanks to their use of Taobao.13
Little wonder that in 2016, the State Council Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation andDevelopment and a host of top government bodies jointly released guidelines that called forconstruction of 60,000 “e‑commerce poverty relief

11 “Villager’s Taobao Store Turns Turquoise into Gold”, available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FcLD-T5HmA
12 Alizila. (2016, 27 January). An introduction to Taobao Villages.
www.alizila.com/an-introduction-to-taobao-villages; note that
Alibaba does not give a clear definition of what qualifies as an“active” online shop.
13 Hao, G. (2015, 25 October). Zhang Gaoli visits Taobao Village in
Cao County, reminds shopowners to take care of themselves.
Dazhongwang Shandong. sd.dzwww.com/sdnews/201510/
t20151025_13231521.htm

stations” in about half of China’s impoverishedvillages, as well as a quadrupling of e‑commerce
sales for villages in impoverished rural counties by
2020.14 The year 2020 is also politically significant,as it marks the Chinese Communist Party’s selfimposed deadline for total eradication of rural poverty nationwide.15
Also in 2016 the World Bank and Alibaba signed
an agreement for “cooperation to research the Taobao village phenomenon”, which the bank said wasintended to produce knowledge with which “wehope to be able to help villages in poor and remoteareas in China to become Taobao villages as well,and help lift themselves out of poverty.”16 Even the
United Nations provided its own endorsement thefollowing year when it allocated USD 200 million for
construction of rural e‑commerce infrastructure in
the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Ningxia.17
Yet as of 2017, Alibaba reported that only 2,118
villages had enough shops and sales turnover toqualify as “Taobao villages” – about one for every
14 service centres, suggesting a less-rosy reality
on the ground for most rural entrepreneurs seeking
better business prospects through countryside programmes provided by e‑commerce companies.18

The telling story of Yu Xueyi
The highest-profile critique to date of Alibaba’s rural
expansion programme came from Yu Xueyi, who in2017 quit his job with Rural Taobao after two years
operating a logistics outlet for Alibaba in his homevillage of Yongning, located in one of the poorest
counties of the inland province of Anhui.
In an essay for the state-owned, English-language news website Sixth Tone, which targets
foreign readers with stories that focus on personal narratives, Yu wrote that he had signed on to bea local partner for Rural Taobao in 2015 when thelocal government announced it had agreed to work

14 State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation andDevelopment. (2016, 23 November). Guidance on Promoting
E‑commerce for Targeted Poverty Alleviation. www.cpad.gov.cn/
art/2016/11/23/art_624_55721.html
15 Hernández, J. (2017, 31 October). Xi Jinping Vows No Poverty in
China by 2020. That Could Be Hard. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/world/asia/xi-jinping-povertychina.html
16 Hofman, B. (2016, 29 October). The Taobao Villages as an
Instrument for Poverty Reduction and Shared Prosperity. World
Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2016/10/29/
the-taobao-villages-as-an-instrument-for-poverty-reduction-andshared-prosperity
17	Xinhua. (2017, 11 July). UN, Alibaba cooperate to improve China’s
rural e-commerce infrastructure. Xinhua. www.xinhuanet.com/
english/2017-07/11/c_136435314.htm
18 Aliresearch. (2017). China Taobao Village Research Report. http://i.
aliresearch.com/img/20171211/20171211101359.pdf

china / 103

with Alibaba in hopes of boosting consumer spending and relieving local poverty.19
The government provided a rent-free space inthe middle of town and Alibaba donated a computer,furniture and flat-screen TV to Yu, who was tasked
with delivering packages to difficult-to-reach rural
homes. But the programme started to lose its appeal when Yu saw it had failed to follow through on
its promise of connecting rural sellers with China’s
prosperous cities.
“Even though the platform would advertise examples of villagers making stacks of cash by sellingtea, oranges, or herbal medicines to the cities, inreality, most of these examples were mere publicity
stunts concocted by local governments with the tacit approval of Rural Taobao,” Yu wrote.
Yu’s account also tracks with a 2017 review ofacademic studies published in the quarterly journal
China Perspectives, which found that the typical experience of rural e‑commerce outfits was far more
cutthroat.20 Studies cited in the review found rural
online retailers in China were often rapidly emulated, since most were unable to offer products thatwere not easily duplicated – circumstances that
often led to rapidly diminishing margins and which
undermined those businesses’ sustainability.
Yu also criticised the segregation of Rural Taobao from other branches of Alibaba’s e‑commerce
network, pointing out that if rural sellers wanted toopen an account with Tmall.com – the higher-profile
consumer goods platform targeting China’s growing
middle class – they had to pay a RMB 200,000 (USD
29,830) deposit that was well beyond the means ofmost local shop owners.
The experience of Yu’s village may well be closer to the norm than the success enjoyed by the
few thousand official Taobao villages recognisedin 2017. Moreover, the utility of Taobao villages inaddressing the wealth gap between rural and urban
China is questionable.
A study based on a list of such villages from2013 to 2015 found that over 90% were locatedin more-developed eastern coastal provinces.21 A
quick calculation based on figures published by Alibaba in 2017 show those provinces’ share of Taobao
villages at 96%.
19 Yu, X. (2017, 9 March). Why I Quit Alibaba’s
Big Push Toward Countryside Commerce. Sixth
Tone. https://www.sixthtone.com/news/2031/
why-i-quit-alibabas-big-push-toward-countryside-commerce
20 Li, A. (2017). E-commerce and Taobao Villages: A Promise for
China’s Rural Development? China Perspectives, 2017/3. www.cefc.
com.hk/issue/china-perspectives-20173
21	Xu, Z., Wang, Z., Zhou, L., & Wang, H. (2017). Spatial Distribution
Characteristics and Driving Factors of “Taobao Village” in China.
Jingji Dili (Economic Geography), 37(1), 107-114.

These same coastal provinces have been the biggest beneficiaries of China’s economic development
and the accompanying infrastructure build-out seen
in recent decades and, perhaps unsurprisingly, enjoyed an average internet penetration rate of morethan 60% at last count.
That is comfortably above the national rate,
whereas the internet penetration rate for Yu’s homeprovince of Anhui stood at about 44%, ranked 26
out of 31 administrative districts.22 And only 33 Taobao villages were located in counties recognised by
the central government as priority areas for poverty
alleviation and development, of which there are 933
in total.
These figures suggest that the systems being
built by private companies to enable greater penetration of e‑commerce into the countryside areunlikely to provide the kind of poverty panacea
sought by Beijing. Yu, for his part, ultimately quit
working for Rural Taobao and returned to his previous trade: rabbit farming.

Conclusion
China’s transition from a centrally planned economy
to a more market-oriented system in which the private sector is allowed to flourish in certain sectors
has enabled hundreds of millions of people to lift
themselves out of poverty. However, as recognised
both within China and by outside observers, more
recent years have provided ample evidence that the
low-hanging fruit of economic reforms have longsince been plucked.
Indeed, when the World Bank announced its
cooperation agreement with Alibaba in 2016 it acknowledged that “many of the world’s people arestill off line and can’t participate in the digital economy in any meaningful way – for China this number
is still about half of the population.” Its first andmost emphatic recommendation for solving thatproblem was “making the internet universally accessible and affordable.”23
Ultimately Beijing’s embrace of e‑commerce
as a cure for what ails rural China ignores the rolethat infrastructure played in allowing urban e‑commerce to flourish. Rather than deal with the lack oftelecommunications infrastructure in rural areasthat has resulted from government policies thatprivilege financial performance over public utility atstate-owned providers, Beijing has opted to allow
established e‑commerce giants like Alibaba and
22 China Internet Network Information Centre. (2018). 41st Statistical
Report on Internet Development in China. https://www.cnnic.net.
cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/hlwtjbg/201803/t20180305_70249.htm
23 Hofman, B. (2016, 29 October). Op. cit.

104 / Global Information Society Watch

JD.com to push into the countryside with initiatives
that promise to finally let trade flow between remote towns and urban consumers.
But the scholarship to date on these drives, official figures and anecdotal evidence suggest thatthe chief beneficiaries may be the companies like
Alibaba that manage to penetrate China’s rural markets in order to ensure continued sales growth asurban markets become increasingly saturated. Promoting e‑commerce in areas not yet fully wired to
the rest of the country ignores the role foundational
infrastructure played in allowing online commerce
to become such an important part of China’s economic growth – and thus poverty reduction – in thefirst place.

•In the absence of community-owned networks,
national-level policy should provide incentives to encourage the profitable e‑commercecompanies expanding their presence in the
countryside to subsidise further network buildout in these areas by major state-run telecoms
companies.

•

To the extent that growth in rural e‑commerce
continues to be endorsed as a national policy priority, greater regulatory scrutiny of programmes
like Rural Taobao is necessary to better gauge
the extent to which they actually assist lessdeveloped communities in the countryside inescaping poverty, as opposed to simply increasing revenues at parent corporations.

Action steps
The following recommendations can be made for
China:•

Policy encouraging experimentation with
community-owned networks that can operate
within China’s unique telecommunications environment should be implemented at the national
level, with central government-funded subsidies made available to impoverished counties
for build-out of network infrastructure where
feasible.

china / 105

colombia
Community management for the deployment of community
networks in Colombia

ColnodoJulián Casasbuenas and Lilian Chamorro (with thecollaboration of Olga Paz Martínez)https://www.colnodo.apc.org

Introduction
Colombia has created an enabling environment for
using spectrum for the deployment of wireless networks using Wi-Fi technology and more recently TV
white spaces. This is an important step for the deployment of internet community networks. However,
the evolution of the community networks ecosystem
has been slow and it is necessary to find the tools inorder to strengthen the existing processes.
In addition, other technological alternatives
must be considered, such as mobile phone community networks. These have been implemented
successfully in Mexico by Rhizomatica, which has
set up community networks in the indigenous
territories of Oaxaca.1 This type of network is an
opportunity for rural communities, since mostmembers of the population in these areas own amobile phone, and its implementation can be done
rapidly, improving the living conditions of disconnected populations.
For Colombia it is particularly relevant to haveaccess to community networks since they can contribute significantly to the implementation of thePeace Agreement2 and to the social and humandevelopment in regions traditionally neglected bygovernments.
This report presents four community-based network experiences in Colombia.

Economic and political background
In Colombia, there is no specific policy framework
for community-based networks. However, Law 1341
of 20093 defined the principles and concepts of the
1
2

3

For more information, please refer to the Mexico country report inthis edition of GISWatch.
Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stableand Lasting Peace. www.altocomisionadoparalapaz.gov.co/
procesos-y-conversaciones/Documentos%20compartidos/24-112016NuevoAcuerdoFinal.pdf
Law 1341 of 2009. https://www.mintic.gov.co/portal/604/w3article-3707.html

information society and the legal framework for information and communications technologies (ICTs).
Among its principles is the need for non-discriminatory access to ICTs in compliance with the rights
to communication, information and education, especially for the disadvantaged population and rural
areas. The law highlights technological neutrality,
noting that the state should allow the use of newtechnologies freely. In addition, it sets forth amongits goals: universal service; the deployment andefficient use of infrastructure; equal opportunities
for accessing resources such as spectrum and infrastructure; and the expansion of coverage in remoteareas, particularly for vulnerable populations.4
In terms of the radio spectrum, Law 1341 establishes that the government may set aside frequency
bands for free use in accordance with the recommendations of the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU) as well as frequencies without licensing
fees for state social programmes.5 In Colombia, thefrequency bands that are free for use include 2.4
MHz and 5 MHz6 and TV white spaces in the 470
MHz to 698 MHz band.7
In line with its Plan Vive Digital 2014-2018,8 theMinistry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) has been working on two relevant
issues to do with internet access. MinTIC has expanded the coverage of 4G mobile networks and deployed
Wi-Fi zones free of charge throughout the national
territory. It has also extended the fibre optic network,
which now reaches the urban areas in over 1,075 municipalities.9 For the municipalities not covered by thefibre project, due to their geographical conditions,the ministry provides internet access through the WiFi zones, Vive Digital centres, and some household
connections using high-speed radio links.10
In terms of access to the internet in rural areas, the ministry has implemented a project called
4
5
6
7
8

Ibid, Articles 2 and 4.
Ibid., Article 11.
National Spectrum Agency, Resolution 711 of 2016.
National Spectrum Agency, Resolution 461 of 2017.
https://www.mintic.gov.co/portal/vivedigital/612/w3propertyvalue-19438.html
9 https://www.mintic.gov.co/portal/vivedigital/612/w3propertyvalue-647.html
10 https://www.mintic.gov.co/portal/vivedigital/612/w3propertyvalue-7240.html

106 / Global Information Society Watch

Kiokos Vive Digital,11 which involves centres locatedmainly in rural schools and indigenous communities. However, while these spaces are important toprovide access to the population, they are too scattered and insufficient for remote rural areas.
It should be mentioned that in the final Peace
Agreement signed between the government andthe FARC-EP, section 1.31.3 on electrical infrastructure and connectivity calls for the development ofa national plan for rural connectivity that takes into
account the provision of solutions for community
access to the internet, the installation of infrastructure, and technical assistance that communities
need.

to approximately 80% of the nodes via fibre from aninternet service provider (ISP).
The resources for the implementation of thenodes came primarily from the management group,
although they received some donations. One of thebiggest challenges was the ownership of the network by the community, especially for non-technicalindividuals.
The group that supported the initiative did notcontinue. Nevertheless, some nodes still remain active using the firmware developed and some of its
members are linked to other community network
projects.

Experiences of community networks
in Colombia

This initiative began in 2008, led by a group of“geeks” from the free software community whowere interested in open networks. They set out tosupport communities and help them take ownership of technology using free/libre and open source
software (FLOSS).
They began by installing Wi-Fi nodes close to
their residences in the city of Bogotá, interconnecting them with point-to-point links. Over time they
developed their own operating system (or firmware)
for the routers, implementing protocols for meshnetworks using 2.4 MHz and 5 MHz.
The project started to grow, particularly in Ciudad Bolívar, one of the 20 localities in Bogotá,
which lacks basic infrastructure and has a lowincome population. In 2014 Bogotá Mesh – thename of the network there – had 86 active nodes
that connected approximately 2,500 people, withup to 1,000 concurrent users.
Among the services initially offered by the
network were a local copy of Wikipedia, VoIP telephony using an Asterisk13 server, FTP, the twister14
microblogging platform, and even a blog with farming content. From 2008, it provided internet accessThis network is an initiative of the seedbed research
project called Fusa Libre16 run by the University ofCundinamarca’s Engineering Faculty.
The project is implemented in rural areas in the
Sumapaz region in the middle of Colombia, mainlyin the rural district of Bosachoque in the municipality of Fusagasuga. In 2013 the community organisedand collected money to buy the first equipment
for two Wi-Fi zones. To access the internet theynegotiated with people living in the nearby urban
area with line of sight to the rural district. One urban household offered electricity and equipment
maintenance in exchange for internet connectivity
provided by an ISP and paid for by the community. In addition, they installed a content server using
World Possible’s RACHEL solution.17
In 2017 resources were secured through a research project proposal submitted to the Universityof Cundinamarca, which enabled the expansion of
the network working in association with different
programmes (Electronic Engineering and Systems
Engineering) and research groups. The research
project also proposed to identify educational content appropriate for rural schools.
Currently in Bosachoque there are 15 nodes thatwork as hotspots and are connected to the university’s internet network through Wi-Fi links. When the
project is finished, the community will again finda resident in the nearby urban area willing to help
them with an internet connection. In the near future the network is expected to have 20 nodes andinstall five Raspberry Pi18 devices with educational
content.

11 https://www.mintic.gov.co/portal/vivedigital/612/w3propertyvalue-7059.html
12 Interview with Jorge Rojas, member of the Bogotá Meshcollective. Fo more information, see: https://www.facebook.com/
BogotaMesh
13 https://www.asterisk.org
14 twister.net.co

15 Interview with Wilson Daniel Gordillo, leader of the Fusa Libre
seedbed research project.
16 https://es-la.facebook.com/RedFusaLibre
17 https://worldpossible.org/rachel
18 https://www.raspberrypi.org

In Colombia, the community networks movement
has been active for more than 10 years, with different experiences and groups working on the issue.
Below we provide an overview of some of theseexperiences.

Bogotá Mesh12

Red Fusa Libre15

colombia / 107

Network Bogotá19
The Network Bogotá collective emerged in 2014
after meetings held at software and free culture
festivals. Initially the collective met to work on
different topics regarding hardware and software
for community networks, as well as to share local
and international experiences. Then they created acommon fund for network experimentation and for
deploying nodes in the homes of the participants.
They approached several communities to teachthem about community networks, but it was only
in 2017 that the Board for Community Action (JAC)of the Villa del Río neighbourhood in southwest
Bogotá showed interest in the issue and convened
meetings with the community. In these meetings it
was determined that in some zones there were security problems. As a result they proceeded to install
the first node in the JAC office, which was connected
to other network nodes using mesh network protocols. They installed surveillance cameras, a digital
video recorder and a community server. The successof this intervention boosted their confidence andthe community was again convened to discuss theusefulness of the network. New nodes and services
were installed, such as a captive portal, a community blog and more surveillance cameras, which areused by local residents to prevent crime and to control key points.
The network primarily uses mesh network protocols with some point-to-point links due to thedifficulty of finding a router compatible with thefirmware used. The resources for this implementation came primarily from the JAC and neighbourhood
residents. Some organisations, such as Dongee,20
guifi.net21 and WirelessPT,22 among others, provided training and equipment. The computers belong
to the JAC and there is no charge for access to the
network.
Weekly meetings are still held to discuss the
project’s progress, including the existing plans forincreasing the number of nodes, installation of IP
telephony services, setting up a radio station, anddownloading Wikipedia and a virtual encyclopaedia
to the network server.

19 Interview with Oscar Prieto and Leonardo Taborda, members of
the Network Bogotá collective. For more information, see: https://
networkbogota.org and Taborda, L. (2017). Deploying an open
community wireless network: An exercise of digital sovereignty inthe neighborhood of Villa del Rio (Bogotá, Colombia). Hamut’ay,4(2), 80-90. revistas.uap.edu.pe/ojs/index.php/HAMUT/article/
view/1486/1471
20 https://www.dongee.com
21 https://guifi.net/en
22 https://wirelesspt.net

Building a community network
in Buenos Aires, Cauca
The initiative to build this network is the result of an
expressed need by communities living in the rural
districts of El Porvenir and El Ceral in the mountainous area of the municipality of Buenos Aires, Cauca.
During the peace negotiations between the government and the FARC,23 the communities said that oneof the problems in their territory was the lack of coverage by cellular networks and poor access to theinternet. Colnodo had learned about the experienceof Rhizomatica24 in Mexico and saw the opportunity
to replicate this initiative in communities with low
or zero coverage.
In February 2017, Colnodo, with the support of
the Internet Society (ISOC) and Rhizomatica, submitted a request to MinTIC to use radio spectrum ina pilot project. Unfortunately, in Colombia there is
no regulation allowing the use of spectrum for mobile communications without a public auction withmore than one offer, so we began to look for alternatives with the support of the National Spectrum
Agency (ANE).25
While conversations were held with government
actors, in the municipality of Buenos Aires there
have also been workshops with peasant leaders,indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities fromdifferent villages, and other communities in the territory to review the experience of Rhizomatica with
Redes A.C.26 Needs have been identified and principles established for the network. After obtaining
the approval and commitment of the community,
activities were proposed to make progress on thetechnical, legal, economic and organisational issues as well as key aspects for the installation ofbase stations for transmission.
Recently progress was made with an agreement between MinTIC, the ANE and Colnodo to use
a portion of the spectrum in the 900 MHz band ona pilot basis in order to help develop policy recommendations aimed at the deployment of ruralcommunity-based telecommunications networks.
The pilot seeks to evaluate the technical, economic and social feasibility for implementing andoperating community-based mobile phone networks
in areas where there is no coverage by the commercial operators. These networks use Osmocom27 free
23 After disarming, the FARC-EP changed its name to FARC.
24 https://www.rhizomatica.org
25 https://www.ane.gov.co
26 Redes A.C is a civil association from Mexico that works forindigenous and community communications and sustainable
development. https://www.redesac.org.mx
27 https://osmocom.org

108 / Global Information Society Watch

software to implement GSM technology using a“network-in-a-box”. Furthermore, the pilot seeks tointerconnect these networks to the closest municipality with a fibre optic link to the internet, in order
to increase the reach of this infrastructure in the rural areas which are not connected.
The proposal is based on international recommendations aimed at facilitating the deployment ofcommunity networks, especially in rural areas without connection or those that are under-connected,
such as Recommendation ITU-D 19 “Telecommunications for rural and remote areas”, adopted by
the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).28
It also considers the recommendations of the
ITU’s Connect 2020 Agenda,29 the Inter-American
Telecommunications Commission (CITEL),30 the
Digital Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean(eLAC2018 and eLAC2020),31 and the global Internet
Governance Forum (IGF) initiative to connect thenext billion users.32
It is also based on national legislation, theimplementation of the Peace Agreement, and therecommendations of the Colombian IGF.33
To strengthen the potential of the network
among the community, a process to discuss ownership and governance has been implemented with afocus on gender imbalances, thanks to the supportof the Association for Progressive Communications(APC).34 For this strategy, we are carrying out ICT
training workshops together with the communities and their leaders to build competencies and tovisualise the potential of the network in the community before the deployment begins.

Findings
The experience of the Buenos Aires community network has demonstrated how difficult it is to accessthe use of spectrum in Colombia for rural community-based telecommunication networks, despite theexisting laws to reach underserved communities inrural areas, the Peace Agreement, and the international recommendations to facilitate the deploymentof these types of networks. For almost a year and ahalf we have worked together with MinTIC and the

28 https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-d/rec/d/D-REC-D.19-201003I!!PDF-E.pdf
29 https://www.itu.int/en/connect2020/Pages/default.aspx
30 https://www.citel.oas.org/en/SiteAssets/PCCI/Final-Reports/
CCPI-2016-28-4000_e.pdf
31 https://www.cepal.org/es/proyectos/elac2020
32 https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/content/
connecting-and-enabling-the-next-billion-phase-i
33 Mesa Colombiana de Gobernanza de Internet. https://www.
gobernanzadeinternet.co
34 https://www.apc.org

ANE, and still as we write this report, the pilot project
has not been implemented because of the difficulties
in accessing the use of the spectrum that we needed.
As a result, we still have not been able to demonstrate the technical, social and economic feasibilityof these initiatives in Colombia.
This delay has begun to frustrate the participant communities. Some leaders have withdrawn
their support and, as a consequence, the managersof the initiative have lost legitimacy, given that thecommunities perceive this delay as a breach of theircommitment to the project.
There is a critical need for a definition ofregulations that facilitate the deployment ofcommunity networks in rural areas that are unconnected or under-connected in order to contribute to
the connectivity of communities.
As demonstrated in the experiences presented inthis report, the active participation of the community and committed leadership are key to consolidate
the networks and their long-term sustainability. It
is also important to build trust between the various
actors involved, in order to sustain a process thatdemands time and dedication.
It is important to point to the work carried out inthe region by ISOC, LACNIC,35 CITEL and the Organization of American States (OAS) in the promotion ofcommunity networks.36 This is an important factor
in influencing the different international spaces –as was the case with the eLAC 2020 Digital Agenda– and for these networks to be considered as alternatives for connectivity in the region.

Action steps•

It is important to recognise the ecosystem involved in a community network. This includes
the technical community, communities owning
the network, local and regional governments,
equipment suppliers, and facilitators of theownership and governance processes.

•

In the case of the technical community, there
has been a strong investment of resources andtime in local access initiatives that in many cases has not been rewarded, and this has ended
up affecting the process of setting up sustainable solutions to access at the local level.
Alternatives must be found to solve this problem, especially in developing countries.

35 https://www.lacnic.net/921/2/lacnic/lacnic-home
36 Internet Society. (2018, 12 March). Internet Society and the OAS
through CITEL sign an agreement to bring the Internet closer torural areas of the Americas. https://www.internetsociety.org/
news/press-releases/2018/internet-society-and-the-oas-throughcitel-sign-an-agreement-to-bring-the-internet-closer-to-ruralareas-of-the-americas

colombia / 109•The participation of the community is essential
for the network to be consolidated. It is especially important to have leaders who are committed
and who become allies of the project, as well as
to create bonds of trust in the processes aroundthe ownership and governance of the networks.

•

It is also important to continue pressing thegovernments of the region forward in facilitating the deployment of community networks,
including mobile networks that generate an immediate positive impact on the quality of life of
the beneficiaries. Governments should welcome
the international recommendations made oncommunity networks and they should create anenabling environment for the implementation ofthese networks as an alternative to the deployment of infrastructure.

•

The commitment to deploying these networks
with the support of regulatory bodies is a uniqueexperience that could encourage the implementation of community networks in other countries
in the region. This could be a stepping-stone forColombia, and would include the establishmentof legislation by MinTIC that supports the development of community networks.

•

In the case of internet infrastructure, it isnecessary to facilitate access to fibre optic
connections in the municipalities in order to increase the reach of fibre networks to rural areasthat are under-connected and without access toa broadband connection.

110 / Global Information Society Watch

Congo, Democratic Republic of
A free wireless network in the DRC: An answer to internet
shutdowns and exorbitant access costs

Mesh Bukavu
Pacifique Zikomangane

Introduction
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has distinguished itself for the past four years in restricting
the freedoms of its citizens and violating their rights
to information and communication, which are guaranteed not only by its own constitution but also by
the international law to which it has freely adhered.
The Congolese authorities have repeatedly ordered
the shutdown of the internet throughout the country– including the mobile messaging system – cutting
80 million Congolese off from the rest of the world,
sometimes for several days.
The DRC is a vast country with an area of over
2,345,000 km2, with infrastructure almost non-existent in many parts. Mobile telecoms companies
such as Orange, Vodacom and Airtel are the maininternet service providers (ISPs) in the country. Although the internet is of paramount importance for
the Congolese population, access costs are high,which means that the majority of the poor population cannot access it.
This report discusses the Mesh Bukavu projectin the DRC, an innovative community network initiative that achieves two things: it allows people inthe city of Bukavu with low incomes, and especiallythose living in poor neighbourhoods, to have freeaccess to a Wi-Fi intranet network, and it allows
communities to bypass internet shutdowns.

Access to telecommunications
and the internet in the DRC
The DRC has 46 million mobile telephony users,
which corresponds to 54% of the overall population.1 At the same time, 84% of Congolese accessthe internet on mobile phones, according to a study
published in 2016 by Target Cabinet.2
In May 2016, the price of the internet packages
offered by the three mobile phone companies,

which are the main suppliers of the internet in the
DRC, suddenly increased. The South African mobile
phone group Vodacom, the country’s largest telecommunications operator, started charging USD
100 instead of USD 28 for its 4 GB data bundle that
expires after a month. The French group Orange, thesecond-largest ISP in the DRC, is now charging USD
62 for an equivalent package, as opposed to USD 35
before.3 At Airtel, a subsidiary of the Indian group
Bharti, customers have seen their bill triple – they
now have to pay USD 100 for 25 GB.4

The emergence of community networks in
the DRC – and the government’s response
There is no specific policy for community networks
in the DRC. However, there is Law No. 013/2002
of 16 October 2002, which regulates the telecommunications sector, including mobile telephonecompanies as well as the internet and all its applications.5 On the basis of this law, the Post andTelecommunication Regulatory Authority of theCongo (ARPTC), an organ of the state in chargeof granting radio frequencies and regulating thespectrum, was set up. In February 2018, the Congolese Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and
New Information and Communication Technologies
forced all VSAT owners, companies and ISPs to register with the ARPTC.6 In this process the minister
did not distinguish between commercial ISPs andcommunity networks that do not aim to earn money
through their activities, but which rather work forcommunities.
The Mesh Bukavu community network does nothave VSAT and does not provide internet service, as
its Wi-Fi network remains entirely local. However, it
was included in the ARPTC’s list of service providers,meaning it is considered a service provider by theregulator. Congolese human rights organisations
suspect that the Congolese authorities have used
the process of registering with the ARPTC to identify
all initiatives that can enable citizens to continue to3

1
2

https://actualite.cd/2017/03/16/45-millions-de-congolaisabonnes-a-telephonie-mobile-selon-target
https://www.target-sarl.cd/fr/content/rdc-84-des-congolaisaccedent-internet-sur-support-mobile-selon-une-etude-de-target

4
5
6

www.information.tv5monde.com/afrique/rdc-envolee-des-prix-de-l-internet-112843
www.africa.airtel.com/wps/wcm/connect/africarevamp/drc/
accueil/individuel/internet/offre-internet
www.leganet.cd/Legislation/JO/2003/JO.25.01.2003.PT.pdf
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVblcjkWkAAQ3dG.jpg:large

congo, democratic republic of / 111

communicate freely with each other, and with theoutside world, each time they decide to shut down
the internet.

Mesh Bukavu
Bukavu is a city in eastern DRC, about 60 km2 in size,
and with a population of just over 870,000 people.
Like everywhere else in the DRC, the city experiences frequent electricity cuts, and many parts ofit have no electricity at all. Insecurity is growing,
and people are regularly attacked in their homes byarmed bandits, which increases their need for communication. But, with the majority of the Congolese
population living on less than one US dollar a day,the internet is a luxury.7
Because of this, the idea was to set up a wireless mesh network accessible to poor citizens in thecommunity, allowing them to communicate and exchange information with their friends and relatives
or anyone else in the community at any time.
Mesh Bukavu was set up in January 2015 by agroup of journalists, bloggers and computer scientists
with technical support and equipment being provided
by Free Press Unlimited8 and the Open Technology Institute.9 It was a particularly difficult context, because
it was during this time that the Congolese authorities
had forced the mobile phone companies to cut both
SMS and internet access across the country – a shutdown that lasted for three weeks.
Mesh Bukavu is a mesh network – a type of
network in which “nodes’’ can connect as “peers’’
and dynamically route traffic across the network.10
However, it does not give the community direct access to the internet. Rather, it functions as a kindof intranet, where people access internet resources,
including websites, that have been downloaded by
the Mesh Bukavu team and shared on the network.
According to Benjamin Murhesa, a technician and
the Mesh Bukavu Network project manager, Rocket
M2s, NanoStations and TP-Link routers were used.
“These devices are connected to each other remotely and can both receive and transmit information,’’he said.11 They were placed on the roofs of houses toensure wide coverage of the neighbourhood.
7

Kanku Tubezele, P. (2007). L’Afrique est à reconstruire,la responsabilité spirituelle. Bern: Editions Scientifiques
Internationales.
8 Free Press Unlimited. (2014, 30 October). People of DR Congo
will communicate using their own mesh network. https://www.
freepressunlimited.org/en/news/people-of-dr-congo-willcommunicate-using-their-own-mesh-network
9 https://www.newamerica.org/oti
10 https://commotionwireless.net/files/cck/networking/2Introduction_to_Mesh.pdf
11 Interview with Benjamin Murhesa, network technician and Mesh
Bukavu Network project manager.

A central server has been set up at the local
community radio station, Radio Maendeleo, a key
partner in the initiative. Because there are many
interruptions to the electricity supply, a generator
has been installed, allowing the server to alternate
between electricity supply and the generator, and tostay on permanently.
Even if people do not need the internet to use
the mesh network, the team working on the network nevertheless needs the internet to regularly
refresh the server and download new content toshare across Mesh Bukavu. This is why we havementioned the particularly difficult context inwhich it was set up. Just as two Open Technology
Institute technicians arrived from the United Statesin the city of Bukavu in January 2015 to supervise
the mesh network installation work, the Congolese
authorities ordered the internet shutdown. The intelligence service (ANR) even monitored those who
tried to illegally connect to the internet using theirown VSATs. Since then the Congolese population
has regularly had to deal with internet shutdowns,
especially when the political opposition or civil society plan demonstrations. This was the case not
only in January 2015 when Congolese citizens were
protesting the government’s initiative to change theconstitution, but also in December 2016, August
2017 and recently this year in January when citizens
were protesting the probable mandate of the current Congolese President Joseph Kabila.
Because of this vulnerability, the project turnedto the ISPs in Rwanda, a country neighbouring the
DRC, to help with the configuration of the network’sequipment – Bukavu, which is right on the easternedge of the DRC, is separated from the Rwandan
city of Cyangugu by the Ruzizi River. Rwandan ISPs
also use fibre optic connectivity rather than mobile.
To circumvent any red tape, the project was set
up under the auspices of Radio Maendeleo, which
has a good reputation in the city – and across thecountry as a whole – especially for its editorial lineoriented towards the defence of the interests ofthe citizens of the DRC, and of the Media Women
Association (AFEM), an organisation of women journalists working for the promotion of women’s rights
in the country.12 The boards of both Radio Maendeleo and AFEM were initially very supportive of the
project, with AFEM organising volunteer girls fromamong its members to participate actively in the installation of the network.
12 The city experienced extreme violence during the regional conflict
following the Rwandan genocide – much of this targeted at women.
In 2004, for example, about 16,000 women were reportedly raped in asingle weekend by Rwandan-backed soldiers who had been given the“freedom of the city’’. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukavu

112 / Global Information Society Watch

Services available on Mesh Bukavu

Some challenges we have faced

Mesh Bukavu allows residents living in neighbourhoods covered by the network to communicate, but
it also gives them access to online content. Chat Secure is an application that has been installed on the
network and allows network users to chat instantlywith each other. In addition, the network gives freeaccess to the Wikipedia site, which is downloaded
and placed on the network, and a digital library containing more than 360,000 books. Course material
for online computer science and English courses isalso available.
The community has participated actively in thecreation of Mesh Bukavu. This has included participating in its conception, during its deployment, as
well as in the management of its infrastructure. According to Murhesa, 10 boys and girls were trainedon how they can repair the network when breakdowns happen.
The homeowners in neighbourhoods covered by
the network have agreed that the network equipment can be installed on the roofs of their houses,
and they take care of this equipment without any
compensation.
During the project’s installation phase, young
people helped transport equipment such as antennas and climbed onto the roofs of the houses every
day without asking to be paid in return.
This positive attitude to the project was in partdue to a period of awareness raising prior to theinstallation phase, which helped orientate the community to the benefits of the network.
In 2016, Mesh Bukavu actively participated in
the FASTAfrica 2016 campaign. The campaign, which
involved a “week of action’’ with events hosted in 20
countries in Africa, aims to create an internet in Africa that is “fast, affordable, safe and transparent’’.13
With support from the Web We Want initiative, theevent brought together 40 students from six universities and three colleges in Bukavu for two days todiscuss mesh networks: how they can be deployed
and used, how content can be shared across the
network, and about their right to have access to theinternet. Participants also suggested the kind ofcontent that they would like to access through thelocal mesh network, including courses and news.14

The city of Bukavu is in a mountainous region – ageography that does not facilitate the expansionof the network in all the targeted neighbourhoods,
because it requires a lot of equipment that unfortunately the project does not have right now.
Electricity cuts that go on for a long time in theneighbourhoods where the equipment is installed
also affect the quality of the network. Some equipment is powered by solar energy, but not all.
Recently, changes in the boards at both Radio
Maendeleo and AFEM have not been beneficial for
Mesh Bakavu because the new board members are
not as involved in the project. This is restricting the
network’s ability to extend its coverage. It is alsodifficult for us to go “independent’’ in the current
context of strict regulation and internet shutdowns.
It feels unlikely that the authorities will grant a legal
status to Mesh Bukavu knowing that it is there as
an alternative communication channel when they
cut internet connectivity.

13 https://webwewant.org/fast-africa/toolkit/what-we-want
14 Web We Want. (2016, 27 May). FASTAfrica /Mesh Bukavu Workshop in Democratic Republicof Congo. https://webwewant.org/news/
fastafrica-mesh-bukavu-workshop-democratic-republic-congo

Conclusion
A mesh network is an alternative to the problem of alack of access to the internet in the DRC, especiallyin poor neighbourhoods. Although it does not necessarily offer access to the internet, it can attend to
many local-level communications needs and be set
up so that the community has access to significant
resources of information. Its maintenance is relatively inexpensive, and it does not require in-depth
knowledge in network studies to keep going. It allows the community members to take responsibility
for their own network. In the case of Mesh Bukavu,
the community members behave like owners of theequipment that is installed on the roofs of theirhouses, which means that the security of equipment is provided by the community itself. As longas the community can exchange information andcommunicate through instant messaging, including
during an internet shutdown, it is clear that they will
do everything to keep the network in good condition for as long as possible.
But equipment and the will of the community are not enough: support from the authorities isalso necessary so that community networks like
Mesh Bukavu or any other community network
can really serve the local population. This support
can be provided through specific measures that
promote the establishment and protection of community networks across the country. And this alsomeans revising Law No. 13 of 16 October 2002 on
telecommunications in the DRC, which allows thegovernment to shut down the internet at will.

congo, democratic republic of / 113

Actions steps

authorities and parliamentarians to review thetelecommunication law and to develop a newlaw specifically on the internet and community networks. This law should formally restrict
the government’s use of internet shutdowns. It
should also make it easier to obtain a licence for
a community network, and should exempt themfrom paying taxes.

The following advocacy steps are recommended for
the Mesh Bukavu project:••

Speed up the process of obtaining a licence for
its activities from the government so that Mesh
Bakavu can be recognised as a non-profit project. Once this has been secured, the network
will be freer to reach agreements and partnerships to ensure its future and growth in thecommunity. These would include partnerships
with universities, especially those that run computer science courses.
Coordinate lobbying activities with civil society organisations, especially human rights
advocates, to encourage the Congolese•

Residents should be strongly encouraged todefine appropriate strategies for sustaining
community networks in their community. The
main barriers faced by community networks
in the DRC include a lack of money to pay forbandwidth, a lack of access to electricity, andthe surtax on ISPs which drives up the cost ofaccess for community networks.15

15 Deloitte. (2015). Digital inclusion and mobile sector taxation in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo. GSMA. https://www.gsma.
com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/gsmadigital-inclusion-and-mobile-sector-taxation-in-the-democraticrepublic-of-the-congo-report.pdf
114 / Global Information Society Watchcosta rica
The cooperative model as an organisational model
for community networks in Latin America:
The case of Coopelesca in northern Costa Rica
connected to the national electricity grid. As Coopelesca put it: “Here people lived off milk production
and its derivatives. Families understood that electricity would generate a high added value to production,and that is why they organised.”4

Cooperativa Sulá Batsú
Kemly Camacho
https://www.sulabatsu.com

Introduction
This report focuses on the cooperative model used
to develop community-run electricity services in
Costa Rica as a possible business model for community networks in Latin America. It is based on the
53 years of experience of electricity cooperatives in
Costa Rica, which, 10 years ago, started to expand
their field of action to provide access to the internet
and value-added digital services to the rural populations of this country.
Coopelesca1 is one such cooperative with a long
history in the country. It serves the northern zone of
Costa Rica. Its history is similar to that of the otherthree electricity cooperatives in the country whichwere also started at the same time: Coopeguanacaste, Coopesantos2 and Coopealfaroruiz, all ofwhich have grouped into a cooperative consortium
called Coneléctricas.3 The consortium shares energy reserves and the benefits of technology transfer
and also engages politically and purchases goods
and services as a group.

The context in which the cooperatives started
It is important to highlight some relevant aspects of
the Costa Rican context. Electricity was defined asa universal service provided by a public institution
based on a solidarity model in 1949. From then until
now, it is still a state service provided by the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), which develops
the electricity infrastructure and provides services
across the country.
However, not all of the country could be connected at the same time. Coverage had to be planned byzones. In four rural regions, the population decided
to organise themselves to develop their own electricity infrastructure, administered by the communities
themselves, to provide services to communities. Thiswas so that the communities could have electricity
without having to wait until their zones could be12
3

www.coopelesca.com
www.coopesantos.com/contenido
www.conelectricas.com

Consolidation of a technology
cooperative organisation
In 1965, the Coopelesca cooperative was created by
365 members from the communities with a contribution of 25 Costa Rican colons (USD 0.0005 today)
each. The total capital was around USD 80 at the
beginning. They used this money to hold raffles andlivestock auctions to raise money so that they could
provide electricity to the communities. The cooperative has been strengthened and grown enormously.
It is currently made up of 85,000 members, with
92,000 electrical connections.
Since electricity is the responsibility of the Costa Rican state, the cooperative had to negotiate aconcession from the government so that 10% of thenational territory would be electrified by Coopelesca. The total electrification of this entire territory
was achieved in 2014, that is, 49 years later. Thishas been made possible by the effort of the people
grouped together in the cooperative.
It is important to note that the coverage of theterritory was complex due to its geography. For
the electrification of each community, the cooperative had to open trails to be able to set up theinfrastructure, then those trails were converted into
community roads to provide maintenance to theinfrastructure created. This had a knock-on positive impact in the territory: with the opening of theroads, access to health, education and markets,among other things, was increased, and development generally was accelerated. This has resulted
in a rural area with greater access to opportunities.
This is another important aspect to highlight as alesson learned: the cooperative model is a company
that prioritises the development of the territory andthe well-being of its members over the interests ofcapital accumulation. These principles are also relevant to the development of community networks.
4

Personal communication with Alvaro Chaverri, Coopelesca
communication officer, 25 May 2018.

costa rica / 115

Ten years ago an important discussion wasstarted in the cooperative on the convenience ofincorporating information and communications
technology (ICT) features as part of its services.
This meant offering access to the internet and todigitally value-added services.
On the one hand, there were members of thecooperative who indicated that Coopelesca should
focus on strengthening electrification services
instead. They argued that connectivity must beleft in the hands of the main telecommunications
companies, Movistar,5 Claro6 and Kolbi.7 On theother, there were those who proposed that the cooperative take advantage of the infrastructure it
already managed to realise the community’s rights
to access internet services. This group also argued
that it would be impossible for the telecommunications market to offer connectivity in many parts of
the area that Coopelesca serves because the costeffectiveness ratio was so poor – it implied making
high investments on infrastructure for very small
markets. “This is exactly why there had to be differences between technology access for the users
in the central zone of the country compared to themost remote areas,”8 Coopelesca stressed.
Through a majority vote, the members decided
on the second abovementioned option. To be able
to finance the connectivity, it was decided to include
an additional amount of 500 Costa Rican colons (approximately 1 USD) on each electricity bill sent out
to the members in the community. This surcharge
was a contribution to capital – if a member withdrew
from the cooperative, his/her capitalisation would
be returned. This contribution to capital was accumulated to develop the necessary infrastructure forthe connectivity of the most remote populations
that did not have other alternatives.
The concentration of members is at the centre of
the rural area. Even though they already have internet connectivity, they still contribute this monthly
amount. The resources are then spent on connectivity for the more distant areas, for example, to 12
peasant settlements that could not have the connectivity service without the cooperative support.
This, which we call the “solidarity model”, is another of the principles that are applied in cooperatives
that should be fundamental for the development ofcommunity networks. In this model, everyone pays
to achieve the development of the most vulnerable.

Cooperatives that provide internet and related
services are regulated at the national level by the
National Superintendency of Telecommunications,9so the prices and costs are monitored by the state.
Even cooperative members are free to choose analternative service provider for connectivity or landline or mobile services, which means that prices
should remain competitive.
It is important to mention that Coopelesca is alarge cooperative whose employees are resident in
the rural areas that it serves. The cooperative has
been concerned to consolidate a very high technical capacity among its employees over the morethan 50 years of its operation – and the same canbe said for all the cooperatives that are part of theConeléctricas consortium. Many of them, as in thecase of Coopelesca, created and manage hydroelectric plants or, as in the case of CoopeSantos, they
have wind power generation projects. It is the rural inhabitants themselves who have created theseprojects, securing credit from the government andbanks, supported them with technical assistance,and run them according to solidarity businessmodels, among other aspects. The people in thesecommunities are trained in relevant engineering
aspects, as well as in the basic management of hydroelectric plants or electrical issues such as themaintenance of wiring.
Not everyone in the community understands thetechnical details of setting up a connectivity project. However, any new project or investment must
be approved in the general assembly of the cooperative where each member (male or female) has
the right to one vote, guaranteeing that the ownership and investment are collective. It is important
to mention that it is the decision of the assemblythat the business model used in the cooperative isbased on solidarity principles, but also that it must
be profitable so that its services can be rolled out
to unconnected areas. With unprofitable businessmodels this would not be achieved – in other words,
the cooperative would not be sustainable.

•

An autochthonous definition of needs by thecommunities, which emerges from the selfinterest of their population.

5
6
7
8

•

An autonomous interest on the part of the population in organising themselves to obtain the9

https://www.sutel.go.cr

www.movistar.cr
www.claro.cr
www.kolbi.cr
Personal communication with Alvaro Chaverri, Coopelesca
communication officer, 25 May 2018.

How is this relevant to community networks?
Three aspects are important to highlight and mustbe identified as good practices when talking aboutcommunity networks:

116 / Global Information Society Watch

technology and the necessary infrastructure tosolve this need.
•A public institution (in the case of electrification, the ICE) that supports the community
network, is specialised and is willing to train
the local population to allow the appropriationof technology without dependence on a third
party.

In other words, community networks must be autochthonous, autonomous and independent.
With these as basic principles, the following
can be highlighted about the development of community networks from considering the Coopelesca
experience:• In Costa Rica, the term “community networks”
is not as well known as it is at the international
level. However, the country has long-standing
experiences in cooperative service provision
with regards to the electricity cooperatives.
• People in rural areas can develop capacitiesof the highest technical level to attend to theneeds of technology projects such as community networks.
• Organisations and community networks
should not be conceived as small or weak organisations; they can be constituted as large,
sustainable and influential organisations thatare in the hands of the people they provide services to.
• The organisations that sustain the community networks must be anchored in a region,
be concerned about the development of theregion beyond providing digital services, andmust be born from the needs of the populationthat inhabits the region, and not from externalinterests. It does not matter what sort of goodintentions motivate those external interests;
community networks must be rooted in thecommunities they serve.
•

The basis of the organisational model shouldbe the solidarity principle. Decisions should bemade democratically and based on one person’svote carrying the same weight as any other.
These principles should govern the collective
prioritisation of actions and the technical training of the population.

Action steps
We propose the following action steps to strengthen the cause of community networks in Costa Rica:•

Our own experience as a cooperative, as well as
the lessons learned in this study of Coopelesca,
suggest to us that the cooperative model is one
appropriate organisational model to consider
for community networks in Latin America.

•

At the same time, it is necessary to introduce
the concept of community networks into ourown country, since it is not so well known rightnow. We must create alliances in academia, thepublic sector, the private sector and civil society to strengthen the discussion on this issue inan environment where the telecommunications
market was recently opened up, where there
is a government fund available for connectivity
projects, and where 40% of the territory is still
without connectivity.

•

It is critical for the public sector institutions promoting cooperatives and digital universal funds
like INFOCOOP,10 the National Telecommunications Fund (FONATEL)11 and the Ministry of
Science, Technology and Telecommunications(MICITT)12 to develop policies for community
network initiatives.

•

We also must integrate the issue of community networks into the work that Sulá Batsú doeswith women in the digital sectors.

•

Finally, the model of electricity cooperatives
developed by community networks should
be supported and replicated in other parts ofthe country, mainly in rural areas. Currently,
its coverage is in four rural areas where it has
been shown that the model not only works, but
it also has an impact on social development
generally.

10 www.infocoop.go.cr
11 https://sutel.go.cr/pagina/que-es-fonatel
12 https://www.micitt.go.cr
costa rica / 117

ecuador
Creating Ecuador’s first community network

Anonymous1

Introduction
In this report we describe the process of creating
a community network in our rural community of
about 50 people. In order to support the creationof more community networks in Ecuador, we also
look at the legal and regulatory context and therelationship between technological possibility andcommunity, political and economic will.
In early 2017 we started a community networkand now there is growing interest from various communities across the country, especially farming andindigenous communities, and those that participate
in second- and third-level organisations (i.e. unions
of communities and confederations of unions).
At the time of writing this report in mid-2018, weare upgrading our internet connection, expanding
our physical infrastructure and beginning a moreorganised learning process. At the national level,
the communications law is undergoing reform, andthe first whispers of a community network coalition
are emerging, inspired by other experiences in Latin
America. People are looking to us for support about
how to create networks here, since we appear tobe the first such network in Ecuador.2 This reportserves as a snapshot of this moment from our perspective, which is only one of many perspectives.

makes the creation of community networks viable
though not trivial.
In Ecuador there are laws in favour of community communications but no policies specificallyaddressing community networks. We have also notfound detailed analyses of the country’s internet or
spectrum regulation from the perspective of community networks, although a very useful spectrum
analysis from 2011 still seems relevant even thoughlaws have changed.4 A government presentationfrom 2008 recommended four regulatory alternatives to strengthen community networks, but they
were not implemented as far as we know.5
As mentioned in GISWatch 2017,6 the development of the internet in Ecuador has favoured theprivate sector, especially multinational corporations, with some focus on the public sector, andvery little functional influence from civil society, or
the “community” sector as it is sometimes called in
4

Policy, economic and political background
Rapid changes in public policy, law and regulations
during the past 10 years have left an uncertain
field of action. The laws can be interpreted as favourable to community networks, even thoughcommunity networks are absent from the regulations.3 At the same time, the economic situation
1

2

3

The author of this report chose to remain anonymous, and APC
respected this choice as it is consistent with its privacy andsecurity standards.
Based on the description of community networks in the
Declaration on Community Connectivity in Belli, L. (Ed.). (2017).
Community networks: the Internet by the people, for the people.
Official outcome of the UN IGF Dynamic Coalition on Community
Connectivity. https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/index.
php?q=filedepot_download/4391/1132
Interview with Valeria Betancourt, manager of the APC
Communications and Information Policy Programme.

56

The case study notes (translation ours): “Another possibility would
be to start processes of direct action based on the application of
constitutional rights, and only later have these recognised by the
courts. For example, start to use the spectrum without applying
for a licence, [...] using the spectrum for broadband projects
and then requesting protective measures from judges for these
initiatives. It is important, in any case, to develop technicallystrong propositions, search for allies in the political push forlegal reform, and fight so that the reform is debated widely andtransparently. The possibilities of achieving democratic reforms arehigh. However, at the same time, it is possible that the debate willremain in the circles of influence of private companies, especiallythe big operators, and trapped in technical discourse, in whichcase there is also the possibility that constitutional rights will
end up neutralised in the legal reforms.” Navas Alvear, M. (2011).
Espectro abierto para el desarrollo – Estudio de caso: Ecuador.
Johannesburg: APC. https://www.apc.org/sites/default/files/
Espectro_Ecuador_0.pdf
Fiallos, J. C. (2008). Redes Comunitarias. Slide show by an
employee of CONATEL (former state telecommunication regulatory
agency, replaced by ARCOTEL) who later became Sub-Secretary ofDevelopment of the Information Society and Online Government.
It is a useful analysis of the legal and regulatory situation at thattime and offers sound planning advice. It does not demonstrate
an understanding of the characteristics of community networks as
described by the Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity.
Slide 25 is of interest – it seems that none of these suggestions
for regulatory alternatives to strengthen community networks
was implemented. The slides were presented as part of a training
programme by IMAGINAR and IICD called Technical Update
Seminars. https://www.imaginar.org/iicd/index_archivos/
TUS12/7_Redes_FODETEL.pdf
Calderón, M. J. (2017). Building a national and regional internet
governance agenda in Ecuador. In A. Finlay (Ed.), Global
Information Society Watch 2017: National and Regional Internet
Governance Forum Initiatives (NRIs). Johannesburg: APC. https://
giswatch.org/en/country-report/internet-governance/ecuador

118 / Global Information Society Watch

Ecuadorian law. A 2016 report indicates that spectrum regulation and network neutrality are at risk ofpolitical influence.7
In 2016, the last year for which data is published, the state reported that of individuals asked
if they had used the internet in the past 12 months,
the national average was 55.6%: the urban average
was 63.8% and the rural average 38%.8

Motivation, luck, knowledge and friends
enable Ecuador’s first community network
Our network exists because we want it to exist; webuild it, we maintain it, and we use it – and sometimes we break it, we argue about it, we insult it
when it goes slower than we like or cuts off entirely,
and we get frustrated about it... but mostly it works
and we are thankful. Our network also works because a friend shares his internet connection with
us and allows us to tie our antenna to his balcony– many thanks!
On 16 April 2016, an earthquake off the coastof Ecuador caused significant damage and loss oflife.9 As part of the response to the earthquake, apart-time community member living in the UnitedStates gathered donations from friends and colleagues and came here with a friend to help rebuild.
When the reconstruction activity in our community
ended, we decided to invest our attention and theremaining money in creating a community network
for internet connectivity. We decided that this fitted
within the scope of building community resilienceto handle future disasters.
We had already started investigating the possibility of a community network. We had lookedat the topography of our community and the restof our canton; the nearby telecommunications
infrastructure; the history of rural internet in the
country; companies selling networking equipment; local organisations that could give social
78

9

Solines Moreno, J. C. (2016). Telecomunicaciones e internet en
el Ecuador del Siglo XXI: Apuntes técnicos, historia reciente y laruta hacia el control de usuarios y contenidos. In D. Salazar &D. Viteri (Eds.), Regulación de Internet y derechos digitales en
Ecuador. Quito: Editorial USFQ. http://libros.usfq.edu.ec/index.
php/usfq/catalog/book/1 . According to the report (translationours): “[W]ithin the process of the empowerment of society, witha growth in the flows of information and a notable influence ofsocial networks, the Ecuadorian state demonstrates a regulatory
strategy, a model of institutional design, with certain public
policies oriented towards the control of users and content. Even
technical aspects such as the assignment and administration ofspectrum and principles such as network neutrality are at risk ofpolitical influence, which can adversely affect fundamental rights
and the development of the information society in Ecuador.”
Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos. (2017). Tecnologíasde la Información y Comunicaciones (TICs) 2016. www.
ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/documentos/web-inec/Estadisticas_
Sociales/TIC/2016/170125.Presentacion_Tics_2016.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Ecuador_earthquake

structure to the network and use the connectivity;and national organisations involved in community
communications.
We asked for advice from AlterMundi,10 contacts in Ecuador, and others. We also contacted asmall internet service provider (ISP) mentioned
in a 2008 article about community connectivity
projects in Ecuador11 and they visited our community. The response from everyone was more or less,“Start simple, with a single connection in yourcommunity.”
Before we found a line of sight to a place withinternet, an invitation arrived from AlterMundi toparticipate in a seven-day hands-on community
network workshop with people from farming community organisations in Colombia. We spent someof the earthquake relief money and some personal
money to make the trip with one community member and two young adults from a nearby farmers’
union. The workshop helped us understand manythings, such as how other communities organised
their networks and how to configure Ubiquiti12 Wi‑Fi
devices to create long-distance links.13
After the training, two members of AlterMundicame with us to our community, and provided thespark necessary to get our network going.
They advised us: Climb up to high places atdusk to identify potential links, and then just try
the most obvious link in the fastest, least expensive
way possible – fastest in terms of just buying an antenna instead of making antennas yourselves, andleast expensive in terms of using a friend’s internet
connection instead of contracting your own. In order to take a first step, let go of the idea of building
a network for five communities all at once. Maybe
that will happen, but it’s not the first step. Start
with a single link, and that small, practical step willteach you things that enable you to grow the network later.
This turned out to work. One evening we climbed
up to the top of a house being built on a hilltop andta‑da! The lights of a town twinkled in the distance!
We spent the remaining earthquake money on theequipment to create the first part of our network
and a few days later we had Wi‑Fi internet in ourcommunity!
10 https://www.altermundi.net
11 Carrión, H. (2008). Conectividad rural para el desarrollo:
Experiencias en Ecuador. https://www.imaginar.org/docs/
conectividad_rural_IICD.pdf
12 https://ubnt.com
13 We learned to configure devices in order to create links that are
the same regardless of the frequency. Ubiquiti sells some models
in 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz, all with the same configurationinterface.

ecuador / 119

A few months later we applied fora grant to expand our network to othercommunities, and we learned a lot in theprocess of applying. We did not get the
grant, but we gained knowledge.

Connection and infrastructure
Our connection to the internet for the first
17 months was a DSL line with a connectionof 5 Mbps and an 8:1 contention ratio fromthe national public ISP, Corporación Nacional de Telecomunicaciones EP (National
Telecommunications Corporation – CNT),
shared with a friend in a small town. It cost
about USD 33 per month. Now, after 17months of asking them various times, the
ISP activated a fibre optic connection at ourfriend’s house that is supposed to be 10
Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload with a
2:1 contention ratio for USD 79 per month;but in the first three weeks it has not performed better than the DSL.
Our network connects that internet connection to our community via a 22 km (lineof sight) wireless link, and the network
within the community is currently made up
of Wi‑Fi routers connected via outdoor UTP
cable. We use cable instead of Wi-Fi because dense forest and hills block the lineof sight between the houses.14
Some future connections will be wireless where there is line of sight. For those
links, we want to use inexpensive antennas
connected to TP-Link WDR3500 routers (orother routers compatible with LibreMesh15
with disconnectable antennas), but if thatproves too difficult or the price is close to
the price of Ubiquiti devices, we will use
Ubiquiti devices. We hope to acquire atleast one LibreRouter16 and backup power supplies, and to use alternative energy
sources (solar, wind, micro-hydro, biogas).
We use two colours of electrical tape
– red and green – for colour-coordinatedmarkings that indicate what cable plugs
into what port, so that we do not confuse
what cables connect to the power-over-ethernet boxes.

House 3
TP-Link WDR3500 router
flashed with LibreMesh

Outdoor Cat5e UTP cable
100 metresHouse 2
TP-Link WDR3500 router
flashed with LibreMesh

Outdoor Cat5e UTP cable 120 metreswith splice at both ends toconnect a 12V power supply to theswitch, which originally came with a
5V power supply, but due to line loss
needs this stronger power supply
TP-Link 5-port switch
protected from rain
by a 6-litre water jug
cut open at the bottom

Outdoor Cat5e UTP cable
120 metresHouse 1
TP-Link WDR3500 router
flashed with LibreMesh

Outdoor Cat5e UTP cable

Ubiquiti PowerBeam M5 400
station mode
22km Wi-Fi link in 5 GHz band
Ubiquiti PowerBeam M5 400
access point mode
Outdoor Cat5e UTP cable
Friend’s house
DSL modem/router

14 The Ubiquiti antennas/radios are attached to onemetre-long bamboo poles that are tied to balconies.
The routers are in houses.
15 https://libremesh.org
16 https://librerouter.org
120 / Global Information Society Watch

Internet

Failure and reorganisation
In December the ISP’s DSL modem/router failed and
we did not have internet for nearly a month, until
the ISP fixed the problem. In April the connection
between the antennas disappeared and no one
could fix it from our community. After a month without internet we went to our friend’s house and saw
that a palm tree had grown in front of the antenna
and blocked the signal.
The loss of internet gave us a chance to renew
our way of organising the network. We started tohave meetings at least once a month and soon we
started contributing money and signed a contract
for a fibre optic connection.
We had various challenges that we do not havespace to discuss here:• Debates about whether to connect the community centre or more homes first.
• Misunderstandings about money and motivations.
• Frustration about lack of participation.
• Lack of clarity about what routers and antennas
to buy, or how to make our own antennas.
• Concerns about negative effects on human andecosystem relationships.

Gender, age and network uses
Part of the motivation to build the network grewspecifically out of the vulnerability highlighted in
the April 2016 earthquake, and also from the understanding that communication enables people tointeract with many processes that affect the stability of their lives.
Having internet in our community makes itmuch easier to coordinate tourism, an educational
programme in the community, or volunteers, andinternet also attracts more visitors. This benefits
the members of the community tourism association, most of whom are women. When people visit
the community, women earn money by cooking forthem and cleaning the community centre where
they stay or have meetings. Men are occasionally
hired as tour guides to take people on hikes in theforest. Many community members also appreciate
the cultural experience of meeting people from other places.
Men tend to use the internet to communicate
about work, some women use the network for academic study, and everyone uses the network forsocial communication with family and friends andentertainment. Women have participated in almost
all the community network activities, such as meetings, installing the gateway node and antennas,
and extending the network to more houses.

We have given specific attention to including
women, people from all the families in our community and people of all ages in the conversations
that guide our network and in the considerations of
the impact of the network. The conversations happen in community meetings and in people’s homes.
The core group that has implemented the network
so far makes an effort to include people in the construction of the network, to explain how it works
to everyone interested, and awaken interest and asense of capability in everyone in the community.
We think that with encouragement, everyone is capable of understanding how the network functions
and participating in the network as they choose.
The list below gives an indication of the gender breakdown in participation in various network
activities:•

First months of preparation and coordination –one male, in conversation with many people.

•

Installation of primary link – two females, threemales (of these, one female and one male from
AlterMundi providing support).

•

First meeting – participants not recorded.

•

Second meeting – four females, five males (after
the meeting one male taught one female how to
put RJ45 connectors on a UTP cable).

•Third meeting – seven females, nine males.

•

Fourth meeting – six females, six males.

•

Reposition of source antenna – two females,
four males.

•

Communicating with ISP to contract fibre optic
connection – one male (contract signed by one
female).

•Visit to town with internet connection for fibre
optic link activation – one female, two males.

All installation and maintenance activities have involved people between the ages of 19 and 35. At
meetings the age range has been about 10 to 65.
The network offers teenagers and young adults
in our community a chance to take responsibility
for a community system, to learn and to demonstrate to their parents and themselves that they
are capable of managing the community network.
The adults already manage the water cooperative,
the community bank, and the community tourism
association.

State policies and laws
We have not dealt with national internet policy directly, other than interacting with its effects: thelack of internet access in our community.

ecuador / 121

Our community and the surrounding area havevery little state presence, so we have not found it
necessary to approach the state (public ISP, regulatory agencies, legislators, elected officials) and wehave not yet read all the laws and regulations – wejust maintain our network and move along with ourlives.
However, for our network to survive in the longterm and to support the creation of new community networks throughout Ecuador, we consider itwise to understand the law and to influence it andinterpret it in ways that defend and support ourcommunity networks. As far as we know, the legal
system, the regulations and the people tasked with
enforcing them have not interacted with community
networks, since we are the first such network here.
Due to 10 years of tight state control in many
areas of society (2007 to 2017), we have so far
chosen to remain unnoticed, rather than risk state
attempts to co-opt, regulate, or shut down our
network. Recently an ally in contact with state tele­com institutions told us that the current national
government is favourable towards the idea of community networks and community spectrum use. We
have also had some contact with a rural mayor who
wants to support a community network in his canton even though we explained that the legal aspects
are unknown.
We serve as an early experience of the potential of community networks in Ecuador, and we plan
to use our experience adapting this model to ourcontext as a basis for conversation with other communities, organisations, ISPs and the state about
how to support this new way of co-creating internet
infrastructure. We hope that the state and ISPs of all
sizes adapt to this reality, rather than trying to stopor control the formation of community networks.

up and say “I don’t know how” or “We don’t
have time and money to go wait for the technicians to install the connection.”•

Communication with external actors is a key
part of organisation.

•

In many communities we (humans) get things
working just enough, and then shift our focus
to the next urgent issue. In our case we created a precarious connection and did not focus
on stabilising it until it broke down for a month,and when we started to help set up other networks in other parts of the country and wanted
our network to serve as an example of a well-run
community network.

•

Extending the physical infrastructure starts withdeciding who pays for equipment, who performs
maintenance and management, what the technical design is and what hardware will be used.
In order to create clear understanding among
network members, it helps to make these decisions before heading out into the field.

•

Interact with other communities that haveexperience in or the desire for community communications and self-managed infrastructure.
Connect community networks (the organised
people, the infrastructure, and the concepts)
with the global and local movements towards
well-being and freedom based on peer-to-peercooperation. Participating in movements helps
us to learn, build community relationships, andimprove our ability to influence state and commercial processes.

•

Support communities to create their own
processes of appropriating information andcommunication technologies, recognising that
our current concept of “community network” isshaped by our cultural perspective and our history of appropriating technology, and can lookdifferent in different communities and changeover time.

Conclusions
We draw the following conclusions from our experience of setting up a community network in Ecuador:•••

The conditions in Ecuador are ripe for community networks, but a spark and organising
initiative such as a national coalition has beenlacking until now.
In our community, communicating clearly andorganising ourselves is very important. Even if
no one is charging us money for our internet
connection, we still benefit from organising ourselves, and it makes sense to collect money for
future expenses.
Achieving and maintaining connectivity requires
attention, time, money, understanding, confidence and perseverance. Otherwise people give

Action steps
Action steps for our network:•

Improve skills in meeting facilitation and conflict transformation.

•

Learn how to use the internet for useful and creative things.

•

Decide on ways for neighbours and visitors toparticipate in our network.

•

Improve and extend the physical infrastructure.

•

Participate in the global community network
movement.

122 / Global Information Society Watch

Action steps to advance community networks in
Ecuador:••Get the LibreRouter through the state approval
process (so-called homologation or type certification) so that we can use it in state-funded orstate-regulated networks.

•

Consider ways to access the state’s Universal
Access Fund to train communities and buy network hardware.

•

Implement the ITU-certified Diploma in Community Networks.18•

Promote the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL) Draft Resolution on“Connecting the Next Billion, Boosting New
Communication Patterns for Unserved Areas”.19
This promotes community networks and could
serve as another instrument in advocating forstate support of community networks.

Advocate for:– Community network access to infrastructure
and resources including towers, power sources, TV white space frequencies and the idle
bandwidth of public institutions.
– Exempting community networks from licensing or registration requirements that require
payment or advanced technical studies.

•

Grow and strengthen the emerging network ofpeople and organisations working to advancecommunity networks in Ecuador via training, financing, advocacy and movement building.

•Participate in the Internet Society (ISOC) Community Networks Special Interest Group.17•

Conduct a market scan to clarify what networking hardware is available in Ecuador.

•

Acquire LibreRouters in order to build community networks with a lower cost and more efficienttechnical design. The LibreRouter includes
three radios in a single device that is projected
to cost USD 150.

17 cnsig.info

18 https://techiocomunitario.net/diplomado
19 https://www.itu.int/net4/proposals/WTDC17/Detail/Index?idProposal=48505
ecuador / 123

GEORGIA
Say “no” to isolation: The Tusheti Wi-Fi community
network in Georgia

Small and Medium Telecom Operators Association ofGeorgia and Tusheti Development Fund
Ucha Seturi and Rati Kochlamazashvili
toa.ge/en/?p=974;

Introduction
This report is about the Tusheti Wi-Fi community
network project in Georgia. Tusheti is the name of
the remote northeastern region of the country, located on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus
Mountains. It is part of the Tusheti Nature Reserve
and National Park, which is the largest protected
region in Europe.1 At 2,345 metres, the village of
Bochorna is the highest settlement in Europe.
Tusheti can only be reached by an unpaved roadthat is considered one of the world’s most dangerous,2 and which crosses the 2,850-metre-highAbano Pass. The population of Tusheti is physicallyisolated from the rest of Georgia, in part due to theheavy snow in the region.
The community Wi-Fi project has brought highspeed internet to more than 33 villages in Tusheti,
as well as connectivity to the Abano Pass and for theroughly 14,000 tourists visiting the region every year.
It is a good example of installing a community Wi-Fi
network in a high mountainous region. At its peak,
the network reaches elevations of 3,500 metres.
The project has opened new development opportunities for tourism and agriculture, and helps
to preserve the unique local culture. It also provides
an essential communication channel for healthcare and other emergency sectors. It supports the
economic sustainability of the region and createsbusiness opportunities for the local community,
benefiting trade in products and access to services.
The project was implemented by a local community organisation, the Tusheti Development Fund,with funding and support from the Internet Society(ISOC).3 It also received mentorship from the ISOC
1

2
3

Patterson, K. (2011, 12 October). Special Program Highlights
Largest Protected Area in Europe. National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/news/pr_news_release_special_program_october_20_2011.htm
See the BBC documentary at: https://www.dailymotion.com/
video/x1tpe2k
https://www.internetsociety.org

local chapter,4 and in-kind support, including coordination, from the Small and Medium Telecom
Operators Association of Georgia.5
It is a successful example of a private-public
partnership that includes the participation of thelocal community, the local and central governmentsof Georgia,6 the Georgian National Communications
Commission,7 private businesses and international
donors that helped with equipment and the training of members of the community in using theinternet, and in e‑business skills.8 It demonstrates
a sustainable business model that is the result ofcommunity-led development.9
We also believe our experience will be helpful
to other isolated communities in high mountainous
areas. All technical information is open and readyfor sharing.

Policy, economic and political backgroundGeorgia does not have specific policies on community networks. You do not need a licence to use the
2.4 MHz and 5 MHz spectrum, and you do not needspecial permission to set up a community Wi-Fi network or to operate as an internet service provider(ISP) – you just need authorisation, which can bedone online. ISPs, however, have to pay a regulationfee.10The special tax regime of 0% value-added tax
for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) applies to community Wi-Fi networks. Settlements inhigh mountainous regions also receive other special tax cuts, such as being exempt from income tax.
As it is a protected area, legislation also allows forsome benefits for the residents in Tusheti.
While Georgia has several community radio stations, the Tusheti community network is the firstand only one in Georgia. There are no specific political issues inhibiting the roll-out of community
4
5
6
7
8
9

https://www.facebook.com/groups/isoc.georgia
toa.ge/enwww.economy.ge/?lang=en
gncc.ge/en
projects.worldbank.org/P152441?lang=en
Palovirta, M. (2017, 9 October). A Community Networkin the Remote Georgian Region of Tusheti. InternetSociety. https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2017/10/
community-network-remote-georgian-region-tusheti
10 The fee is 0.75% of monthly income from the activity.

124 / Global Information Society Watch

networks in the country. Legislation is aligned with
European Union (EU) laws, and therefore can beconsidered supportive for community networks
overall. More competition is nevertheless needed
to improve access to the internet in the country. The
population of the country is 3.7 million, and half ofthe people live in the cities. Mobile penetration isnearly 130%,11 and the number of fixed-broadband
subscribers is 774,000 (at end of 2017).12

Setting up the Tusheti community network
In September 2016, the ISOC Georgia Chapter, theSmall and Medium Telecom Operators Associationof Georgia, the Freenet Ltd. Association, and theTusheti Development Fund – a non-profit organisation set up for the project – signed a memorandumof understanding (MoU)13 with the ISOC EU bureau
to build and develop a new wireless network for
the Tusheti community. This MoU creates the multistakeholder group that guides the development of
the community network.
Equipment was procured over the next few
months, and the network itself was set up in just60 days – between the end of June and the end of
August 2017.
11 https://www.budde.com.au/Research/
Georgia-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses
12 GNCC Annual Report: gncc.ge/uploads/other/3/3117.pdf
13 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&
source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjd243w_J_dAhVECpA
KHT6qBAYQFjAAegQIABAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.internetsociety.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F08%2F
Press20Release20MoU20Tusheti20Georgia.
docx&usg=AOvVaw2mDG7-vkCtA_-bv0ztXd8Q

It was built using only solar energy, six masts
up to six metres in height, and a few gap fillers for“white” areas. We also bought and installed a few
end-user computers for the most vulnerable villages and used them for site and network checking andtesting. This high-speed wireless internet service
can deliver a 10 Mbps connection to each user.
The network connects to the internet in the
Kakheti region (the village of Ruispiri is the closest
point for internet connection) via a 42 km radio linkwith a 120 Mbps connection speed to a mast on the
Abano Pass. The Abano Pass is then connected to
the Diklo mountain mast (this is a 20 km link). From
this point a connection is made to three masts thatcover all three of the gorges in the Tusheti region.
The network provides access to 85% of the villages
in Tusheti, and covers more than 260 square kilometres. Freenet provided technical training andhelped with on-site installations.
The parallel activities by the government, suchas those by the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development’s Innovation and Technology
Agency (GITA), and the World Bank-funded GENIE
Project14, have also been very important for getting
the network going. The GENIE Project trains disadvantaged citizens in internet and e‑commerce skills.
Participants also receive a voucher (USD 70) as acontribution towards purchasing equipment andpaying for bandwidth.

14 documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/320681467987898858/
pdf/PAD1543-PAD-P152441-R2016-0029-1-OUO-9.pdf

georgia / 125

Network sustainability
We want to highlight the sustainability and business model of the community network. Firstly, it isimportant to involve the local community in the project – in conceptualising the project, in installing the
network, and in managing the project’s finances.
The community needs to have a good understanding of the idea of the social ownership of the
network. Right now the Tusheti Development Fundworks well as a mechanism to manage the network.
Through this the community is able to manage theproject on its own, whether it comes to technical ormanagerial skills.
The network provides cost-effective internet
connectivity to dispersed communities located ina challenging terrain, and this point is very important for us.15 The profit generated from the network
is not allowed to exceed 10% of all operational andcapital expenses.16 Any profit made is used to develop the network further, repair or replace equipment,or for other activities that promote and develop the
network.
Tourism is fundamental to the financial sustainability of the network. Currently Tusheti is inhigh demand from local and international hikers
and adventure tourists. As a result, hostels andguesthouses contribute the most to the income of
the Wi-Fi network. Good quality Wi-Fi is also important to begin thinking about the development ofmeetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions(MICE) tourism.
Most importantly for many permanent residents, the internet is free and running costs arecovered by the Tusheti Development Fund during
the winter time, when tourism is low – although it
is hoped that the young tourists will find other reasons to stay in the area when poor weather rulesout hiking or adventure sport.
A clear understanding of the importance of the“bottom-up” approach is crucial. Each community
also has to understand the importance of volunteer activities and how this can contribute to thedevelopment of their community or region. The voluntary activities provide in-kind support from local
community members and local stakeholders. Thisis the type of spirit necessary not only for running
the Wi-Fi network, but also to meet the needs of
15 Quarmyne, N., & Granville, K. (2018, 5 January). Haulingthe Internet to an Ex-Soviet Outpost High in the Caucasus
Mountains. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/
interactive/2018/01/05/technology/caucuses-mountains-internet.
html
16 Maka. (2018, 19 March). Project for Tusheti Community Internet
Network, Georgia. Small and Medium Telecom Operators
Association of Georgia. toa.ge/en/?p=974

the community, such as roads, electricity, and watersupply. The state and donors create opportunities
for micro and small businesses, but often these lack“community soul”. As a result, they do not bring thedesired results and benefits for the whole community and for individuals inside of the community.

Conclusion
The benefit of the Wi-Fi network to the community
is clear.
Irakli Khvedaguridze is a 76-year-old doctor
living in the village of Bochorna. During winter heis the only resident in the village. When local technicians arrived to install the antenna and get the
network connection running, he was overjoyed,even though he did not yet have a smartphone oreven a computer. He recounted the following story:
One winter a tree fell on a man in Tusheti, hurting his
back. The man had to walk with his injured back forthree days through waist-deep snow to find someone who could then contact the doctor to help. Eventhen, helicopters could not reach the man and ateam of seven men had to walk from another village

126 / Global Information Society Watch

and carry him out on a stretcher. The doctor’s firstthought was how much of this could be avoided if
there was an internet connection.
Just a year’s experience shows that the demand
for local tourism facilities has increased rapidly. The
Tusheti network allows tourists to easily connect
directly with the locals, and those in the tourism
industry can now focus on offering their services
without an intermediary. Local guesthouses need
the internet to support their hospitality businesses
and stay competitive in the market – a high-speed
internet connection gives them an advantage. A
guesthouse owner in Darkizanidze has expanded herguesthouse to meet the demand of an increase in thenumber of tourists since the Wi-Fi was installed.
The farmers and guesthouse owners deep in theGometsari gorge, who previously did not have theinternet, are now are able to boost their businesses and have an “easier life”. The farmers are alsoable to reach out more to buyers of their products,
besides enjoying connecting to their relatives infaraway places. Archil Elizbaridze, a sheep farmer, says he enjoys the conversation with his family
and friends every evening after he takes care of his
sheep.
The hard winter in the region undermines the
network, and brings us new challenges, such as
those related to electricity and solar energy supply
in the long winter nights. Two high-altitude sites(the masts in Abano Pass and Diklo) need their batteries replaced and additional solar panels installed
because of a lack of sunlight in the wintertime, andover periods of heavy snowfall. Other than this, theradio equipment and other devices are working

without any issues, network performance is good,
and technical troubleshooting has been carried out
in an appropriate way.
The Small and Medium Telecom Operators
Association of Georgia is now working with local
partners on a different community network projectin the neighbouring Pshavi and Khevsureti areas
and we hope to find donors and supporters for thisnetwork. This will be connected to the Tusheti community network. It is important for both of theseareas to get access to the internet, because they
have two schools with more than 30 children, andmore than 50 SMEs.

Action steps
Firstly, our plans relate to the Tusheti project. This
year – and for next two years – we have to monitor
the system we have built and keep it running, offering help wherever it is needed. We will check allsites and will install additional filler masts so that
there is full coverage in the Tusheti area.
One challenge is the lack of qualified employees
in the local community. However, we have managed
to find a decent technician and we will train and prepare him for on-site activities.
Tusheti also faces the important opportunity ofdeserted villages. The internet could allow these
to be resettled by people in the areas near tourist
trails. Secondly, ISOC is working in cooperation with
the Kyrgyzstan government, the regulator and the
ISP community in that country, as well as the ISOC
Kyrgyz Chapter, among other stakeholders, in orderto replicate the Tusheti model there. We will support this in any way we can.

georgia / 127

GERMANY
From the shelter to the classroom: Two cases ofcivic participation through Freifunk Berlin

Policy, economic and political background

Freifunk
Tim Schütz and Monic Meisel
https://freifunk.net

Introduction
Whether campaigning for net neutrality, internet access as a human right, or civic engagement during
the so-called refugee crisis, the “Freifunk” (“Free
Wireless”) initiative continues to receive attention
from journalists, politicians and activists alike. By
connecting over 300 refugee shelters and reception
centres,1 Freifunk could underscore the significanceof its hacker practices for digital infrastructure politics in Germany. Yet what could be framed as an
exceptional “humanitarian media intervention”2 canbe understood within an ongoing move to establish
Freifunk as a legitimate form of “digital volunteering”, which includes a sustained engagement withpublic institutions and a struggle in legally backing
up its own emerging practices.
In our report we use two case studies to investigate the question of what “doing” free wirelessnetwork activism means in different contexts,
drawing on Freifunk’s engagement with youth centres and refugee shelters and reception centres3 inBerlin. We discuss key problem areas, ranging fromthe influence of “humanitarian” logics on Freifunk
activism to the challenge of involving teachers inpassing on Freifunk practices in the classroom. We
also consider the overarching restrictive legal regulations, broadband policies and the developments
towards specific forms of participation and citizenship that currently affect Freifunk.

1

2

3

Schröder, I. (2017). Freifunk Hilft. In W. Schiffauer, A. Eilert, &M. Rudloff (Eds.), So schaffen wir das – eine Zivilgesellschaft im
Aufbruch: 90 wegweisende Projekte mit Geflüchteten. Bielefeld:transcript Verlag.
Kubitschko, S., & Schütz, T. (2017). Humanitarian MediaIntervention: Infrastructuring in Times of Forced Migration.
Spheres: Journal for Digital Culture #3. spheres-journal.org/
humanitarian-media-intervention-infrastructuring-in-times-offorced-migration
Reception and emergency centres are the first institutions where
refugees have to register, before they are eventually relocated tolong-term shelters or private housing.

Founded in the early 2000s, the emergence of Frei­funk as an initiative and socio-technical practice isoften framed as a response to the “market failure”
of telecommunication companies to provide internet access in a recently unified East Berlin andrural Germany.4 Early workshops included tinkeringwith wireless devices, free software, organisational
forms and routing protocols. The proliferation of affordable broadband access in the mid-2000s thendecreased the initiative to a set of core participantsin Berlin’s underground hacking scene. Surprisingly, there are now more than 100 active Freifunkcommunities in cities and towns all over Germany
and other German-speaking countries.
Situated in close proximity to the growth of
hackerspaces, fab labs5 and other do-it-yourself(DIY) practices, the initiative emphasises its heightened political awareness, both through its activism
and network policy advocacy. Under the slogan“Freifunk Against Fear”, communities have sought
to challenge the so-called “network liability law”
in Germany which puts the legal responsibility for
online activities on the clients of internet service
providers (ISPs). After several years of challenging and subverting the law in written form and via
devices that reroute internet traffic to countries
outside of Germany,6 the law was abolished in 2017.
Although this opens new possibilities for free wireless networks in Germany, there are commercial
practices and national and regional regulations andpolicies that still concern Freifunk:•

The overuse of licence-free spectrum bycommercial players, coupled with a lack of frequencies for non-commercial public use.

4Petersen, G. (2014). Freifunk: When Technology and Politics
Assemble into Subversion. In J. Leach & L. Wilson (Eds.),
Subversion, Conversion, Development: Cross-Cultural Knowledge
Exchange and the Politics of Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab
To bypass the regulation, all traffic within the Freifunk network isrerouted through virtual private networks (VPNs). This extends
the connection to countries where the liability law does not
apply or to a collectively run server in Berlin. Additionally, theFreifunk initiative appeared as experts before the “Digital Agenda”
federal committee and advocated for a reformation of the law on
secondary liability of open Wi-Fi networks. They also used negative
declaratory actions to reconsider the law. See also the Freifunk
statt Angst blog at: freifunkstattangst.de5
6

128 / Global Information Society Watch•

Unused local frequencies which should be taken back for dedicated non-commercial use (e.g.
TV white space or LTE).7•

The continuing need to make access to communication networks a basic human right,
particularly for minority communities.8•

The problematic European Union (EU) radio anddata retention directives that create hurdles forcommunity networks.

•

The EU funding regulations for community
networks (such as Wifi4EU), which demand acentral registration that conflicts with the newly enforced General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) and Freifunk values of abstaining fromcollecting data.

•

The pending implementation of the public benefit status of Freifunk communities, which was
already included in the latest government coalition contract.9

While these struggles certainly impact Freifunk, thefollowing cases mostly respond to the last point,
namely, Freifunk’s legal recognition as a civic entity, rather than an open and spontaneous collectiveof individuals. Our two examples render visible thelimits and creative workarounds of doing Freifunkthat emerged over the last few years.

Case 1: Humanitarian interventions
in refugee shelters
The “long summer of migration”10 marked a turning
point that entangled the struggles of the Freifunk
initiative with the realities of people on the move.
It became among the most visible “tech” projects
in an upsurge of volunteer activism labelled as“Willkommenskultur” (a “Culture of Welcoming”).
Yet a commitment to support refugees was itself notnovel, since Freifunk participants in Berlin had already provided internet access to migrant camps in
the Kreuzberg district.11 In doing so, they amplified
a stance shared by other non-governmental organisations, that digital devices are more than “luxury”

7High-speed wireless for mobile devices. See: https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/LTE_(telecommunication)
8 Kettemann, M. C. (2015, 16 October). Zugang zum Internet: Ein
Grundrecht auch für Geflüchtete. iRights.Info. https://irights.info/
artikel/internetzugang-fluechtlinge-voelkerrecht-verfassung/26266
9 Freifunk Darmstadt. (2018). Digitales Ehrenamt – Jetzt! www.
digitales-ehrenamt.jetzt
10 Kasparek, B., & Speer, M. (2015). Of Hope. Hungary and the Long
Summer of Migration. Bordermonitoring.eu. bordermonitoring.eu/
ungarn/2015/09/of-hope-en
11 Andre. (2013, 22 October). Embassy of Hope. hamburg.freifunk.
net. https://hamburg.freifunk.net/2013/10/532.html, accessed 28
May 2018.

items,12 but are crucial for protecting (digital) communications as a basic human right. In parallel tothe traditions of established hacker organisations
like the “Chaos Computer Club”,13 the Freifunk initiative provided the socio-material practices toproblematise the infrastructural politics of refugee
shelters and reception centres, but also sought toactively reconfigure them.14
To shed light on this, we conducted an interview with Philipp, a 31-year-old master’s student incomputer science who, since the very beginning of
the refugee crisis, was involved in refugee tech activism in Berlin’s Neukölln district. His engagement
began when an emergency camp was opened in his
university’s gym. As he recalls, the focus of mostvolunteers was to provide items for basic hygiene,
clothes and social support. Philipp was interested in
the digital infrastructure, but his idea to reroute access via the university’s eduroam15 network proved
difficult for legal reasons. Nevertheless, the experience led him to bring his idea to a refugee support
collective located in his neighbourhood. Together
with two other friends, he contacted companies orindividuals that would be willing to reroute theirprivate internet uplink to refugee shelters and reception centres in the neighbourhood.
With improvised housing facilities for the refugees mushrooming all over Berlin, Philipp thenbegan to assemble a public wiki to keep an overview on the “status” of different installations.16
These were now organised collectively through aregular meeting at the “c‑base”, Berlin’s most wellknown hackerspace. At its peak, up to 30 people
would gather for planning possible installations.
While this included several supporters and managers of shelters, he acknowledged that refugees andasylum seekers only occasionally found their way tothe crowded seminar room.
12 Amnesty International (2017, 15 December). Whensmartphones are a lifeline, not a luxury. Amnesty
International New Zealand. https://www.amnesty.org.nz/
when-smartphones-are-lifeline-not-luxury
13 Kubitschko, S. (2018). Chaos Computer Club: The Communicative
Construction of Media Technologies and Infrastructures as a
Political Category. In A. Hepp, A. Breiter, & U. Hasebrink (Eds.),
Communicative Figurations: Transforming Communications inTimes of Deep Mediatization. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1
007%2F978-3-319-65584-0
14 In a now offline document by the Berlin County Office for
Refugee Issues, a provision of free wireless network accessin public areas as well as two desktop computers (per100 people) are designated as minimum quality criteria.
See also: Landesamt für Flüchtlingsangelegenheiten.
(2018). Qualitätssicherung. https://berlin.de/laf/wohnen/informationen-zum-betrieb-von-unterkuenften/
qualitaetssicherung
15 https://www.eduroam.org
16 https://wiki.freifunk.net/Berlin:Refugees

germany / 129

According to Philipp, problems with doing installations in shelters are less legal than financial innature. At first, many social workers and managers
were sceptical about the legal status and technicaldetails of Freifunk, particularly in relation to network
liability. In order to persuade them he then needed
to show how – through the use of VPNs mentioned
above – liability laws can be circumvented. Concern
then turned to budget issues, including what scaleof the installation was possible (e.g. should it only
be available in certain spaces or the entire building)and how running and maintenance costs would becovered.
Philipp found that there were only a few social
service providers who fully integrated the digital
infrastructure into the thinking behind newly built accommodation for refugees. Though some managers
agreed to cover the full costs for the routers and antennas that needed to be used, others had to rely on
the Freifunk initiative to provide donated equipment
and time, as they did not have designated funding
for media and communication infrastructures. Furthermore, improvised emergency shelters like theuniversity gym are repurposed buildings that are expected to only be used for short periods of time.
Phillip says the initial rapid growth of “Freifunk
for Refugees” was only experienced in the first stageof the project. Now, he says, only a handful of people
show up to the meetings, while shelters have closed
down, and migrants have been allocated to individual housing projects or deported. Though he stillgets asked via word-of-mouth to help with installations, he founded a one-man enterprise throughwhich he can now negotiate contracts and small
reimbursements for installation and maintenance.
He is aware that this is not an uncontroversial practice among Freifunk communities, since it violates
traditions based on reciprocity, non-commerciality
and passing on skills to others. To this criticism heresponds that many shelters and reception centres
simply demand a more “professional” service withclear responsibilities. Furthermore, he thinks that
it would be unfair for them to “simply lie back andrelax”. Rather, he says, the management should beheld responsible by at least covering the ongoing
financial costs of the infrastructure.
The debate on how to make internet access possible by “any means”, but in doing so having to negate
some of Freifunk’s principles, indicates how the DIY
practices of Freifunk can become entangled with whatanthropologist and medical doctor Didier Fassin calls“humanitarian reason”.17 For some Freifunk partici17 Fassin, D. (2011). Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the
Present. University of California Press.

pants, this break with shifting established practices
was only questioned at certain points. Frequently
discussed examples were when social service providers urge them to install content filter software on the
network or set an automatic shutdown of the networkat certain times of the day. In this situation, many
participants have resisted the request or stopped theinstallation altogether. By the same token, Freifunkrouters and practices are turned into “humanitarian
goods”18 ready for philanthropic fundraising campaigns (with a peak in fundraising experienced in2016). This also puts Freifunk projects in competition
with a larger market focused on devices and funding
opportunities for other “good projects”.19

Case 2: Bringing Freifunk to the classroom
With forced migration resonating as a major issue
throughout wireless communities in 2015, many
were in parallel looking to expand Freifunk practices to educational and social institutions. To explore
this potential, Freifunk participants collaborated
with the Media Institute Berlin-Brandenburg (mabb)
to fund a joint project.20 In its first round, the projectfocused on 10 youth centres in Berlin which alreadyqualified for teaching “media competency” to kids
and adolescents. The plan consisted of holding
several empowerment workshops through which
staff and teenagers would learn how to “flash” (install modified firmware) and set up routers locally.
It was further assumed that the workshops would
lead to the formation of working groups that would
continue to expand the network into the adjacentneighbourhood.
One of the participants was Holger, a 47-yearold IT specialist, who we interviewed about his
experience. Now employed as a system administrator for a company that provides IT solutions in socialand educational institutions, he previously used towork as a media instructor in one of the designatedcentres. Sympathetic to the idea of community networks, he felt strongly about the specific notions of
freedom that underpin Freifunk: not only should access to the internet be without costs, but it should
also come without a content filter. Instead of tabooing “harmful content”, the openness provided by
Freifunk serves as a way to promote responsibility
among the youth centre’s clients.
18 Collier, S. J., Cross, J., Redfield, P., & Street, A. (2017).
Preface: Little Development Devices / Humanitarian
Goods. Limn, Issue 9. https://limn.it/articles/
precis-little-development-devices-humanitarian-goods
19 Krause, M. (2014). The Good Project: Humanitarian Relief NGOs
and the Fragmentation of Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
20 www.mabb.de/information/digitale-welt/freifunk.html

130 / Global Information Society Watch

Even though Freifunk networks were established at eight out of 10 youth centres, running theworkshops according to Freifunk values proved
difficult for both the centres’ staff as well as theattending kids. Due to his background in free software, Holger explained, it was easier for him toengage in Freifunk practices, which he classifies asrather “high level” compared to other activities atthe centre. Still, several kids around the age of 12
actively helped him to set up the equipment.
Holger pointed out that compared to the cosmopolitan inner city, the centre is located in an
infrastructurally marginalised district and that
fostering participation is not an easy task. Yet heremains optimistic, especially when it comes to promoting gender equality through engagement withtechnology. Though the majority of participants in
the Freifunk workshop were young boys, Holger has
carried out coding classes at the centre where thegender distribution tended to be equal. This, he argues, can be linked to broader shifts in computing
and the gaming scene, a trend that might also reach
Freifunk.
To foster this development, Holger emphasisedthat Freifunk’s DIY approach should already bepart of the school curriculum to enable an in-depth
learning experience using digital technologies. It isprecisely this question that will be taken up in thesecond round of the project: to try to get the Freifunk model taught in schools in an interdisciplinary
course covering computer science, physics, maths
and ethics. The project is further driven by the factthat many schools in Germany are rather poorly
equipped when it comes to digital media infrastructure. It is not uncommon that maintenance of IT
systems heavily depends on the commitment of individual teachers. It is here that the second phaseof the project resonates most closely with the first,
given that it takes intensive training for teachers to
become apt at “doing” Freifunk. One response is todevelop open educational resource materials thatcan be used for teaching purposes.21 For this, rolemodels can be found in projects like the Junge Tüftler (“Young Tinkerers”).22
Ultimately, the aim of the Freifunk schools initiative would be to offer an inroad for kids and young
adults to question the commodified and privatised
nature of contemporary digital infrastructures.
In his article “There Is No Free Software”, anthropologist Christopher Kelty points out the intensecommercial extraction of “open source” practices
to fit the needs of both large software companies
21 https://freifunkoer.github.io/Freifunk-OER
22 https://junge-tueftler.de/fuer-umdenker

and (precarious) software workers. According tohim, the political significance of free software wasderived precisely via its hybrid position “between
the corporate forms of intellectual property-saturated IT industries and the cultural uptake of softwareand tools.”23 Therefore, the schools project is another fresh attempt to expand Freifunk in newcontexts through workshops, educational materials
and dialogue with key political players.

Conclusions
Juxtaposing the two different cases above renders
visible the multiple natures of the Freifunk initiative and how its traditional practices play out indifferent political and educational contexts. On the
one hand, participants managed to challenge theprecarious media infrastructures encountered in
crumbling public institutions and facilities guarded by an oppressive German border regime. On theother, it presents room for the concerns of Freifunk
participants about adjusting to humanitarian logics, facing unexpected “professionalisation” andtranslating their practices to differently situatedcommunities. Some more than others might heavily
limit what it means for Freifunk to assemble people
around a shared concern
It is important to keep in mind the limits ofour report, focusing predominantly on the experiences of relatively well-situated and educatedmiddle-class activists. While indeed representing
a significant part of the Freifunk community, thetwo cases can be linked to a transnational culturalform based on solving socio-political problems withmeans developed in Silicon Valley-influenced techcommunities.
This phenomenon is rendered visible by science and technology studies scholar Lilly Irani ina beautiful article investigating a design event in
Delhi, India, that centres on “hackathons”. Encountering similarly well-situated middle-classIndians, she shows that the hackathon does notnecessarily produce any functioning products but
rather encourages the “entrepreneurial citizenship”
of participating subjects.24 Freifunk participants
need to be aware of this when encountering middle-class imaginaries of the present and future, andengaging with differently situated adolescents or
migrants who either struggle for citizenship or themeans to overcome its limitations.

23 Kelty, C. (2013). There is no free software. The Journalof Peer Production #3. peerproduction.net/issues/
issue-3-free-software-epistemics/debate/there-is-no-free-software
24 Irani, L. (2015). Hackathons and the Making of Entrepreneurial
Citizenship. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 40(5), 799-824.

germany / 131

Action steps•

Acknowledge the role of Freifunk and othercommunity networks in public participation andpublic education.

•

Foster dialogue between Freifunk members andsocial/public institutions.

In sum, it becomes clear that Freifunk communities
in Berlin and beyond are advocating for emerging
forms of “digital volunteering” presented in thetwo cases. It is the unruly potential of Freifunk as
an initiative to foster decentralised organisation,
an infrastructural commons and public engagement
without surrendering to the dominant Silicon Valley
startup model. To keep this experiment going, we
propose the following steps for policy makers, Frei­funk communities and future wireless activists toconsider:Freifunk communities and future wirelessactivists•

Work towards reflecting the political dimensionsof practices framed as “political” or “humanitarian” so as to question asymmetries between“givers” and “receivers”.

Policy makers (EU and Germany)•

Leverage their role as political advisors andexplore new means of fostering basic rights toaccess, particularly for minority communities.

•

Interrogate the forms of subjectivity, citizenshipand exclusion they produce in their institutionalised/commercialised practices.

•

Strive for further transnational engagement.

•

Increase public funding for free wirelessnetworks.

•

Consider a separation of “network” and “service” to protect net neutrality (i.e. the Swedishmodel).

•

Expand EU-based funding schemes to go beyond acquisition of hardware for installations,
to also cover the running costs for maintaining
networks, and their general sustainability.

132 / Global Information Society Watch

GHANA
Triumphing over distance and time: The case of Wireless Ghana

Afrotribune
Emmanuel Elolo Agbenonwossi
https://icannwiki.org/Afrotribune

Introduction
The internet has become an effective tool forcommunication at different levels in the life of
Ghanaians since its introduction in the country in
the late 1990s.
Ghana is considered one of the more stablecountries in West Africa since its transition to multi-­
party democracy in 1992, and consistently ranks
among the top countries in Africa when it comes tofreedom of speech and press freedom.1
Although Ghana was among the first countries
in sub-Saharan Africa to have internet access, thepenetration rate remains worryingly low. As of
December 2017, only about 10 million people, orroughly 35% of its population of about 29.6 million,
used the internet.2
While still a “young” technology, the internet
has had an impact on the life of Ghanaians, withmany of them trying to challenge the digital divide
by connecting the unconnected in their communities. This report discusses one such attempt:
Wireless Ghana.

Policy environment
Ghana’s telecom sector was one of the first on thecontinent to be liberalised and deregulated, allowing universities and communities to build theirown networks. The privatisation of Ghana Telecom in 1996 was the catalyst for an extraordinary
growth in market competition across the mobile,internet and fixed-line sectors. The reforms yielded mixed results. Landline telephone penetration
increased dramatically (78,900 to 130,000 asof December 1997), while the number of mobile
subscribers surpassed even this higher level of
fixed-line subscribers.3123

Reporters Without Borders. (2018). Ghana: Media pluralism but
not enough independence. https://rsf.org/en/ghana
Daily Graphic. (2018, 22 February). Over 10 million Ghanaians use
the internet – Report. GBC. www.gbcghana.com/1.11795371
Haggarty, L., Shirley, M. M., & Wallsten, S. (2002).
Telecommunication Reform in Ghana. World Bank Policy ResearchWorking Paper No. 2983. https://ssrn.com/abstract=636345

In Ghana, the National Communications Authority (NCA) is the government agency responsible
for licensing and authorisation for the operation ofcommunication systems and services. It was established by the National Communications Authority
Act, 1996 (Act 524).
The NCA assigns, allocates and regulates theuse of frequencies and develops strategies for thecommunications industry in the country. The NCA
is responsible for managing civilian access to radio
spectrum. Licensed spectrum in Ghana includes licensed “exclusive” spectrum (traditional analogue
TV, mobile cellular) and licensed “shared” spectrum(LTE/LTE A, 2.3 GHz and 3.5 GHz Bands), while unlicensed spectrum includes “unlicensed exclusive”
spectrum (the extremely successful Wi-Fi bands of
2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz) and “unlicensed shared” spectrum (TV white space coexisting with licensed TV).
Currently there is no legislation or policy
governing community networks. Most of the community networks operate using free 2.4 GHz and 5
GHz wireless frequencies.

Wireless Ghana
One of the most interesting chapters in internet development in the country has been the founding ofWireless Ghana,4 formerly known as the Akwapim
Community Wireless Network. The name Akwapim Community Wireless Network was changed to
Wireless Ghana after the pioneers of the project
decided to expand to other regions of the country.
Today Wireless Ghana provides a large numberof professional services in the fields of wirelesstechnologies, software solutions and IT support indifferent communities in Ghana.
Wireless Ghana is a non-profit project implemented by Community-Based Libraries andInformation Technology (CBLit), a non-governmental organisation based in an isolated community inthe mountainous eastern region of the gold-rich nation. This Akwapim North District has 17 towns andseveral villages with a total population of about two
million people.
The Wireless Ghana project was started in2005 at the Apirede Resource Centre (CBLit’s first4

ghana / 133

wirelessghana.com

Testing of the internet on the street after installation.

community resource centre) in Akwapim in responseto the local community’s requests for internet connectivity to help them break their isolation and also
connect their children to the digital revolution.
The project and its resource centre have become
the game changer with respect to accessing information and triumphing over distance and time. It
cuts down barriers with the click of a mouse, helping schools, teachers, churches, farmers and youth
groups in the community communicate with the restof the world.
The network was developed and is managed
and maintained by the community members themselves with the help of volunteers from the UnitedStates Peace Corps programme.5 The management
committee together with the chief and elders of thecommunity monitor the daily operations of the network to help create a professional environment, andensure that services are of quality and delivered ontime. They also manage the accounts and bills frominternet service providers (ISPs).
The network currently has over 20 nodes,
and spreads out over a 10 to 15 km range, offering connectivity to Koforidua Technical University,
5

https://www.peacecorps.gov

secondary schools, churches, non-profit organisations, businesses and community activity centres
throughout six towns in the mountainous region.
Since its introduction in the community 13
years ago, the initiative has also built local digital libraries which have become hubs for free andopen access to information and documentation forstudents and teachers. The community libraries areequipped with computers with internet access andallow students to browse and do their research. The
volunteers of Wireless Ghana also help train the students on computer literacy, internet use and coding.
In 2014 the initiative was extended to otherregions. Wireless Ghana has helped establish awireless network at the University of Cape Coastin the western region. The project is called Campus Wi-Fi Project, helping students and lecturers
to share resources and data among themselves.
Another network was launched at Sakumono in theTema Metropolitan District, a district in the Greater
Accra region of Ghana.
Wireless Ghana does not operate as an ISP. The
organisation only builds and maintains the infrastructure for the communities. The internet services
are managed by the communities themselves, contracting with normal ISPs. There is fibre and VSAT

134 / Global Information Society Watch

Testing of the local antenna after construction.

According to the chief technology officer, Wireless
Ghana is an open-architecture mesh network thatuses low-cost Wi-Fi hardware and open-source
software, with most installations being point-to-multipoint networks with routers constructed from oldcomputers and new wireless cards.
Most of the nodes were made from Dell OptiPlex
units, D-Link DWL-G520 Wi-Fi cards and Cisco Meraki routers. However, with the rapid growth of the
project, the founders have changed technologies
to be able to cover long distances, and today, mostof the equipment has been purchased from the US
supplier Ubiquiti. This includes the NanoStation
NSM2 (2.4GHz), Bullet M2 and PicoStation M2. The
nodes on the Akwapim network are connected to
the rest of the internet via a shared 128/32 kbps
VSAT connection.

and technical support were also received from theChampaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network(CUWiN),6 Ghana Educational Services,7 the Akwapim North District Council, TakingITGlobal,8 and theStudent World Assembly,9 among other partners.
The initial funding was between USD 10,000 and
USD 15,000.
The cost of a typical node installation for individuals and institutions in the community is about
USD 500. This covers all of the equipment and installation expenses necessary to mount an antenna
on a rooftop, run cables indoors, set up an indoor
router and connect personal computers to the router. Nodes are guaranteed to be installed within two
weeks, depending on the availability of equipmentthat must be imported.
Before the installation of a node, the Wireless
Ghana team writes a contract for potential node
users that allows them to obtain access to the
network. The start-up contract informs the nodeuser of the cost of the equipment, the timeline for

Funding and challenges

6

The initial phase of the project involved grassroots
engagement with the community, together with
Peace Corps Ghana volunteers. Funding and skills

7
8
9

in the communities where the community network
operates.

Technologies involved

ghana / 135transmissionproject.org/projects/
champaign-urbana-community-wireless-network-cuwin
moe.gov.gh
https://www.tigweb.org
https://orgs.tigweb.org/student-world-assemblyinstallation, and the cost of internet services on the
network.
The nodes are built and installed by the volunteers working on Wireless Ghana. Following the
installation, the beneficiaries (communities or universities) are trained on how to use and maintainthe nodes. The training is usually conducted by thevolunteers.
Community members who use the network pay
fees every month to the volunteers to enable thesustainability of the network and also to pay the ISP
bills for internet access. The two universities thathave been connected to Wireless Ghana self-manage the equipment and internet bills.
Other challenges faced by Wireless Ghana
are radio-frequency interference and lack of electricity in some of the villages. Wi-Fi devices andnon-Wi-Fi devices that occupy the same shared radio frequency spectrum usually cause interference
on the network, and sometimes there are electricity
blackouts.
The electricity grid in the region reaches only
60% of homes. This means about 40% of households lack access to any means of conventional
power. Even in the areas where the national grid ispresent, the quality of the service is an issue due toincessant power outages, sometimes for a considerable length of time.
To solve the power problem, the Wireless Ghanateam sometimes builds alternative power supply
systems with recycled car batteries and other locally available equipment. In one case, for example, abroken uninterruptible power supply (UPS) was rebuilt with car batteries. This was innovative because
the team took broken computer parts and turned
them into a device that is capable of powering awireless network node for up to 24 hours during a
power outage.
It is, however, important to note that it is difficult
to provide internet access and other communication
services to areas not connected to the electricalgrid, and this constitutes a major challenge for
Wireless Ghana. This is a significant limitation to
the development and spread of community networks in rural Ghana.

Action steps
While growth in the internet market has increased
with higher penetration in Ghana in recent years,
there is enormous potential in the coming years forcommunity networks. Communities are capitalisingon consumer demand for services by upgrading
existing infrastructure. But funding, capacity building and electricity remain the main challenges. It istherefore important for donors and the government
to make funding and capacity-building programmes
available for communities who wish to set up community networks.
TV white space (TVWS), otherwise known as
dynamic spectrum allocation, is also seen as apromising form of connectivity for extending broadband networks to rural areas across Ghana. The NCA
authorised Spectra Wireless to run a six-month trialon 8 January 2014.10 The Ghanaian regulator granted the first licence to operate a commercial TVWS
network on the continent on 8 December 2014.11
Using the new service, students at Koforidua
Polytechnic and in some surrounding dormitories
in the eastern region can get a Wi-Fi connection
starting from 2 Ghanaian cedi (USD 0.61) a day for
unlimited bandwidth. Students can choose fromsymmetrical services with speeds ranging from 0.5
Mbps to 2 Mbps.
The project is considered a promising alternative to broadband access and the government of
Ghana and all the stakeholder groups must work together to take advantage of it to expand community
networks.
Lastly, it is particularly important that the power problem confronting rural communities in Ghana
be addressed. Pilot experiments in the use of solar
energy and photovoltaic cells should be supported.

10 BBC. (2014, 28 May). TV White Space in Ghana. https://www.bbc.
co.uk/programmes/p01zdr24
11 Okpamen, E. (2015, 26 January). First Commercial TV White Spaces
Services Launched In Ghana. Ventures Africa. venturesafrica.com/
first-commercial-tv-white-spaces-services-launched-in-ghana
136 / Global Information Society Watch

greece
Connecting the unconnected in rural Greece:
The case of Sarantaporo.gr

Sarantaporo.gr
Vassilis Chryssos, Aimilia Voulvouli, Alexandros
Papageorgiou, Giorgos Klisiaris and Nicholas Kourtzis
www.sarantaporo.gr

Introduction
In 2010 a group of friends from the village of Sarantaporo in the municipality of Elassona in Greece
built a website, Sarantaporo.gr, to promote theirvillage. However, they could not show the website
to people in the village because the villagers did
not have internet access. Due to the remote location and small population density of the area, thetelecommunication providers found little or no commercial interest in deploying infrastructure to bringinternet connectivity to the region, leaving the local
population with no alternative.
With no previous knowledge and experience inbuilding a wireless network, the team turned to examples of community networks in other parts of theworld to learn from their experience and practices,such as the Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network,1
guifi.net2 in Catalonia, and others.
Volunteering their time and effort, and collaborating with the community, they soon managed tobuild their first wireless mesh network in the village
of Sarantaporo. In doing so they provided open internet access to the inhabitants and visitors to the
area.
Soon community members from neighbouring
villages approached the project’s core team – called
the “Sarantaporo.gr” core team after their village
website – and asked them to build similar networks
in their villages. Over the following three years, until 2013, the network was deployed in 15 villages in
the area.
In 2013 we founded Sarantaporo.gr as non-profit
organisation (NPO) and soon after, at the beginningof 2014, we managed to secure funding from a European Union (EU) FP73 programme to build our
backbone network. The wireless network connected123

awmn.net
https://guifi.net/en/node/38392
Seventh Framework Programme, an EU research and development
funding programme. https://ec.europa.eu/research/fp7/
index_en.cfm

the villages to each other and extended as far as
the nearest city, covering a line-of-sight distanceof 50 km. These wireless links provided connectivity via the local university, the University of Applied
Sciences of Thessaly,4 which offered a 1 Gbps backhaul as a social responsibility service to the local
unserved communities of the region. Today 11 villages are connected to the backhaul, served by anaverage of more than 30 Mbps symmetrical internet
connectivity.
The agreement signed with the university waspart of a collaboration strategy which involved a diverse array of stakeholders, such as the Greek Free/
Open Source Software Society (GFOSS),5 Athens’
Hackerspace.gr,6 P2P Lab,7 the Alliance of the Commons,8 the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE)9movement in Greece, third-party service providers,and others. These collaborations outlined the character of the Sarantaporo.gr wireless community
network as a holistic approach to supporting the local communities, and not strictly as a technologicalendeavour.
Our mission is to bridge the digital divide in theregion. Sharing this mission with local communities has been perhaps the single most significant
challenge we have faced until today. As none of
the Sarantaporo.gr core team members lives in theregion (the closest member lives in Larisa, 80 km
away, while most of us live in Athens, the capitalof Greece, 450 km from Sarantaporo), it has beenquite challenging to maintain communication withlocals and even more so to share our vision and mission and align these with local communities.
To tackle this challenge we spent a great deal ofeffort and resources organising events and training
workshops and tried diverse communication tools.
Eventually we managed to identify local champions
in every village. These are the most engaged andactive members of the local community. Their contribution has been invaluable in maintaining and
4
5
6
7
8
9

greece / 137https://www.teilar.gr/index_en.php
https://gfoss.eu
https://www.hackerspace.gr
www.p2plab.gr/en
https://commons.gr/about_en /An umbrella term for various social and solidarity initiatives in
Greece.

expanding the local community network and also
in creating ties between the villages, empowering
the community which is built around the wirelessnetwork. Today we count more than 70 community
members in our network, 20 of whom are women.
Sarantaporo.gr has managed to drasticallychange the lives of local people. Visiting doctors in
the villages are now able to prescribe medicines using the health portal, the elderly inhabitants get tohave their grandchildren visiting for longer periods
since they now can enjoy internet connectivity inthe village, local farmers can discover new markets
for their products and raw materials, and locals cancommunicate with friends and family abroad, whichmakes them feel less isolated.

Part of our revenue is used to participate in international meetings, conferences and networking
events with other community networks around theworld. In November 2017 we co-founded the ISOC
Community Network Special Interest Group (CNSIG)12 along with other community networks fromall over the world during the Internet Governance
Forum (IGF) 2017 in Geneva. The CNSIG serves asa vehicle through which community networks fromaround the world can develop, strengthen andpromote the community network model, draft common strategies, share experiences and expertise,debate policy and regulatory issues, and present
their views through their direct involvement andparticipation.

Organisational sustainability

Technical sustainability

As an NPO, Sarantaporo.gr consists of a group of
10 people (the core team). The NPO was deemed
the most appropriate at the time of registering it in2013, due to the social and voluntary nature of theendeavour. The NPO is run by an executive committee, comprised of up to three administrators whoare elected every two years by an assembly. Important decisions about the course of the endeavour
are reached via consensus in the assembly, whichtakes place bi-monthly, or on an ad hoc basis when
the need arises. The basic mode of operation is“do-ocracy”: members suggest actions and, if notvetoed by other members, they go ahead and try to
fulfil them.
Every three months we organise an open assembly in one of the villages. All of the local community
members can participate and voice their proposals.
Decisions reached in these assemblies are advisoryand not binding for the NPO.
In order to empower locals to engage more
actively in the life of the community networks, we organise and deliver workshops and seminars. Apartfrom digital skills building, these seminars are also
about communication and community building. We
secure sustainability by including train-the-trainer
sessions for the more keen community members.
In terms of funding we try to diversify ourstreams to ensure financial resilience. Currently our revenue mix comprises private donations,
yearly member subscriptions, local services fees,
grants and programme funding. The Internet Society (ISOC), an international organisation, andthe EU-funded programmes netCommons10 and
CONFINE11 are a few of the funding sources for ourorganisation.

Our community network comprises two layers: thebackbone and the access layer. The backbone network is a tree and mesh topology based on 802.11
and other networking standards. It utilises redundant routing per backbone node with two or more
links with failover (not load-balancing). The accessnetwork is a mesh topology, based on 802.11 andproprietary standards. The available throughput(~60 Mbps symmetrical on average currently) is
not purposefully limited per device or user. It isprovided on a best-effort basis and shared among
members on a good neighbour principle.
The main considerations concerning the backbone are capacity, reliability, resilience, and central
monitoring and administration. Resilience, for example, is a critical factor for the given region. Poweroutages are quite regular in the area and when they
happen, not even phone landlines work (legacy
phone lines had been converted to VoIP). This, combined with the isolation of the area due to extremely
bad weather, results in quite severe conditions for
local inhabitants. Adding resilience to our networkby installing UPS devices in each node ensures thata communication channel will almost always be
available for locals to use.
Access network considerations concern easeof installation, admission control, central monitoring, end-user support, and administration. Of great
importance to our community network is end-user
support. Considering that our network users are notmere customers, but members of our local community, it is critical that we build a trusting relationshipand that we do not just provide customer support,
but also empower local community members. We
partly achieve this via our instant messaging channel, which we use daily as a communication tool.

10 https://netcommons.eu
11 https://confine-project.eu

12 cnsig.info
138 / Global Information Society Watch

A statement by one of our community members isindicative: “We couldn’t have dreamt of this level of
support from incumbents.”

Sarantaporo.gr: Social actors and acommunity that is a “work in progress”
In the case of Sarantaporo.gr we have learned that
community networks are not only networks of acertain community but also networks that enablecommunity. Community networks constitute infrastructure that, in a first instance, aims at covering
the tangible needs of a local population by filling,bridging and closing gaps, whether they be communicative, social, technical, institutional or other.
However, this reading often presupposes that thereis “community”, that its members will want to own
and manage the network, that the gaps are acknowledged by all, and that their filling or bridging
is consciously pursued.
The villages in the area west of Mount Olympus
do not form a cohesive community, either in administrative, cultural or economic terms. Nor werelocals familiar with the existence of the technology
in question and the possibilities it could offer. Consequently, the initiative and mediation by a group of
experts/activists (the core team) was essential forthe community network to be created, developedand sustained, and for locals to be informed andinvolved. We should not fall into the trap of viewing
rural communities as the passive recipient of a oneway beneficial offering. Neither should we assume
that the communities we work in have a strong
sense of social cohesion. Instead, based on our experience in the wider area around Sarantaporo, weneed to emphasise the enabling dimension of community networks, the potentiality and openness
that they activate, the serendipitous, dynamic andcollaborative manner in which needs are traced,problems are addressed, solutions are devised andcommunity is moulded, in ways that could not havebeen anticipated or planned.
Having said that, we need to be aware of history and its implications in trying to discuss “thesort of people whose names are usually unknown
to anyone except their family and neighbors but
who nonetheless are major historical actors when
they act collectively.”13 According to Hobsbawm,
such people, widely known as “the common people”, are actually far from common given that when
they have acted collectively they have made a difference and can again shape history. So Hobsbawm
advocates for a “history from below”, the history of
13 Hobsbawm, E. (1998). Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion
and Jazz. New York: The New York Press.

committed men and women not as passive subjectsof macro-history, but as progressive forces of society, which is something else we have learned in thefield working on Sarantaporo.gr.
Drawing on participant observation in the area
where the infrastructure of Sarantaporo.gr is located as well as social media ethnography andmulti-sited ethnography – that is, ethnography pursued in more than one geographical location – toinclude not just the local users/node-holders of the
network but also the core team members that do
not reside in the area, we became aware of the importance both of personal histories of the individual
participants and of the historical context of Thessaly, the administrative region in which the villages of
the network are located.
The rural movement in Thessaly, which sprangup at the beginning of the 20th century and extended into the first years of the century, was oneof the strongest movements within the then newly
established Greek state. Similarly, the cooperative
movement was born in 1900 when 24 peasantsestablished the first agricultural cooperative in
Almyros, a town in Thessaly.14 The contemporary
collective action in Elassona that is the result of setting up the community network is seen in this light.
The life trajectories both of the local node-holders and of the core team members who wereinterviewed shed a similar light on the communities
we worked in. Sarantaporo.gr is a “work in progress”, a community of people whose participants
are rational social actors rather than docile consumers. Given that the state was unable and the market
unwilling to provide connectivity, they were in a position to identify the crack in the system that gave
life to Sarantaporo.gr. Following Hobsbawm’s trainof thought of a “history from below”, we argue that
communities have the potential to muster collective
power that can bring about social change.

Legal and regulatory issues
As far as the law in Greece is concerned, non-profit community networks are considered equal toany other internet service provider, with the same
licensing requirements for spectrum. This, for example, makes it very difficult to license channels in aninterference-free band such as 11 GHz, which would
be great for point-to-point backbone links. Yet the
Wi-Fi band which we utilise is unregulated, and thisallows us to operate our community network without the requirement for any special licence.
14 Patronis, V., & Mavreas, K. (2004). Agricultural Cooperative
Organizations in Greece throughout the 20th Century: A Critical
Overview. Journal of Rural Cooperation, 32(1), 51-62.

greece / 139

The owner of the equipment is the Sarantaporo.
gr NPO. Each piece of equipment is provided to thecommunity members as a loan. The maintenancecost for the access layer is covered by the village
community, while the cost for the backbone layer iscovered by the NPO.

Action steps: The future
When we first deployed our community network,
many locals felt that there was no use for it, since
they were used to living an isolated life in the ruralcountryside. Soon the profound impact became evident in every aspect of their lives: social cohesion,
economic development, citizenship empowerment,
health services. The local population realised thepossibilities of how digital inclusion could improvetheir lives. This was a stepping stone for the locals
to pursue even better connectivity and more active
engagement. We continue to nurture our relationship by organising local events and assemblies,
providing training via workshops and promoting
transparency about the operation and managementof the community network.
Sharing and an open culture lie at the heart ofour endeavour. We strive to collaborate with othercommunity networks around the world and seek toshare our knowledge and experience so that others
can benefit from them, just like we benefited fromthe stories of other community networks before
us. The three components that are sine qua non for

creating a successful community network are: infrastructure, local community and training/education.
Deploying infrastructure, building a local community to run and manage it, and educating locals toacquire digital skills are necessary pillars towards asustainable community network.
Over the next few months we are organising our
first mission to Northern Tzoumerka, another mountainous area in Greece, in the Epirus region, in an
attempt to work with locals towards building thefirst node of their community network. Given that
it is important to cultivate human relationships inparallel to the network, we are taking members of
our local communities to the region to share theirexperiences and tell their stories.
Among the many challenges we face for the future, perhaps the single greatest is to discover ways
in which the community network can serve inhabitants as a local infrastructure. In other words: what is
the added value of the infrastructure for locals if it is
disconnected from the internet? The answer to thisquestion can be a defining one for the future of ourcommunity network and others around the world.
Currently and in the near future we will be exploring
technologies and experimenting with peer-to-peer
approaches and the local deployment of services.
Data retention and management, safeguarding privacy, information sharing in the local context, e‑healthand agricultural internet-of-things technologies are
fields of interest we wish to explore.

140 / Global Information Society WatchHONDURAS
The Azacualpa community network: Empowering theLenca people through technology

Red de Desarrollo Sostenible-Honduras and InternetSociety Honduras Chapter
Eduardo Tomehttps://rds.hn

Introduction
The Azacualpa Valley is located in the village of
Yamaranguila, Intibucá, right in the heart of the Lenca corridor in Honduras. Surrounded by mountains
and completely isolated from the world, the peopleof Azacualpa have no paved roads, no telephonelines, no internet access, no power supply, no running water and no health services; the nearest town
is 45 minutes away by bus.
Red de Desarrollo Sostenible (RDS), the organisation I represent, is a Honduran NGO that has beenworking in capacity building with a focus on information and communications technology (ICT) since
1994, with a vast experience working with communities all throughout the country dealing withsubjects such as disease prevention, food security,community radio and internet governance. We started working with the community in 2017 through thehelp of Olivia Zúñiga Cáceres, who is currently in
the Honduran Congress, and Salvador Zúñiga, an
RDS board member; they are also the daughter andformer husband of late indigenous leader and environmental activist Berta Cáceres.
In that year we were able to launch – througha Cultural Survival Community Media Grant1 andwith the help of the “Impactos” programme – thefirst community radio fully directed and operated
by women in the country, Radio Azacualpa – La Voz
de las Mujeres (Radio Azacualpa, the Voice of Women). By empowering the local women in becoming
leaders in their communities, a strong community
structure has flourished and developed in Azacualpa, generating an environment in which community

1

The Community Media Grants Project provides opportunities
for international indigenous community radios to strengthen
their broadcast infrastructure and systems while providing
training opportunities to their community journalists througha participatory and dynamic grants programme. Overall, theinitiative enhances the community’s efforts to establish andensure sustainability of indigenous community-controlled
media. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/current-projects/
community-media-grants-project

members have been seeking opportunities to overcome the limitations they currently face.
Last year we approached them with the idea ofstarting their own community network; they immediately jumped on board and though they do not
fully grasp the concept of internet, they understandit to be a tool that can help them unlock the great
potential that their community holds. This is thestory of the Lenca people of Azacualpa, and theirexperiences and their challenges as they become
the first community network in Honduras.

Socio-political context
The population in Azacualpa is 1,070 inhabitants.
Each family has an estimated six to eight members,
and there are around 300 families in the entire valley. The main economic activity in the Azacualpa
Valley is agriculture.
The Lencas, like most indigenous communities in Honduras, endure hardships to protect theirlands and resources and most have no access to basic services. They have no education in their native
language, and their communities generally do nothave properly equipped education centres; in thewords of a local Azacualpa teacher: “We chose not
to give the students homework because we know
they don’t have anywhere they can do research.”
Their access to health is also limited; they have ahigh mortality rate amongst children with diarrhea
being the leading cause.
Community radios have helped with this situation. They have empowered local leadership andhelped create consciousness amongst the Lencas
regarding their rights, and knowledge about the historical struggles of their people. This includes thelife of environmentalist Berta Cáceres, murdered in2016 while in the middle of protests to protect the
Gualcarque River from a power company, a river thatlies in historical Lenca grounds and that serves as awater supply to several of their communities.
In Honduras, the digital divide is progressively being reduced. According to a 2017 report by
the National Telecommunications Commission, an
estimated 2,240,400 people have internet access,which is 25% of the general population. This number
amounts to approximately 29 out of 100 people whoare internet users. In the urban area, around 42.6%

honduras / 141

of the population has an internet connection, while in
the rural area the digital divide is much bigger, with
only 14.1% of the population with internet access.
Policy-wise, community networks have a long
way to go in Honduras. The fact that there is no
legislation mentioning community networks is adouble-edged sword for potential efforts. Without
regulation, communities can explore a vast array ofpossibilities to get connected to the internet – however, this comes at a risk as it leaves community
networks without legal recognition and without any
protection from the state.

The start of the community networkin Azacualpa
The idea of the Azacualpa community network was
first raised in 2017 at the launch of Radio Azacualpa.
The aim was to submit a proposal to the InternetSociety’s Beyond the Net Large Grants2 for USD
30,000, which would be used to set up the network’s
infrastructure and secure connectivity for at least 18
months. A month before submitting the proposal,
we wanted to be sure that people in the community were still on board, so we decided to conduct asurvey in the households of community members
we had met previously (around 40 households) todetermine whether they were still interested and if
the sustainability of the network was viable. The response was overwhelming: we discovered that they
were already spending an average of USD 30 per
month per household on phone services that they
did not have access to locally, and that they often
had to travel long distances on foot just to be able
to make a phone call or send a text message.
They were interested – to say the least – although not entirely aware of how the internet works
or what it is. Presenting the idea to the whole community was a bit tougher. Though the community isorganised, geographically it is dispersed. The terrain is rough, and the distances people have to walkto get anywhere are very long. We knew the only
chance of presenting the idea to them all at once
was to do it in the only place the community congregates as a whole on a regular basis: church.

Deciding on responsibilities and tasks
With the help of the local priest, we were able topitch the idea to the whole community with positive
results, including the formation of three working

2

Beyond the Net Medium and Large Grants look for innovative ideasthat advance the Internet Society’s mission and contribute to theempowerment of people through projects focused on local impact.
The initiative supports mainly projects from Internet Society
Chapters and Special Interest Group members.

groups to strengthen the social structure of thecommunity network: the technical working group,
administrative working group and governance working group. These working groups are formed by both
men and women and have 17 members all together.
Their tasks vary, though they complement each other in a very organic way. While the technical working
group is in charge of the maintenance of the equipment and infrastructure of the network, it is also
responsible for teaching peers in the community
how to take full advantage of the network’s technology. The administrative working group is in charge ofmanaging the community network’s resources, suchas the computer lab established for such purposes,
collecting the necessary financial contributions fromthe community to sustain the network, and making
sure these contributions have a positive effect on
the network to ensure its sustainability. The governance working group, which is made up of “houseleaders”,3 serves the goal of consolidating the
network from an organisational point of view; thesocial structure behind the network must be strong
in order for it to survive. It is also important for thecommunity to make alliances with key stakeholders
in the local, national and global context.

Keeping the technology manageable
The success of these working groups will rely on
how well they are able to communicate with eachother and work together to create a community
consciousness of the importance of the networkand – most of all – to ensure that the community isable to appropriate the technology to suit their own
purposes.
The technical aspects of the network are very
simple and straightforward. This was done in orderto keep the technology manageable for a community that had very little technical training andexperience. The network consists of four nodes
connecting Azacualpa via four radio towers to the
nearby city of La Esperanza. Wi-Fi will cover an areaof 70% of the Azacualpa Valley, reaching most of
the community and some parts of neighbouringcommunities.
As mentioned, current regulation does notdeal with community networks. The closest thing
in the local legislation that resembles community

3

The Lenca people are very devoted to Catholicism. The Azacualpa
community has divided itself into what they call “houses” which
are largely family groups devoted to one specific saint, and there
are eight of these houses in the community. These houses often
organise religious celebrations together, such as pilgrimages within
the community in which they parade the saint’s images around anddaily prayer sessions in certain months of the year to bless their crops
and pray for rain.

142 / Global Information Society Watch

networks are private networks which require no
permits to operate as long as they do not sell theirinternet to third parties.

Setting up an association
The social structure that constitutes the network
needed a legal structure in order to consolidate
the network; the community decided that the best
way to do so was to create a social economy association.4 This allows them to negotiate better prices
for their products, and reinvest profits in communal
projects that will allow the community to continue
their economic and social development on theirown terms.
While the community’s main income comesfrom agriculture, and though they grow high-quality
produce, they often face hardships since they haveno way of moving it to a nearby market, and intermediaries often underpay them for their products.
They barely break even at times. The idea of theassociation has motivated the community to thinkof new ways to market their products, and to form
groups that can negotiate better deals as they intend to wholesale their produce.
With the help of the internet, they will both earnmore money and secure the economic sustainabilityof the community network.

Empowering women
The people of Azacualpa are very humble,
hard-working people. When we first approachedthem, we found a community that was very united
but in which women had a very restricted role intheir households. With little to no sexual health education, the average Azacualpa household consistsof eight family members. This means that men generally dedicate themselves to manual labour suchas agriculture and tending livestock, while women
generally stay home and raise their kids, tending tocrops near their houses.
When they started the community radio, thewomen – who were often shy to speak – seemed
to transform. As they progressed through their
preparation before the official launch of the station,
leaders were identified among community members
such as María Guadalupe Gutiérrez and María Santos Sánchez, and now, in the community network,
María Lázara Rodríguez. Seeing this has motivatedmore women to join the process.
4

In 1993, the Honduran Congress approved the Social Economy
Development Law, which allows communities to organise themselves
into Social Economy Associations. It is a business model that allows
small producers to sell their products collectively to achieve a better
quality of life as a community.

This has had positive results in the Azacualpa
community overall. Before the arrival of the community radio there were three women’s groups
identified in the village; now that number has effectively tripled, resulting in greater involvementof women in local organisations. Today women’sgroups have started tackling issues like sexual education that were once taboo in the community. We
hope that these types of organisations keep thriving in the local context to help young Lenca womenenvision a better future for themselves and theirpeople.
The community network has kept this spark
alive with a large number of women joining theworking groups established to support the network. The empowerment of women in technology
will be key in the deployment of this network. Boththe men and women of the community see eye-toeye on gender equality issues and understand thatunless they work together as equals, the community will not be able to fully reach its potential.

Local content and recoveringthe Lenca language
Another key aspect which the network wishes toaddress is the revival of the Lenca language, a language that has been lost not just in Azacualpa but
in Honduras in general. A few years ago, anthropologists Alan King and Jan Morrow published Kotik
Molka Niwamal, a dictionary of Lenca terms they
were able to recover by speaking to Lenca elders
in various communities throughout the country. We
hope that one day the community will be able topublish content that allows the people of Azacualpa
and other Lenca communities to recover their native
language. Although the funding for this is not there
yet, we believe the governance working group will
be able to achieve this milestone for their culture.

Conclusion
While it is too early to determine the impact thatthe community network is having on the Azacualpa community, in the process of setting up the
network we have witnessed a lot of enthusiasm,
and the growth of great vision that the community
has for its own development. The internet will not
only allow them to sell products online and securea better livelihood for their families, but will show
them a new world filled with possibilities and opportunities for them to grow. They have shown greatinterest in the internet’s potential for education,
since the educational centre they have only reaches
the ninth grade. They know that while the internet
means more options for education, it also entails

honduras / 143

capacity-building processes that can strengthen thewhole community.
The process has taught the community that having a clear view of the future and addressing theseissues as a whole and not as individuals gives thema far greater power than they have ever imagined.
They have embraced equality, and women in thecommunity have a far greater voice than they ever
had at any point in their history – this gives us hopethat the Lenca people will be able to break a long
tradition of subjugation in which the role of women
was limited to childbearing and tending the house.
Women now stand arm-in-arm with their husbands and their sons in the process of revitalising
their community, and are leading the process ofteaching everyone an important lesson: a community will never be able to thrive if both men andwomen do not have equal opportunities to growand express themselves.

Action steps
The following steps are suggested for strengthening
the Azacualpa community network, and community
networks generally in Honduras:•

The governance working group of the Azacualpa
community network has to approach local government authorities and local associations andestablish networks that will allow it to consolidate and prosper and ensure its sustainability
through time.

•

Funding for the production of local content
in the Lenca language must be sought by thecommunity. In this way they will be able to fully
appropriate the technology they are using andmake the internet a space for the Lenca people
to protect their heritage and their traditions.

•

It is hoped that the story of the Lenca people of
the Azacualpa Valley will motivate other indigenous communities to replicate the experience.
Once their story is out there, and local governments understand the benefits of community
networks and the positive impact they can haveon the development and empowerment of indigenous communities, policies will have to becreated to ensure that community networks canprosper in Honduras.

144 / Global Information Society Watch

INDIA
Women creating socially sustainable wirelesscommunity networks in India

Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF)
Ritu Srivastava
https://defindia.org

Introduction
At one time, all roads were supposed to lead toRome; in today’s world, the “information highway”
leads Rome right to our homes. Using a laptop, mobile phone or any other internet-enabled device, we
can access data about Rome or virtually any otherarea under the sun on the internet. But how many
have used the power of the internet?
The number of internet users in India is likely
to cross 500 million this year; however, the percentage of women internet users in India is only 29%(approximately 143 million).1 The telecom sector
has one of the lowest percentages of women in theworkforce – an average of between 8% and 15%, farless than the 26.6% female participation rate in the
total workforce, according to the Gender Diversity Benchmark for Asia 2017 study.2 The number ofwomen in the science and technology workforce
is 12.5%.3 In rural areas, the gender divide is also
felt. Few women engage in technical projects orhave technical skills, largely due to cultural andsocial restrictions, but also because there are few
opportunities for work in information and communications technologies (ICTs) at the grassroots level.
The Wireless for Communities (W4C)4 projectof Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) was
initiated in 2010 with the aim of connecting ruraland remote locations of India where mainstream
internet service providers (ISPs) are unwillingto provide internet connectivity. In the last eight
years, the programme has adopted various models
1

2

3

4

Agarwal, S. (2018, 20 February). Internet users in India expected
to reach 500 million by June: IAMAI. Economic Times. https://
economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/internetusers-in-india-expected-to-reach-500-million-by-june-iamai/
articleshow/63000198.cms
Deloitte. (2017). Women in the Boardroom: A global perspective.
https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/risk/articles/women-inthe-boardroom.html
Huyer, S., & Halfkin, N. (2013, 29 October). Study reports India’s
slow progress in advancing women in science and technology.
Elsevier. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/study-reports-indiasslow-progress-in-advancing-women-in-science-and-technology
wforc.inof engagement – “hub and spoke”, “wireless on awheel”, “Zero Connect box” and “women wirelessentrepreneurs” being some of them – and connected 35 districts (in 18 states)5 by establishing 178
access nodes, engaging men and women equally.
By engaging women, DEF’s community networks
have created safe spaces for other women but also
made them socially viable. This report discusses
how women’s participation and engagement has
transformed our wireless community networks
into socially sustainable networks. In particular wehighlight how creating so-called women “barefootengineers” in the community means that learningand knowledge are transferred, while women areempowered to act in a field that they were previously restricted from entering.

Policy challenges and opportunities
for community networks in India
Last year, the global community reaffirmed theprinciple of “digital equality”6 – or equal access toand use of ICTs for all people. The principle is seenas critical for socioeconomic growth and creating
opportunities to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2020. One important way
to achieve digital equality is to roll out broadband
to rural and other unconnected regions. However,taking connectivity to the rural regions of India has
been a tough task for several reasons.
While the launch of the National Optic Fibre
Network (NOFN) in 2011 aimed to connect 250,000
villages in India and the government’s 2012 National Telecom Policy7 called for “broadband access forall”, fixed broadband penetration in India is only
1.4%.8 Limited existing infrastructure to deliver
broadband, including the availability of backbone
fibre, network towers, a lack of backhaul connectivity, and the high cost of providing fixed-line
5

6

7
8

india / 145

Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu,
Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Orissa,
Rajasthan, Puducherry, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Delhi,
Jharkhand and Gujarat.
Commission on Science and Technology for Development.
(2018). Implementing World Summit on the Information Society
outcomes, 2017. unctad.org/meetings/en/SessionalDocuments/
ecn162018crp2_en.pdf
meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/National%20Telecom%20
Policy%20(2012)%20(480%20KB).pdf
International Telecommunication Union 2017 data.

broadband, are some of the inhibitors to roll-out.
Traditional ISPs are unwilling to go to rural areas asthey are uncertain about the return on their investment. This is mainly because rural areas are either
not as densely populated as urban areas or they are
geographically isolated. Since rural people are lessaware about digital tools and their usage, service
providers are also unsure that they will be willingto pay for a service or afford their internet plans.
Without raising digital awareness, it is difficult toincrease the demand for connectivity.
The lack of penetration in rural areas due tothese barriers further discourages already marginalised people from becoming digitally literate.
This leaves us in a deadlocked situation, with rural
India trapped in a vicious cycle of being disconnected. There are relatively few working models which
provide connectivity to communities excluded
from access as a result of income levels, size andgeographic isolation. One of these models is thecommunity wireless network. Realising the importance of Wi-Fi networks, the Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India (TRAI) identified community wireless networks as a model to promote public accessin its 2016 paper, “Consultation on Proliferation of
Broadband through Public Wi-Fi Networks”.9 Basedon this paper, the Department of Telecommunications introduced the designation of Virtual Network
Operator (VNO), enabling telecom service providers
to utilise their networks and spectrum efficiently by
sharing active and passive infrastructure to facilitate services at the resale level.10 This has opened
up opportunities for small enterprises and non-profit organisations to become small ISPs, which wasdifficult to do before due to regulatory challenges.
In India, there are very few social enterprisesthat are actively designing, deploying and setting
up wireless networks specifically catering for rural communities. AirJaldi11 in Dharamshala, Gram
Marg12 in Mumbai and DEF (based in Delhi) areamong the few organisations that are providing basic connectivity and enabling access to information
for citizens outside urban areas.
AirJaldi started as a social, non-profit enterpriseestablished in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh andprovides affordable and reliable internet connectivity using unlicensed spectrum and wireless networks
in rural communities. Gram Marg, an incubation of
9

https://www.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/Wi-Fi_consultation%20
Paper_13_july_2016.pdf
10 Guidelines for Grant of Unified License (Virtual Network Operator).
www.dot.gov.in/circulars/guidelines-grant-unified-license-virtualnetwork-operators
11 https://airjaldi.com
12 grammarg.in

the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai,
uses TV white space and now Wi-Fi to provide internet connectivity in 13 villages in Maharashtra. DEF
also uses low-cost wireless technology, unlicensed
spectrum bands – 2.4GHz and 5.8 GHz – and lineof sight to support the provision of affordable, lowcost and reliable internet services in 38 districts ofthe country.

Wireless community networks and women’s
entrepreneurship
Wireless community networks – or community
networks – are “bottom-up” network models defined by various academicians and institutions as
networks owned and managed by communities.
Community networks are also defined by some as“crowdsourced networks” that are structured as
free, open and neutral; they are built by a community and managed and operated as a common
resource.13 Elkin-Koren offers a more technicaldefinition of community networks as distributed
network architectures in which users can implement a physically decentralised network throughthe decentralisation of hardware.14 According to theEuropean Commission, community networks are a“private initiative by the local residents of the community using a so-called bottom-up approach.” In
general, community networks offer an alternativeand complementary approach to the traditionalcommercial model where internet connectivity issold to the user.
DEF, founded in 2002, aims to connect unreached and underserved regions of India in aneffort to bring them out of the digital darkness andempower them with access to information. With afirm belief that access to information and community engagement can reduce information poverty incommunities, it became essential for DEF to support first-mile connectivity solutions and to develop
digital literacy to understand why and how relevant
information can improve the socioeconomic conditions of people living in underdeveloped contexts.
In 2010, DEF and the Internet Society (ISOC)
initiated the W4C project to help provide internet
connectivity where traditional ISPs were unwilling to operate. The first pilot project was started
in a handloom community in Chanderi, Madhya
13 Baig, R., Roca, R., Freitag, F., & Navarro, L. (2015). guifi.net,
a crowdsourced network infrastructure held in common.
Computer Networks, 90, 150-165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
comnet.2015.07.009
14 Elkin-Koren, N. (2006). Making Technology Visible: Liability ofInternet Service Providers for Peer-to-Peer Traffic. New York
University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, 9. https://ssrn.
com/abstract=924316

146 / Global Information Society WatchPradesh, with the aim of providing the community
with information about weaving (while also allowing them to produce their own content) and thetools to archive their designs online, and connecting
them to a wider market for them to sell their products. Gradually the project transformed into the firstcommunity network project in India established ina weavers’ community. Using low-cost, line-of-sightwireless technology, and the unlicensed 2.4 GHz
and 5.8 GHz spectrum bands, W4C now creates
community-owned and community-operated wireless networks.
The W4C programme has four main components: 1) train the community members on using
wireless networks and its components to create“barefoot network engineers”; 2) use open source
practices, low-cost technology and frugal methods15 to set up community wireless networks (suchas using line of sight to find the tallest building forsetting up the antennas); 3) create a platform to develop local content using the wireless network; and
4) improve the socioeconomic lives of community
members.
Along with establishing the wireless networks,
information hubs known as Community Information Resource Centres (CIRCs) or “wireless centres”
are set up to provide digital literacy training to thecommunity. These centres work using DEF’s “AHEAD
Agenda”,16 which stands for:•A – building awareness on social rights and services through online avenues, and on laws andissues such as the Right to Information Act andwomen’s empowerment.

•

H – health, such as telehealth services toconnect primary health centres to district hospitals and enable local communities to accesshealth-related information through the internet.

•

E – education for young people who have notcompleted their schooling, and access to online
learning materials.

•

A – activating entrepreneurship by enabling
community members, particularly women, to
set up e‑commerce sites and businesses.

•

D – delivery of governance services and enhancing state transparency and accountability.

In eight years, the W4C programme has reached
38 districts across 18 states by deploying about
15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frugal_innovation
16 Srivastava, R. (2016). A Network by the Community and for theCommunity. In L. Belli, Community Connectivity: Building theInternet from Scratch. Annual Report of the UN IGF Dynamic
Coalition on Community Connectivity. bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/
dspace/handle/10438/17528

200 hub-based access points. These access points
currently connect more than 4,000 people and user
numbers are still growing. Most of these networks
are located in tribal and telecom dark areas, where
people have seen a computer and experienced theinternet for the first time.
There are two aspects to sustaining the networks. The first is establishing, managing andoperating the network and the second is creating
and managing the content. While developing these
two aspects, DEF realised that most of the networks
we set up are managed by young men, who often
leave for cities to find better work and other opportunities. Women mostly stay at home or do odd
jobs. Even if women visited the CIRCs, their role waslimited to searching for information. Their participation in managing and operating the networks was
negligible.
At the same time, managing wireless networks
in rural regions is difficult, as wireless network engineers from urban areas are not willing to travel torural regions.
Realising this gap, we saw a need to have a person who could operate and manage these centres
and interact with users or community members ona regular basis, providing wireless training to women and enabling them as what we called “women
barefoot engineers” and “wireless women entrepreneurs”. This became a priority for W4C. We wanted
to achieve two things: 1) create a network of women
barefoot engineers who could manage the network,
and who could also develop local content; and 2) by
doing this, improve the presence of women in thetelecom and wireless sector.

Training the first woman barefoot engineer
In 2014, Kainat Ansari became the first woman appointed by DEF to set up a wireless network. Kainat
received three months of wireless networking training in Guna, Madhya Pradesh.17 Initially, she wasengaged in the daily management of the centre.
Then she started managing the wireless network,
including configuring devices and setting client
access levels, as well as interacting with community members on their tech needs. Her tasks also
included live network set-up, DVR configuration,
point-to-point configuration and even troubleshooting at the server or client level. Kainat also helped
us set up other wireless networks including in Aron,
Madhya Pradesh and Saiddanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
Kainat acted as an influencer for other girls
living in Guna. Fauzia was one of them. She wasvisiting the centre to access YouTube and other
17 Interview with Kainat Ansari.

india / 147

entertainment websites. Following in Kainat’s footsteps, she joined the wireless networking training
programme. She is now able to make PCB circuitboards, climb network towers, do TP-Link routerconfiguration, and troubleshoot at the centre andclient level.18

part of W4C, over 30 rural women have been transformed into barefoot wireless engineers. These
women barefoot engineers act as influencers ofothers and motivate them by showing how this sortof training can improve their livelihoods.

Empowerment through digital literacy

Community networks are recognised as a catalyst
for development, especially for women, who havefewer opportunities to access digital tools compared to men. But when the opportunity is given
to them, we find that they manage our wirelessnetworks effectively and efficiently – just how they
manage their homes. These barefoot women wireless engineers, who can barely read and write, havedemystified technology and transferred the control,
management and ownership of the technologies tothe community.
Engaging in experiential learning and using thetechnology in a way that improves lives and skills
has changed the definition of “literacy” and what
it means to “be educated”. This approach has enabled rural women to impart their skills to others ina sort of multiplier effect. Engaging women has not
only given them an opportunity to learn about technology, but also enabled them to find a comfortable
place in an area mainly dominated by men. This is asmall effort that helps to bridge the gender dividein the telecom sector. In the last three years, it has
led DEF to engage more women in the wireless sector, as they not only make the network economicallysustainable, but also make it socially viable.

Another local content intervention was our Wireless
Women for Entrepreneurship and Empowerment(W2E2) project, which was part of the W4C programme, and initiated in partnership with ISOC in
2014.19 It aimed to help women in grassroots businesses make use of digital tools and the potentialof e‑commerce. Bidyawati Mehar, a girl from Orissa who had not finished her schooling, is part of a
weaver family living in a small village called Barpali.
Barpali is famous for hand-woven ikat20 sarees,
and the village is home to about 20,000 handloom
weavers. Bidya was the first of a few students whojoined our wireless network centre in the village andsoon became among the fastest-learning students
at the centre. The weavers in Bidya’s village lacked
knowledge about new designs, business practices and modern technologies. Most of the designs
made by the weavers had not been set to paper.
This restricted experimentation and innovation indesigns. Being a digitally literate weaver gave Bidya
opportunities to introduce various digital interventions into the weaving process. Bidya is now part ofa “mobilisation team” that encourages more weavers to adopt digital tools, and trains scores of youth
from her community in digital literacy and design.21
Last year, Bidya’s efforts were recognised by
ISOC’s 25 Under 2522 programme. She was one of
the 25 individuals, all under the age of 25, whotravelled to Los Angeles in the United States on
18 September 2017 to receive their awards. She
says, “Today, I’m the only woman master weaver
in our cluster. People who criticised me earlier forchoosing this occupation now call me ‘Lady MasterWeaver’.”23
The engagement with women has created newopportunities for rural women who want to learn
technical skills but do not get the opportunity due
to a lack of projects, programmes or institutions
that offer training, or because they face social andpatriarchal challenges which exist in the society. As
18 Interview with Fauzia.
19 wforc.in/w2e2-2
20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikat
21 One or two weavers also received training to maintain the wirelessnetwork.
22 https://www.internetsociety.org/25th/25-under-25
23 Interview with Bidyawati Mehar.

Conclusions

Action steps
Over the years, the W4C programme has adopted
various kinds of models as interventions, depending upon the needs of the community and the social
environment. One thing that was common in allmodels was the need to capitalise on the social andhuman value already present in the community, andtransforming this into a “socially sustainable wireless network model”. Here are a few action points
that those involved in community networks should
consider:•Increase gender sensitivity: Community
networks should be designed in a more gender-sensitive manner. For example, it should bemade mandatory that at least 50% of the people
participating in activities should be women andgirls.

•

Promote different kinds of community networkmodels: Presently most of the community network models in India are only talking about
leveraging technology and innovation, but

148 / Global Information Society Watchthere is need to sustain these networks socially – including creating a conducive environment
for women to engage with the community.
Stakeholders should promote and support community network models that do this.

and girls who want to learn technical skills but
do not get the opportunity because of patriarchal structures or because training programmes
are not available.
••

Make funds available: Universal service funds
and other funding mechanisms should be madeavailable to increase participation in community
networks.

Create self-learning tools that can be used byothers who have an interest in learning wirelessnetworking so that they are able to set up theirown wireless networks.

••

Create opportunities for learning and employment. For example, community networks canbe used to create new opportunities for women

Create a network of “barefoot wireless engineers” who not only manage the network but
also develop local content and make it accessible for everyone.

In 2017, DEF initiated the concept of an “Internet in a Box” or, as we call it, a Zero Connect
box,24 which is a solar-powered box with an antenna. The box is a plug-and-play configurable
networking solution for deploying a wireless network for people in predefined small-range
coverage areas. It is solar enabled and the size of a suitcase, and is fixed with a trolley mechanism for easy mobility. The lightweight unit (7 kg) is made of aluminium and is divided into
four sections to hold the tripod and hotspot printer (to print receipts for internet vouchers);
the charger controller; the batteries; and the router, antenna (5.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz) andother equipment. A solar panel on the top of the box is fitted for the purpose of charging
the batteries. The batteries can provide power for six to eight hours. The unit has the power
to connect as many as 200 individuals at a time within a radius of 500 metres to 5 km. To
make this solar-enabled box, we will be using low-cost wireless technology such as MikroTik routers and omni-directional antennas, and using both 5.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz unlicensed
spectrum to provide the connectivity.
The prototype model was implemented in Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh. Presently, DEF is scaling these Zero Connect boxes in other wireless locations. This year DEF
also initiated the Solar Women Wireless Engineers for Entrepreneurship and Empowerment(SW2E3) programme to provide solar and wireless training to women. It aims to create a
network of women wireless engineers who can not only set up and deploy the Zero Connectbox, but are also able to operate and manage the wireless networks.

24 internetinabox.inindia / 149

INDIA
Addressing sustainability in rural connectivity:
A case study of Gram Marg community-led networks

Gram Marg rural broadband project, Department
of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology
BombaySarbani Banerjee Belur1
http://grammarg.in

Introduction
India’s digital landscape has rapidly evolved with
the introduction of the government’s “Digital India”
initiative.2 This has led to an unprecedented growthin communication technologies. Internet connectivity, with the aim of achieving “accessibility for all”,
has penetrated at a rapid pace. This has impacted
and revolutionised lives in a manner that perhaps
no other technology has achieved so far.
In spite of this growth, approximately 49.5% of
the population of India is still unconnected.3 Widerural-urban connectivity gaps exist that evidencea stark digital divide. While urban India is almost
completely covered with voice and data service,rural India still suffers from inadequate connectivity. In a country with a population of 1.34 billion,
there are only 325 million broadband subscribers.4
Internet penetration in rural areas stands at 21%
compared to 65% in urban areas.5
The Indian government, through the BharatNet initiative, aims at digitally connecting 250,000

Gram Panchayats6 (local self-government offices atthe village level) by 2019,7 extending this to villages
and households in villages through local internet
service providers (ISPs), run by both government
and private telecom operators. Such large-scale
deployments involve significant cost to the government and, as a result, there is a need to enable thisconnectivity to be permanent and sustainable.
The sustainability of rural internet connectivity isbased on the basic premise of supply and demand.
The demand is by and large dynamic in nature due
to a lack of digital awareness and an unstable customer base (primarily farmers) with no fixed monthly
income. On the supply side, a lack of digital infrastructure and services, the ineffective use of available
connectivity, and low profitability of investment playmajor roles. Due to this unevenness of demand andsupply, rural areas are underserved and unreached.
In order to address this, partnership models
have been identified as a suitable method for enabling sustainable connectivity.8 There have been
several types of such partnership models, such as
the BOT (build operate transfer) model, BTO (build
transfer operate) model, and joint venture model.9 Globally, the private and public sectors are the
6

7
1

2

3

4

5

I thank the Gram Marg team members, in particular M. Khaturia, N.
P. Rao, J. Singh, T. Ghadge, A. Patil and V. Kavale. Special thanks tothe principal investigators of this project, Prof. A. Karandikar andProf. P. Chaporkar, for their valuable insights. This study is also apart of IEEE-SA’s Digital Inclusion Through Trust and Agency (DITA)
programme (the affordability and accessibility work streams).
The Digital India initiative was launched by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi on 1 July 2015 with the objective of connecting rural areas
with high-speed internet connectivity and improving digital literacy.
The vision of this programme is centred on three key areas: digital
infrastructure as a utility to every citizen, governance and services
on demand, and the digital empowerment of citizens.
Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development. (2017).
The State of Broadband: Broadband catalyzing sustainable
development. https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/opb/pol/S-POLBROADBAND.18-2017-PDF-E.pdf
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. (2017). The Indian Telecom
Services Performance Indicators: July-September, 2017. https://www.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/PIR_July_Sept_28122017.pdf
Indo-Asian News Service. (2018, 20 February). Acute Urban-Rural
Divide in Internet Penetration in India: Report. Business Televisionin India. www.btvi.in/news/acute-urban-rural-divide-in-internetpenetration-in-india--report/57421

8

9All villages in India are either Gram Panchayats or only “villages”,
depending on the population size of the villages. Villages thatare small will fall under the same Gram Panchayat. So a Gram
Panchayat may have three to four villages under it.
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. (2016). Planning for BharatNet
Phase 2. Bharat Broadband Nigam Ltd. bbnl.nic.in/WriteReadData/
LINKS/Rpt_Nw_Plg_tool6cad24a7-eea8-4adc-91ff-468d7119eeb0.pdf
Nungu, A., & Pehrson, B. (2011). Towards Sustainable Broadband Communication in Rural Areas. In R. Szabó et al. (Eds.), AccessNets 2010:
Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics
and Telecommunications Engineering, 63, 168-175. https://pdfs.
semanticscholar.org/13a6/88fc3d27f7f9b507424203c6acb5659b1fe6.pdf; Belur, S. B., Khaturia, M., & Rao, N. (2017). Community-led
Networks for Sustainable Rural Broadband in India: The Case of Gram
Marg. In L. Belli (Ed.), Community Networks: The Internet by the People, for the People. Official outcome of the UN IGF Dynamic Coalition
on Community Connectivity. https://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/dspace/
bitstream/handle/10438/19401/Community%20networks%20-%20
the%20Internet%20by%20the%20people%2C%20for%20the%20
people.pdf#page=194
In the BOT model, the private service provider provides the capitalrequired to build, maintain and operate the service for a contract period
under a concession from the government and then returns the service
to the government after its contract has expired. In the BTO model, theprivate service provider builds the infrastructure and then transfers it
to the public owner. The public owner is given the right to operate anda return on investment. This could also be called a private investment
and public facilitation model. In a joint venture model, the investment isshared between the private service provider and public sector.

150 / Global Information Society Watch

two key players that collaborate on initiatives tobring voice and data connectivity in rural areas andin most cases they work in partnership with eachother. However, planning and maintenance delays,
inadequate monitoring, funding gaps and improper
management are some of the shortcomings. Because of this, these models are unable to sustain
themselves in the field for very long. Apart from
this, a key feature that these models lacked was
involvement of local people for whom the network
has been facilitated. In India, these models largely follow a top-down approach, concentrating on acustomer base and a suitable return on investment.
The local and regional needs are sidelined and unattended to in such partnership models, making
them unviable in rural areas. As a result, in order tomake connectivity sustainable in rural India, there
is a need to develop a suitable partnership modelwith village involvement as the crux.
This report10 discusses the Public-PrivatePanchayat Partnership (4-P) model developed andvalidated on the ground for its sustainability in villages where connectivity has been enabled throughour project. We also discuss how the 4-P model is
implemented in Gram Marg villages and generates
revenue, thereby making it a sustainable model. Currently this model is working successfully inthe villages in the Palghar district of Maharashtra,
where internet connectivity has been enabled byGram Marg. The first part of the report gives a shortoverview of Gram Marg community-led networks. In
the second part of the report, the development andvalidation of the sustainable 4-P model will be discussed. The final section highlights relevant policy
measures needed for the adoption of a sustainablemodel in rural connectivity.

The first test bed that was set up by Gram Marg
was based solely on TV white space (TVWS) technology, covering seven villages in Palghar, spanning
an area of 25 km2, in 2013-2014. The purpose of setting up a TV UHF band test bed was to check thefeasibility of using TV UHF for middle-mile connectivity to provide high-speed broadband access tothe villages. The test bed consisted of a single basestation which connected to 12 clients situated atselected locations at varying distances. A 20 Mbps
leased line was provisioned at the base station. A
total of 10 Wi-Fi access points were deployed as wellas three community kiosks, which were backhauledusing the TV UHF band. Detailed results from thistest bed have been published in papers.12
The second test bed is a scaled-up version of
the earlier test bed which experimented with thefeasibility of unlicensed bands such as 5.8 GHz for
middle-mile connectivity covering 25 villages in Palghar, Maharashtra. The test bed spans an area of
about 300 km2, a network diagram of which is shownin Figure 1. Villages are divided into clusters of four
to five villages, resulting in six clusters. Each cluster
has one base station that has a fibre point of presence. In one cluster group of 15 villages, access isoffered at Gram Panchayat offices only. In a second
cluster group of 10 villages, Wi-Fi access points are
deployed at strategic locations that can be accessedin and around those locations. In all, a total of 60
Wi-Fi access points have been deployed in the 10
villages, with six access points per village. These access points are set up at the Gram Panchayat office,primary health care centres, at least one school andone community centre. A total of 106 Mbps bandwidth has been procured to serve the 25 villages.

Towards rural connectivity: Gram Marg

Seeding the growth of a community-led network has
been an important achievement of the test bed. Aninternet needs assessment survey suggested thatenabling connectivity was not enough for the villages.
There needs to be ownership of the network by the village authorities so that local and regional needs will
be prioritised. Community involvement in the connectivity can help in the maintenance of the network andtake care of the security of the devices. Local youth
from the village community can also be effectively engaged through skills development and training.

The Gram Marg rural broadband project11 at the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), aims at
connecting the unconnected by overcoming the barriers and challenges to connect rural India. In orderto provide ubiquitous connectivity to rural, remoteareas, research and development at the Gram Marglab has suggested that a shift is required from traditional technologies to a more affordable, efficientand robust technology. To this effect, Gram Marg
has deployed two large-scale test beds since its inception in 2012.

10 This report has been an outcome of a research project partly
funded by Tata Trusts.
11 www.grammarg.in

Establishing a community-led network

12 Kumar, A., Karandikar, A., Naik, G., Khaturia, M., Saha, S., Arora,M., & Singh, J. (2016). Toward enabling broadband for a billion
plus population with TV white spaces. IEEE Communications
Magazine, 54(7); Khaturia, M., Belur, S. B., & Karandikar, A. (2017).
TV White Space Technology for Affordable Internet Connectivity.
In R. Stewart, D. Crawford, & A. Stirling (Eds.), TV White Space
Communications and Networks. Woodhead Publishing.

india / 151

figure 1.

Network diagram of 25 villages in the Palghar project

Out of the 25 villages covered in the second test
bed, community networks were set up in 10 villages
only. They were selected for two reasons: i) the location of these villages was in remote pockets andhilly areas, and ii) there was no mobile coverage inthese villages. Figure 2 depicts the network diagramof the 10 villages where the community network iscurrently operational. As seen in the figure, a pointto-point 5.8 GHz link has been set up from the tower
at the base station to the Gram Panchayat office.
Connectivity is further distributed inside the village
in a mesh network through six access points that areplaced strategically inside the village. As a result, theentire expanse of the village is Wi-Fi enabled.
The network in the 10 villages is maintained
through community participation. A village youth isnominated as the Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE)
who undergoes training and skills development tomaintain and operate the network in the village. The
VLE is registered with the government’s Common
Service Centre (CSC) programme to ensure citizen service centres operate in all Gram Panchayat
offices in India. CSC e‑Governance Services India
Limited, a special purpose vehicle, has been created by the Ministry of Electronics and Information

Technology (MeitY) in order to extend digital services in rural areas. Wi-Fi Choupal13 was set up
alongside this to extend connectivity using Wi-Fibased network infrastructure.
As an ancillary to the CSC, Wi-Fi Choupal has
partnered with Gram Marg in the 25 villages Palghar
project. Wi-Fi Choupal, as an ISP licence holder, uses
the VLE to sell bandwidth inside the village throughfixed-pricing plans. In these villages the connectivity is currently being used both on smartphones aswell as in the village Gram Panchayat office for accessing and enabling e‑governance services.

Sustainable economic partnership model
As mentioned, in order to make the connectivity
sustainable, the 4-P model was developed. Thispartnership model was developed for all the 25
villages in Palghar. The main reason behind developing the partnership model has been to throw
light on how different partnerships can facilitate
connectivity to remote, rural villages. The model
also lays stress on the fact that no single entity (i.e.

13 www.wifichoupal.in

152 / Global Information Society Watchfigure 2.

Community network villages in Palghar

private telecom operators) or the government is responsible for enabling connectivity to the unserved.
Important aspects of the model are: i) the Panchayat(i.e. the village administration) has been introduced
into the partnership model alongside the public
and private partners, and ii) the partnership model
adopts a bottom-up approach with the involvementof the villagers, focusing on the local and regional
needs with regard to connectivity. As the Panchayat
represents the village administration, and is elected by the people of the village and backed by the
district and state government, its participation adds
value to the partnership in terms of authority, ownership and financial disbursement.14
The role of each of the partners in this partnership model is as follows:•

The Panchayat owns the network at the village
level. It plays a major role in defining priorities
for the local digital needs of the villagers. In
one revenue model it purchases the bandwidthand enables revenue generation by reselling

14 Further details about the 4-P model can be found in Belur, S. B.,
Khaturia, M., & Rao, N. (2017). Op. cit.

the bandwidth to the villagers. In another revenue model, local youth from the villages areappointed as VLEs by the Gram Panchayat andoperate and maintain the network in the village,
also selling bandwidth to the villagers.
•

The private sector partner provided the bandwidth which enabled connectivity to the 25
villages.

•

The public sector partner plays a vital role intechnology innovation, deploying the networkand providing the capital expenditure (CAPEX)
funding for setting up the network infrastructure in the villages.

Validation of the 4-P model on the groundA partnership model is not sufficient in itself if it
does not have revenue generation as an importantpart of it. The revenue generation aspect of thepartnership model addresses the sustainability of
the connectivity after the unconnected villages areconnected. For the validation of the 4-P model onground, the first step has been to identify the two
important cost indicators, i.e. CAPEX and operational expenditure (OPEX). For setting up a network,

india / 153

figure 3.

Data usage and number of users from traffic data

250
201

200

168

200

185

170

150
100

100
50
0

47

October

63

65

69

November

DecemberJanuary

Users

there is a CAPEX investment that is needed and the
OPEX needs to be recovered. Revenue generation
has, as a result, been identified as an important aspect of the model, without which the model cannot
be sustained. This incentivises the Gram Panchayat
and the VLE to maintain the network in the village. Usage of the connectivity was also analysedthrough monitoring traffic data, which helped inunderstanding the bandwidth requirement at eachGram Panchayat.
In order to test the sustainability of the 4-P
model, the 25 villages have been divided into twogroups each with a different revenue-generation
method. The villages were separated into groups
based on their proximity to the highway (Mumbai-Ahmedabad Highway): 15 villages that arelocated close to the highway comprised one groupand 10 villages that are located in the remote tribal
areas comprised the second group. The 4-P model isbeing validated in the two groups to test the model’s viability, scalability, replicability and adoption
in different village contexts.
The first step in the validation process has been
to look at the traffic data of all 25 villages. The network went live in October 2017. Initial analysis of
the traffic data from all the villages suggests thatconnectivity is being used by the people. Data from
October 2017 to March 2018 (as illustrated in Figure3) show an increase in number of users and in data
usage. This can be viewed as a satisfactory service
in terms of internet availability and speed.
Data on monthly uploads and downloads by theinternet users in these villages shows that there are

78

86

February

March

Data used (GB)figure 4.

Data usage and number of users fromtraffic data

10%

15%

10%
10%
40%
15%

Windows update

Facebook

YouTubeNews channels

HotstarMicrosoft.com

more downloads than uploads. From October 2017
to March 2018, downloads increased from 96 GB to154 GB. While uploads account for less data usage
than downloads they are also increasing, from 6
GB to 15 GB. This is in line with consumer patterns
where downloads are more than uploads.
The traffic data of the 25 villages also gives a
broad overview of the utilisation of bandwidth by the

154 / Global Information Society Watch

users in the form of websites most visited. As shownin Figure 4, 40% of the bandwidth has been used forWindows updates, followed by YouTube, Hotstar15
and visits to Microsoft.com. In the case of Windows
updates, this is likely to be the result of automatic
updates by the software vendor. Due to the high illiteracy levels (60% in these villages), users say thatthey are unable to do keyword searches. As a result
they prefer sites like YouTube and Hotstar.

Revenue generation as part of the 4-P model
In the 15 villages cluster (the first group), the revenue model is through the local ISP. The local ISP has
enabled 2 Mbps bandwidth at each Gram Panchayat
office and gets directly paid by the Gram Panchayat.
The local ISP further sells the bandwidth inside thevillage as part of its marketing strategy and generates revenue from the connectivity. The Gram
Panchayat office pays a fixed price of INR 1,000 (USD
14) for 2 Mbps of bandwidth. This cost includes the
bandwidth cost, operation and maintenance of thelink and device cost if the device needs replacement
due to damage. However, as the Gram Panchayat office does not use the entire bandwidth, the unused
bandwidth is sold to the villagers in the form of “payas you use” daily coupons of a duration of one hour
each costing INR 10 (USD 0.14). This connectivity isaccessed at the Gram Panchayat office. It has been
observed that an average of five to 10 people use
the internet at the Gram Panchayat office per day,which totals INR 50 to INR 100 (USD 0.70 to USD1.40) per day and results in a monthly income of INR
1,500 to INR 3,000 (USD 21 to USD 42). This contributes to the monthly revenue of the Gram Panchayat.
Out of this amount, INR 1,000 (USD 14) is paid tothe local ISP, as noted above. The Gram Panchayat
office plans to use the accumulated amount for development activities within the village.
The second set of 10 villages has a VLE-focusedrevenue model, where CSC Wi-Fi Choupal has acquired 30 Mbps bandwidth from a local ISP16 anddistributes the same to different villages depending
on internet use and number of customers in eachvillage. The VLEs maintain the network in thesevillages and sell bandwidth to the villagers in theform of coupons based on the fixed pricing plan.
The monthly customer base of the VLEs includes
new customers as well as returning customers. The
revenue plan of the VLEs has been devised in a way
15 An Indian digital and mobile entertainment platform. https://www.
hotstar.com
16 Wi-Fi Choupal is an ISP licence holder only. It acquires bandwidthfrom private telecom operators and then distributes the bandwidthand generates revenue.

that it maximises profit for the VLE, thereby providing incentive to perform. It has been observed thatof the coupons sold per month, 40% of the coupons
are of INR 10 (USD 0.14) in value, which gives 500
Mb of data for 10 days. The next most popular coupon amount, accounting for 22% of purchases, is
INR 100 (USD 1.40), which is valid for 28 days andgives 12 GB of data.
Revenue information suggests that in those villages where there is a substantial use of internet
data and a large customer base, the monthly revenue generated by the VLE is in the range of INR
5,000 to INR 6,000 (USD 70 to USD 84). In other villages, the monthly revenue generated is INR 3,000
to INR 4,000 (USD 42 to USD 56) on average.
In the months to follow, it is expected that the
number of broadband subscribers will increase,which will directly have an effect on the revenue
generated by the VLEs. A steady growth in revenue
generation by the VLEs suggests that the model will
perform well and also offers lucrative value for theinvestment made. A nominal pricing plan for data
will facilitate greater usage by rural villagers.

Conclusions and the road ahead
In this report, we address the importance of sustainability of broadband connectivity in rural areasof India. We have discussed Gram Marg’s 25 village Palghar test bed and how it has attempted toanswer various issues regarding rural connectivity through test bed deployments and setting up
community networks in 10 villages in Palghar, Maharashtra. We also discuss the 4-P model which has
been developed and successfully validated in thefield with regard to sustainability. As the 4-P modeltakes a bottom-up approach, it is a robust and scalable model which generates revenue, enabling theinternet to thrive and grow sustainably.
Even though the 4-P model has been successfully validated in the Gram Marg villages, we needto replicate the model in different village contexts,
and with different CAPEX contribution scenarios, tounderstand the model in its entirety. As of now, themodel is based on actual expenditure and real fielddata on usage, revenue generation and recoveryof OPEX. In time we shall come up with a projection model taking into account the growth rate ofinternet subscribers, expected growth in internet
demand, and yearly increases in the monthly cost ofinternet usage. This will enable predictions of revenue accrued by the VLEs and the Gram Panchayatover a period of time.
The district administration also needs to havea voice about their need to be connected and takeownership of the network as soon as connectivity has

india / 155been enabled. With the Panchayat at the core of the
4-P model, the model becomes very localised, which
will eventually help in the betterment of the model.
This sustainable economic model can be thefoundation for making rural broadband become
financially self-dependent at the village level. As
the model focuses on broadband usage, supply
and demand, it can effectively formulate the costeffectiveness of technologies used. Unless such a
self-sustainable model is implemented, it will bedifficult for the internet to penetrate rural areas.

is thought about only after the network deployment has taken place and the project funds
are running dry. However, if the sustainability
plan is chalked out and conceptualised during
the planning phase of network deployment,
all stakeholders in the model can take equal
responsibility.
•

The village administration (i.e. Gram Panchayat)
should be given the authority to address connectivity challenges in their own villages.
Government policy measures should help Gram
Panchayats to form cooperatives or groups witha legal status to own the network. There can bea provision for such groups to acquire a special
ISP licence, making them eligible to procure andsell bandwidth.

•Internet connectivity is still not a part of the development plan of Gram Panchayats in India. As
each Panchayat is expected to develop an annual development plan, internet for development
can be included in it. In this way, the money forenabling connectivity to the Gram Panchayats
can be financed by the state government.

•

It is necessary for a sustainable partnershipmodel to grow within a community network.
This will enable better community participationand involvement for the sustainable model tothrive in rural areas.

Action steps
We would like to emphasise the following policy
recommendations in support of community networks in India:•

Community networks are allowed to operate inIndia but there are no specific policies that support such networks. They should be promoted
and encouraged by the government.

•

Mere internet connectivity should not be theonly agenda when connecting rural villages.
Seeding the growth of community networks,
developing community technologies and encouraging the meaningful use of connectivity
should be set as priorities by the government.

•

Sustainability of connectivity is a serious issue
that needs to be addressed. In most cases, this156 / Global Information Society Watch

Indonesia and Malaysia
Smart partnerships and participatory engagement:
A community network for indigenous Borneo

Advisor to Forum Masyarakat Adat Dataran Tinggi
Borneo (FORMADAT)
Roger W. Harris
www.formadat.com

Introduction
Orthodox state-sponsored development often inadvertently damages the cultures and lifestyles ofindigenous peoples, as well as plundering their natural resources, despoiling their environment andsometimes moving them into new forms of poverty
where none previously existed. Opposition to suchinitiatives can be misinterpreted as opposition todevelopment, which indigenous representatives
counter with calls for development that is indigenised– addressing their needs as they express them and fulfilling their aspirations rather than those of outsiders.
Information and communications technologies(ICTs) have been convincingly demonstrated to offer
opportunities for indigenised development whenintroduced within processes that take full accountof the local socioeconomic context. The outcome
is to empower indigenous communities to devise
and implement development activities of their own
design. Furthermore, many of the core characteristics of ICTs are conducive to the promotion andimplementation of indigenised development. This
report describes how a cash-strapped but resourceful grassroots indigenous organisation mobilised
a diverse set of smart partnerships to create acascading set of community networks and other information solutions at the local level.1 It discusses
how the organisation went on to deploy innovative
participatory methods of public engagement to devise uses for the networks that address the specificsof the communities’ development needs as people
with unique cultures, traditions and lifestyles andas guardians of Asia’s last great rainforest.

Policy, economic and political background
Borneo is divided into 73% Indonesia and 26% Malaysia, with the remainder comprising Brunei. Whileboth Malaysia and Indonesia have ICT policies

that target wider access to the internet – with
Malaysia achieving 77% of households with internet access and Indonesia 25% – rural access lags
well behind national averages and in the remote
and isolated areas of Borneo it lags even further
behind.2 However, the government of Malaysia is
promoting high-speed internet, with particular attention to rural access through universal service
provision initiatives. These include the establishment of “1Malaysia Internet Centres”. Internet
centres are common across Indonesia, and in ruralvillages are typically government or donor-funded.
Mobile phone usage has expanded rapidly acrossBorneo and is now reaching even the most remotecommunities.
Against the background of state sponsorshipof rural telecommunications, local ICT networks
consisting of infrastructure that is owned by thecommunity are rare. Among the barriers, especially in rural areas, are affordability, insufficient skills
and awareness and cultural acceptance, as well as
the lack of content and services in local languages.
By promoting ICTs as fundamental tools for national
development, both governments open themselvesto questions about the implications for their rural,indigenous and other underserved populations.
While the response has been to slowly roll out
some form of shared subsidised access, this has
not always been accompanied by robust measures
to ensure that such access translates into socioeconomic inclusion or anything else that recipient
communities would regard as development that isrelevant to their needs.

FORMADAT and its community ICT networks
FORMADAT is a trans-boundary grassroots initiativethat works to increase awareness and understandingof the communities of the highlands of Borneo – tomaintain their cultural traditions, build local capacity, and encourage sustainable development in theHeart of Borneo without risking the degradation of
the quality of the social and natural environment.
The Heart of Borneo is a conservation area designated under an international agreement initiated by
2

1

The term “community ICT network” is used in this report todistinguish it from other (non-physical) forms of network.

ITU. (2017). Measuring the Information Society Report 2017.
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/publications/misr2017/MISR2017_Volume2.pdf

indonesia and Malaysia / 157

the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to protect a
220,000 km2 forested region on Borneo island thatis known as Asia’s last great rainforest (see Figure 1).
FORMADAT is a formally registered society in Indonesia and Malaysia, made up of the rural indigenous
communities that occupy part of the Heart of Borneo.
FORMADAT comprises members of the following marginalised ethnic groups: Lundayeh/
Lun Bawang, Kelabit and Sa’ban residing in Bario, Ba’kelalan, Long Semadoh and Long Pasia in
Malaysia, and the Krayan and Krayan Selatan districts of Indonesia. This population amounts toapproximately 12,500 individuals. FORMADAT won
the United Nations Development Programme’s(UNDP’s) 2015 Equator Prize for reducing poverty
through sustaining biodiversity, emphasising community empowerment and cultivating innovative
partnerships for local climate solutions.3
FORMADAT’s community ICT networks havegrown over the years with the growth of the organisation and with the expansion of its set of supportive
partners (see Table 1). They began in 2005 with themulti-award-winning eBario telecentre project,which later expanded to incorporate a telecentre
in Ba’kelalan and Malaysia’s first community radio
station in Bario. eBario project staff, supportedby WWF, later assisted with the establishment ofa telecentre in Long Bawan, Indonesia. The next
expansion included a telecentre in Long Lamai,
Malaysia, the home of a remote Penan community. Although not formally a member of FORMADAT,
this telecentre and the community participate ina range of joint activities with FORMADAT that aresupported by ICTs. Most recently, the government of
Malaysia has established public telecentres in both
Bario and Long Pasia which also provide access to
ICTs for the resident members of FORMADAT.
FORMADAT is an indigenous community organisation that draws support from several partners. Asa founding member, the Kelabit community of Bario
promoted the use of ICTs towards the advancementof its and the organisation’s goals based on their
many years of experience with the eBario project.
This was instituted by researchers at the Instituteof Social Informatics and Technological Innovations(ISITI) at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS),
who also helped with the establishment of community-operated telecentres in Long Lamai andBa’kelalan before they were handed to the community. Ultimately, FORMADAT and UNIMAS agreed ona memorandum to promote joint action research
3

WWF-Malaysia. (2015, 15 October). FORMADAT wins
UNDP’s Equator Prize 2015. www.wwf.org.my/?20465/
FORMADAT-wins-UNDPs-Equator-Prize-2015

figure 1.

The Heart of Borneo and FORMADAT
communities

and project development that utilises the ICT
networks to advance the goals of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Heartof Borneo. Alongside the growth of FORMADAT’s ICT
networks, the organisation conducts networking
and knowledge-sharing activities to promote their
use towards endogenous indigenised development– the animation of development along a bottom-up
trajectory, involving the search for development
resources and mechanisms that focus on the local
territory and which address the specific needs ofthe indigenous residents.
The early components of what became the FORMADAT ICT networks were established before theorganisation was formed but the initiative grew as
the various stakeholders collaborated with eachother in pursuit of the same goal of endogenousdevelopment in the highlands of the Heart of Borneo. The assertion by WWF that the lifestyles andknowledge of the indigenous residents of areas thatare the most vulnerable to climate change – such as
rainforests – are critical for a better understandingof both its impacts as well as possible mitigation
measures increased the importance of efforts topreserve the lifestyles of the FORMADAT members
and added impetus to their use of their ICT networks to achieve such outcomes.
As a result of the widely publicised successesof the eBario project, the other FORMADAT communities were alerted to the potential for positive
outcomes from similar projects for themselves.
Accordingly, they were highly motivated towards
participating in the establishment and operationof their own ICT installations, which facilitated

158 / Global Information Society Watchthe recruitment of volunteers and also helped in
mobilising community engagement towards theidentification of suitable ICT applications thatwould be capable of contributing towards theirwell-being. Nevertheless, there were still significant

challenges, not the least being the logistical aspects relating to the remoteness of the locations,but more significant was the imperative for establishing trust between the implementation teams
and the communities.

Table 1.

The FORMADAT ICT community networks
Location

ICT components Community Ownership andmanagement

Partners

Status and impact

Telecentre:
computers,
VSAT1 internet
access,telephone, solar
power

1,000
Kelabitresidents

eBario Sdn
Bhd, a social
enterprisepromoting ICTs
for community
development.
Run byvolunteers.

UNIMAS2IDRC3
MIMOS4MCMC5Opened by UNIMAS in 2001 andhanded over to the community in
2005. Having achieved its objectivesof raising awareness and skills andstimulating local development,
rebranded in 2016 as a knowledge
centre and community museum.

Bario
Computers,
1Malaysia
internet accessInternet Centre and Wi-Fi

1,000
Kelabitresidents

MCMC witha locally
employed
manager.

MCMC

Opened 2016. Raising ICT skills
for e‑learning, social media,
entrepreneurship, multimedia, andlife-long learning.

Radio Bario,
Sarawak,
Malaysia

Low-power
50-watt FM
transmitter

1,000
Kelabitresidents

eBario Sdn
Bhd. Runby femalevolunteers.

Went on-air October 2011 and still
IFAD6
RadioActive operational, broadcasting twice daily(UK)
to residents living within a range of
15-25 km. Delivers local news in the
Kelabit language.

eBario,Sarawak,
Malaysia

VSAT for internet 1,000
eBario Sdn Bhd OmniAccess Provides internet access for groundaccess and Wi-Fi Kelabit
S.L. (Spain) station testing to be used for data
residents
streaming and digital broadcasting
and 5,000+
of Radio Bario.
diaspora

Ba’kelalan,
Sarawak,
Malaysia

Telecentre:
2,500 Luncomputers, VSAT Bawang
internet access, residents
Wi-Fi, telephone,solar power

UNIMAS andUNIMASthe community. MIMOSRun byMCMC
volunteers.

Opened by UNIMAS in December
2010. Raising awareness and skills
and stimulating local development.

E-Krayan
Telecentre,Long
Bawan, East
Kalimantan,
Indonesia

Computers, VSAT 3,800
internet accessLundayeresidents

Managed by
FORMADAT
Krayan.

eBarioWWFIndonesia
Germangovernment(BMZ-FiT)

Opened in April, 2011. Provides ICT
access for residents, local schools,
government officials, visitors, andthe health centre.
Supports promotion of local
products and ecotourism.

eLamai,Long Lamai,
Sarawak,
Malaysia

Computers, VSAT 600 Penaninternet access, residents
Wi-Fi, telephone,solar power

UNIMAS andthe community.
Run byvolunteers.

UNIMAS
Information
SocietyInnovation
Fund Asia

Opened in 2009. Raises
awareness and skills promoting
health, ecotourism, highlighting
local development issues, anddocumenting aspects of local
culture.

Long Pasia,
1Malaysia
Internet
Centre, Sabah,
Malaysia

Computers,internet accessand Wi-Fi

MCMC witha locally
employed
manager.

MCMC

Opened in 2017. Raising ICT skills
for e‑learning, social media,
entrepreneurship, multimedia, andlife-long learning.

eBario,Sarawak,
Malaysia

500 LunBawang/Lun Dayehresidents

1) Very small aperture terminal. 2) Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. 3)International Development Research Centre (Canada). 4) Agency of Malaysia’s
Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation for Applied Research and Development in ICTs. 5) Malaysian Communications and Multimedia
Commission. 6) International Fund for Agricultural Development.

indonesia and Malaysia / 159

The eBario telecentre research project has been
widely acclaimed, winning multiple awards for its
innovative approach to localised development forrural and remote communities. As a result, it is possible to claim considerable influence over Malaysian
government policy for accelerating the provision ofsubsidised internet access to its underserved rural
population. The application for a licence for Radio
Bario lead directly to the government liberalising
its policy to allow community broadcasting. With
the formation of FORMADAT, WWF became awareof the impact of these initiatives and championed
the establishment of the telecentre in Long Bawan,
Indonesia. Subsequently, seeing the convergenceof each other’s goals, WWF-Malaysia and Indonesia have entered into a formal partnership withUNIMAS and FORMADAT to conduct joint action
research around the theme of ICTs for endogenous
and indigenised development among the communities in the Heart of Borneo. Simultaneously,
the government has extended its 1Malaysia programme for public internet centres into the area,
stimulated – it can be argued – by the achievementsof the previous implementations. Additionally,
Malaysian telecommunications operators have extended their mobile phone networks into the area,
recognising the potential market among the now
technology-aware communities and their desire for
improved communications.
Against this background of technology diffusion,and arising from their studies of the impact it could
have, UNIMAS researchers quickly understood thatdesirable results stem from how the technology
is used and that communities would benefit fromfacilitated processes to define uses of technologythat would contribute to their specific needs andaspirations.4 By adopting a process of participatory
engagement for mutual learning, they were able tojointly develop an agenda that defined applications
capable of achieving this. One important component of this is the eBorneo Knowledge Fair (eBKF),
which began in 2007 in Bario and has been held
every other year since then, moving to Ba’kelalan
in 2015. The fair is an immersive experience in rural telecommunications for local development – forresearchers, government officials, policy makers,
private sector representatives and development
professionals. The event features the innovative
4

Bala, P., Harris, R. W., & Songan, P. (2004). eBario Project: In
Search of a Methodology to Provide Access to Information
Communications Technologies for Rural Communities in
Malaysia. In S. Marshall, W. Taylor, & Y. Xinghuo (Eds.),
Using Community Informatics to Transform Regions.
IGI Publishing. https://www.igi-global.com/book/using-community-informatics-transform-regions/1022

use of technologies for localised development andit offers opportunities for knowledge exchange andsharing between community members and various
other stakeholders. eBKF is organised as an “unconference” – structured and led by the people
attending it. Instead of passive listening, all attendees are encouraged to participate. eBKF features
open discussions, workshops and “walk-shops” (inwhich participants are taken on a walk around thevillage to illustrate the topic they are discussing)rather than individual speakers giving talks.
The result has been a range of implementations that demonstrate improvements in education,
health, enterprise development, social interactions
and cultural preservation, all of which are greatly
welcomed by the participating communities. Women
have benefited particularly from additional incomesthrough the promotion of community-based eco­
tourism, which has expanded considerably andwhich generates jobs that they typically perform.5

Conclusion
Overall, research findings suggest that the community ICT networks and their associated activities
for engagement with their users have empowered
communities towards development that they welcome by giving them voice, stimulating involvementin public debates that affect them, and enabling
more equal participation in the information age
and digital economy policies that the respective
governments are advancing. The major lessons arethat i) smart partnerships can create win-win opportunities for communities to acquire otherwise
unaffordable technology resources, and ii) while
the technology is essential, alone it is insufficient,requiring associated activities for public engagement in order to generate positive outcomes thatare relevant to local needs. Insofar as the networks
have been able to stimulate locally derived development, they can be seen to have achieved positive
results.
However, with regard to the wider context of regional and national development, the participating
communities are still experiencing tension between
what is regarded as development by them and how
it is defined by national authorities and public bodies. Accordingly, there is now a pressing need toinfluence national policy making in both countries
towards the concept of endogenous and indigenised development that can be fostered with ICTs
5

Harris, R. W. (2009). Tourism in Bario, Sarawak, Malaysia: A Case
Study of Pro-poor Community-based Tourism Integrated into
Community Development. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research,
14(2), 125-135. https://doi.org/10.1080/10941660902847179

160 / Global Information Society Watch

in accordance with the principles of environmental
protection and sustainable development. In thisregard, despite the commitments to preserving
the Heart of Borneo, it remains unclear that suchpolicies have been internalised within national development programmes, and it is this that makes up
the greatest challenge to ensuring that ICTs achieve
their optimum contribution to development.

•

Focus on turning access to technology into relevant use by communities by seeking answers
from them.

•

Accelerate the diffusion of access to technologies and acknowledge the long-term necessity
for subsidies.

•

Extend universal service provision fund eligibility to qualified community-based organisations.

Action steps•

Promote development policies that acknowledge the imperative for indigenised
development.

The following recommendations can be made whensetting up a community network:•

Find partners who are willing to learn and share
their knowledge and resources.

indonesia and Malaysia / 161

ItalyBuilding community networks in Italy: Hacker-led
experiments to bridge the digital divide

ly variegated geography, made up of flatlands
and many mountainous and hilly zones. While
this diversity is culturally astonishing, it is anightmare from the point of view of developing
infrastructures.

University of Trento, CNIT and ninux.org
Leonardo Maccari and Claudio Pisa
ninux.org

Introduction
This report describes community networks on the Italian scene, with particular attention to ninux.org, which
has the largest coverage in the country and the longest history. Ninux started as a “geek experiment”, andmaintained this approach throughout its evolution.
This gave it a specific ethical and ideological
purpose, and allowed it to actively contribute to thespirit and development of the European community network movement. Its approach, although not
focused on internet access, was successful, especially in urban areas, in a period in which wirelesstechnologies were expanding, and the Italian hacker scene was very active. Today, however, we areseeing a decrease in interest and energy comparedto other European initiatives.
The report describes ninux.org’s trajectory,
while also considering other internet-based initiatives in Italy that are expanding their user base. It
describes two possible futures for ninux, which may
be emblematic of the hard decisions that many involved in the early community network movement
worldwide might face.

Policy, economic and political background
Three features of Italy are worth describing to introduce the context:•

Italy is one of the European countries with thelargest digital divide (in 2017 only 69.5% of Italian families had access to the internet throughfixed broadband, according to the Italian National Statistical Institute).1 This is probably
due to the fact that the Italian population isscattered over a large area: 55% of its people
live in cities and towns with fewer than 50,000
inhabitants, and about 18% in towns with fewer
than 5,000.2 The country also has an extreme-1
2

https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/207825
From the document Strategia italiana per la banda larga, availableat www.sviluppoeconomico.gov.it/images/stories/documenti/
ITALIA_Strategia_BUL-Piano_di_investimenti_fin.pdf•

Italy is one of the countries in the European Union
that was hit most severely by the economic crisisin the last decade. According to the National Statistical Institute, in 2006 the number of people
living in absolute poverty was about 1.9 million,
while by 2016 this had grown to 4.7 million.

•

The Italian population is ageing, and declining
in number. Italy has one of the highest rates ofpeople (especially young people) emigrating toforeign countries and one of the lowest numberof people with a university degree.

These statistics are important because ninux.org
emerged in the early 2000s as a community where
hackers (primarily young and educated males) engaged in the creation of an alternative internet, withinternal rules derived from their own ethical andpolitical vision. Today this approach faces the challenges of a society that is more unequal, precarious,
uncertain, and less educated, especially when it
comes to young people. Can an advanced, progressive hacker experiment thrive in a declining society?

The history of ninux.org
Ninux.org was started in Rome in the early 2000s
and was the initiative of a computer science engineering student, Nino Ciurleo. Nino had growntechnically in the ham radio community as wellas the Italian hacker scene and was influenced by
the punk do-it-yourself attitude. One day he readabout the Seattle Wireless community network ina magazine, liked the idea, and decided to use his
personal web page – ninux.org (a pun on “Nino” and“Linux”) – which was hosted on a server in his room,
to search for other enthusiasts to help him build
a wireless community network in Rome. To help
spread the word, stickers were printed and placedaround the city. After a couple of years, the ninux
network was bootstrapped, and the core of the
network, composed of three nodes, was up and running. Many people with different (but still technical)
backgrounds were then joining the ninux mailing

162 / Global Information Society Watch

The sticker promoting the early ninux community network.

list and meetings. The motivations for joining thecommunity ranged from socio-political reasons, tohelping to bridge the digital divide, a desire to learn
by doing, down to pure curiosity.
In spring 2006, a handful of ninux members participated in the Wireless Community Weekend in
Berlin, getting a grasp of the philosophy of the Freifunk community network3 and acquiring skills in meshnetworking and open source firmware operation anddevelopment. Back in Rome, these skills were developed by the core members of the community and put
into practice. However, some obstacles were in theway: the hilly topography of Rome and the unclear legal framework for outdoor wireless networks.
In 2009 the ninux community organised thefirst “Ninux Day”, a two-day event to which several community network members were invited:
community network members from Freifunk, guifi.
net and Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network(AWMN), developers from the OpenWrt community,4 and other enthusiasts from all over Europe
gathered in Rome to hack together and give and attend talks. The most interesting outcomes from theninux perspective were the enthusiastic response
from other European community networks and theunderstanding that Europe has a common legal
framework, which potentially allowed ninux to circumvent what appeared to be the legal limitations
for outdoor wireless in Italy.
Just some weeks before Ninux Day 2009, some
ninux members attended the Wireless Battle Meshv2 in Brussels,5 an event to build a wireless mesh network and test the performance of different wirelessmesh network routing protocols. This led to ninuxorganising the Wireless Battle Mesh v3 at a campsite
3

4
5

next to a lake near Rome in 2010, replicating the
success of the Ninux Day event and also involving a
range of different people with different skills.
Since then, many things have changed. Ninux is
now a community with about 350 nodes scatteredaround Italy. It is an integral part of the European
community network movement: it hosts services,it has participated in European research projects,
it has its own “autonomous system”, and it is wellknown among Italian hackers and geeks.

A community of hackers
One of the key characteristics of ninux is its hacker
nature. In the period 2013-2015 (when Italian legal
limitations were no longer in place6 and Snowden’srevelations were under the spotlight), ninux almost
doubled the number of its nodes and hit the news inmany mainstream newspapers and websites. Mesh
networks were depicted as a remedy not only forthe digital divide, but also for surveillance. Besides
a certain degree of journalistic hype, the truth wasthat around 2010, both the technical and ethicalpropositions of community networks were extremely advanced. The idea that a mesh network, being
technically distributed, could enable the creation of
a communication platform with a governance structure inspired innovation and advancements in many
directions. Today, the academic community recognises the value of that “avant-garde” period, andcommunity networks have been invited by national
and international institutions to document their activities over that time.
6

The Freifunk community is one of the first of its kind in Europe.
They meet every year in a get-together called the WirelessCommunity Weekend. In 2018 it merged with Wireless Battle Mesh,
the most relevant European meeting of community networks. See
https://wireless-meshup.org/doku.php
https://freifunk.net, https://guifi.net, www.awmn.net and https://
openwrt.org
All the Battle Mesh events are documented at: https://www.
battlemesh.org
italy / 163

Until 2011 the anti-terrorism “Pisanu” Law, named after theformer minister of the interior in Silvio Berlusconi’s government,
introduced a technical and legal burden on anybody wanting tooffer Wi-Fi access to the public in terms of authentication and dataretention. The law introduced a legal responsibility for storing
privacy-sensitive data. Up until 2012 the “Gasparri” Law, named
for the telecommunications minister in the same government,
required permission to be granted to operate wireless networks inpublic places, even using unlicensed frequencies. Today, the Italiansystem is less severe on Wi-Fi networks, even if issues remain
with regards to authentication and data retention. See: https://
netcommons.eu/?q=content/community-wireless-networksintermediary-liability-and-mcfadden-cjeu-case

It is fundamental to understand that withoutboth the technical and social passion of the community network activists, this would not be possible.
Hackers made it possible to develop and share thetools that once were only available to them. Todaythese have been made available to communities
with very few technical skills. If a rural community
with few technical skills can now use LibreMesh7 to
set up a network, it is thanks to the community network hackers who have worked hard over the lasttwo decades for this to be possible.
Today, the expansion of community networks
is remarkable; some of them have reached tens of
thousands of nodes, and many new communities
have emerged especially in the global South. But
what happens when the community network movement starts to lose its appeal to hackers? In thecase of ninux, the technical nature of the community has always been a strong driving force. Whenthe community’s interest in the emerging technicalissues decreased, fewer and fewer people participated in the community.
It may be that the context had a large impact
on this evolution. For instance, in the last coupleof years, at least five key people, and among themost technically skilled that had participated in
the community, simply left Italy as a consequenceof the social situation described above. A societythat is more unequal and in which it is hard to findeconomic stability produces isolation and disincentivises participation, and ninux is probably also partof a general decline of Italian community organisations. On the other hand, it is also true what one“ninuxer” said in a meeting in 2017: “Wireless is notcool anymore.”
While 10-15 years ago wireless technology wason the rise and attracted the attention of hackers,
today, wireless is taken for granted; it is a “commodity”, and young hackers are more attracted byother fields (like blockchain, the internet of things,etc.). Similarly, networking, open source and Linuxhacking were original and new in the early 2000s,
while today students studying information andcommunications technology (ICT) in universities
often acquire those skills while studying. Somepeople joined ninux as a personal investment inthemselves, which later on turned out to be a careerin ICTs. It may then be that the specific combinationof technical novelty and the status of a “liberation
technology” enjoyed by wireless in the early 2000s
that made community networks (and ninux) flourish may not be present anymore. It is reasonable tothink that ninux, while still being a vivid community
7

https://libremesh.org(especially on some of the smaller Italian islands),
needs to change its principles in order to continue
to exist in the years to come.

A parenthesis: Other community networks
in Italy
There are several initiatives that may fit the description of a “community network” on the Italianpeninsula. Projects like Progetto Neco (Neco Project),8 GalliaNetwork,9 Reti Senza Frontiere (literally“Networks Without Borders”)10 and Senza Fili Senza
Confini (SFSC, or, literally, “No Wires, No Limits”)11
are small to medium initiatives that may be called“community ISPs”. Progetto Neco (Neco stands for“network community”) is based in Vietri di Potenza,a town with less than 3,000 residents in the southof Italy. The project was started in 2008 by a groupof local hackers with the aim of bridging the digital
divide and today has 36 nodes serving roughly 230
families. An association was created, and associates
pay a monthly fee to access the network services andthe internet. GalliaNetwork is another community
ISP, located in the town of Canezza in the north of Italy. Similarly to Neco, it was created in 2011 by a groupof residents who had no internet access, before
expanding into a network serving several surrounding towns. A group of five to six enthusiasts run the
network and offer several services, such as website
hosting, a local cloud and internet access. Reti Senza
Frontiere is a small association born in 2015 in the
countryside outside Rome. It connects a few families
to the internet in another digitally divided area.
SFSC stands out from the others for its evolution
and the media coverage it has received worldwide.
It is another association whose primary purpose is
to fight the digital divide in an area north of the cityof Turin called Verrua Savoia. From there, it expanded to several small villages isolated from the maincity by the mountains. SFSC started as a researchexperiment led by the Polytechnic University ofTurin, one of the most important technical universities in Italy, which had already used a customised
wireless device to connect an isolated town. Afterthat first experimental phase, the initiative turned
into an organisation, and now serves (according to
its president and founder Daniele Trinchero) about
5,000 families in the region for a fraction of the market cost of commercial ADSL service.
The organisation is rooted in the territory andorganises courses, skills sharing, and digital literacy
8
9
10
11

www.progettoneco.org
www.gallianetwork.it
retisenzafrontiere.org
https://www.senzafilisenzaconfini.org

164 / Global Information Society Watchactivities. In 2014 it was featured in The New YorkTimes, and later on in Italian newspapers, which gavehigh visibility to the project. Compared to the otherlocal initiatives, SFSC had the advantage of beingborn from one of the most important and organised
universities in Italy. This offered the necessary technical skills together with network competence andcontacts that made it easier to solve the initial challenges to bootstrap the network.
All these experiences tell us that the model ofa community network is welcomed in rural areas,in which there is a need for low-cost access to theinternet. With their own differences, these networks
are growing, or have reached a state in which they
could grow more, but are limited by the lack of human resources to make the network scale.
Ninux always tried not to be perceived as an ISP,
but as an experimental, hacker network. The reason
for this is that ninux was born in an urban area andmany people contacted the community hoping to
replace their ISP with ninux for free. This utilitarian attitude was discouraged by the community,
which clearly stated that while ninux has several
gateways to the internet, it was not there just to
replace commercial ISPs. Rather, it was a philosophy, a movement that was political, practical andexperimental.
Today ninux has expanded into rural areas withpoor connectivity. On some islands, its primary purpose is actually utilitarian: to overcome the digital
divide. But the original spirit still persists.

Conclusions
The intrinsic innovative value of community networks is their mix of technical and social innovation.
Technology (low-cost wireless solutions and open
source software to run networks) enabled a newsocial behaviour, which challenged the status quo
in service provision and the monopolies enjoyed by
the telecommunications industry. This is true in areas where there was simply no internet access, andcommunity networks showed how this was possible, but also in areas where the big telcos – whose
ethical fingerprint is questionable – have a market
share. We cannot untangle the technical and the social advances, as the second is enabled by the first,
and feeds back into it. Without hackers, there would
be no ninux, no Freifunk, no guifi.net, no LibreMesh(just to name a few) and in general, no community
networks. If the whole community network movement turns into a “connectivity factory”, its original
and innovative push will be strongly reduced.
The question that is still open today is how to couple the technical innovation of community networks

with the social impact that social enterprises areachieving in other fields (e.g. food cooperatives,to name just one movement that is very active in
Italy). A hacker network is, by definition, a moving
target, an experimental infrastructure that could be
subject to tests, changes and failures. A community
ISP, instead, tries to offer a service comparable tothe service that a commercial ISP offers. When theninux community faced the chance of moving to an“in production” network it reacted without much interest. Many people in the community were there toexperiment, not to run an ISP. And in fact, runningan ISP is a tough job; and most of all, it is a job.

Action steps
The ninux community does not have well-defineddecision-making bodies or procedures, and its participants come from heterogeneous backgrounds.
Until now, ninux has not had the willingness to try
to become a community ISP, even if successful models point in this direction. There are two scenarios
we can imagine and we describe them below, withsome possible next steps.
In one scenario, the ninux community has nointerest in transforming into a community ISP;
ninux is then seen as a lab for experimenting withnew technologies and ideas, having as outputs
innovative distributed infrastructures based on
open source software and hardware, and serving
as inspiration for new community ISP models. The
socio-political motivation is then derived from themix of these outputs and the open attitude of theninux community. Ninux would have to update thethemes it explores to meet the potential of newtechnologies that need to be hacked (e.g. the internet of things?), but it may shift away from the goalof being a community network.
In another scenario, ninux takes steps towards
becoming an ethical community ISP. The community is increasingly composed of non-technical people
whose motivations for participating are derived
elsewhere. In this scenario, the ninux goals would
shift towards solving the problems reported by theusers and the broader local communities. This process requires “technological mediation” skills andthe willingness to put aside those practices andattitudes (e.g. techno-elitism) which usually ward
other people off from the hackers’ domain.
What is not clear is if the scenarios describedabove are mutually exclusive, or can co-exist to
some extent. What we hope is that this discussion
takes place in the ninux community, and that thecommunity evolves maintaining its spirit based onsocially inspired innovation.

italy / 165kenyaConnecting the unconnected in Kenya’s urban slums

needs.6 These needs vary from one community toanother; as a result, these networks have different
motivations for starting. Kenya, like many countries
in Africa, is still new to community networks. This
report focuses on the TunapandaNET community
network, the only one in the country.

Tunapanda InstituteJosephine Miliza
https://www.tunapanda.org/

Introduction
Kenya, one of Africa’s fastest growing informationand communications technology (ICT) markets, hasa long-term development plan, Vision 2030, thataims to transform Kenya into a knowledge-based
economy by utilising ICTs for national development and growth.1 In the 2017/2018 second quarterstatistics report released by the Communications
Authority of Kenya, mobile subscriptions recordeda growth of 4.4%, rising from 41 million to 42.8 million. The mobile penetration level reached 94.3%,
up from 90.4%.2 Data internet subscriptions recorded an 8% growth – 33.3 million up from 30.8 million
subscriptions.
Yet even with these milestones in mobile connectivity, rural and informal settlements lag behind.
Challenges such as the high cost of internet access,a lack of infrastructure, a lack of locally relevant
content and a lack of ICT skills are barriers to utilising ICTs effectively for socioeconomic development.
Nairobi is the country’s largest and capital city,with an estimated population of 3.5 million,3 andslums hosting almost three-quarters of this population.4 Kibera is Nairobi’s largest slum, located seven
kilometres south of the city with an estimated population of 500,000 to 700,000.5 Residents of Kibera
suffer from poverty, inadequate food and water,
rampant diseases and few educational opportunities. A majority of the residents live on under adollar a day.
Community networks can be defined as a bottomup approach to meeting community connec­tivity
1
2
3
4

5

icta.go.ke/pdf/THE%20NATIONAL%20ICT%20MASTERPLAN%20
2017.pdf
www.ca.go.ke/images/downloads/STATISTICS/Sector%20
Statistics%20Report%20Q2%20%202017-18.pdf
Kenya’s population is estimated to have reached 50,827,543 in
2018. worldpopulationreview.com/countries/kenya-population
Sana, O., & Okombo, O. (2012). Taking Stock of Socio-economic
Challenges in the Nairobi Slums. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. https://www.fes-kenya.org/media/publications/2013/Taking%20
Stock%20of%20Slums%20Booklet.pdf
mirror.unhabitat.org/content.
asp?cid=3220&catid=206&typeid=13

TunapandaNET community network
TunapandaNET is an urban community network operating in Kibera. It is a project of the Tunapanda
Institute, a non-profit social enterprise that runs
intensive three-month technology, multimedia
design, and business training courses in extreme
low-income environments in East Africa, such as
Kibera and Turkana in deep rural Kenya.7 These programmes enable young people to become digitalprofessionals, and to gain skills and mindsets toempower other youth in their communities throughpeer-to-peer learning. The organisation has produced 400 graduates in the past four years.
The TunapandaNET community network wasstarted to help the institute reach more youth inKibera, since the institute can only accommodate 30
trainees per cohort. In 2015, the institute started developing a gamified e‑learning platform called Swag.8
Swag is an open source software system – for web
and Android – that enables individuals and groups toaccess offline multimedia educational content without needing access to the internet or highly trainedteachers. The initial goal was to connect the instituteto three partners in Kibera through a wireless meshnetwork. The partners would serve as hotspots where
youth would access the e‑learning platform.
Through a video created by the institute, Ubiquiti equipment was donated to help build a pilot meshnetwork for the project. However, the project implementation team at the institute, consisting of two IT
volunteers and three Tunapanda graduates from theprevious cohorts, faced challenges such as insufficient knowledge and skills in operating the equipment
and few resources online to provide guidance. As a6

7
8

Rey-Moreno, C. (2017). Supporting the Creation and Scalability of
Affordable Access Solutions: Understanding Community Networks in
Africa. Internet Society. https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/
doc/2017/supporting-the-creation-and-scalability-of-affordableaccess-solutions-understanding-community-networks-in-africa
https://www.tunapanda.org
swag.tunapanda.org

166 / Global Information Society Watch

result, some of the donated equipment broke. The
team was also not aware of any existing projects thatthey could contact for support for the technical challenges they faced. Finally, the team was able to pilot
the network by connecting Tunapanda to one of threepartner nodes. However, the e‑learning platform did
not receive as many users as they had anticipated.

other operators in Africa and shared the challenges they were facing in establishing their network in
Kibera. From these discussions, the network operators formed a support group championed by Carlos,
Jane Coffin and Michuki Mwangi from the InternetSociety to address the issues they were facing.

Breakthroughs

These experiences helped TunapandaNET rethink
its model. One lesson drawn from successful community networks was that most go for community
buy-in first. Using a user-centred design approach,the team started carrying out research on potential network users, a critical step they had failed totake before. This enabled them to understand theunique challenges faced by Kibera residents, and to
co-design potential solutions with them. Some of
the key challenges were access to computers, lackof ICT skills, and lack of knowledge on how accessto connectivity could help them increase their earnings. Most of the youth only accessed the internet
for entertainment purposes.
Three areas were identified as areas of greatvalue to the community: education, health andbusiness. Deployment was planned in three phases, with the education pillar being first. Kibera
has over 300 educational institutions, most being
low-cost, privately run, informal schools.14 Most ofthese schools are run by religious institutions andnon-governmental organisations serving vulnerable children and youth. They face challenges suchas lack of trained teachers, poor infrastructure, anda lack of learning resources due to high costs.
Charles Ochieng, a local community leader andmanager at St. Christine Community School, which
has over 500 students, said that every year theschool loses close to USD 10,000 in unpaid school
fees since most parents are unable to pay. Becauseof this they have difficulties in paying their teachers
and rely on the good will of these teachers during
tough months. Despite the fact that the schoollacks a fully equipped science lab and relies onborrowed equipment, its neighbouring schools relyon it to share its lab with them during the national
secondary school examinations. Tumaini School,
another informal school with a population of over
300 students, uses downloaded YouTube science
experiment videos to teach practical science lessons with only four laptops serving the whole
school. The school’s principal James Wanyama has
expressed his desire for the school to have morecomputers, but cited the high cost of computers as
a barrier. However, despite these challenges, it is

Two breakthroughs came in 2016. First, in March
2016, two of the team members were selected to attend a workshop on the internet of things (IoT) andnetworking for developing countries at the Abdus
Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics.9
During the training sessions, they presented themesh network idea to workshop organisers Marco Zennaro and Prof. Ermanno Pietrosemoli, whogave them some pointers on configuring Ubiquiti
equipment and donated some routers to the project. The team also met Arjuna Sathiaseelan and
Adisorn Lertsinsrubtavee, who also had experiencein community networks and offered very valuableadvice on how to move forward with the project. Before the workshop, the team was not aware of theterm “community networks” and the significanceof setting up a community structure that allowed
the community to manage its own access needs.
Their idea was simply a technological solution tosolving the challenges of high bandwidth costs andaccess to digital educational content. They were introduced to successful community networks suchas guifi.net10 in Catalonia and TakNet11 in rural Thailand, which they could draw lessons from.
The second breakthrough was meeting Carlos Rey-Moreno from Zenzeleni Networks in South
Africa, who was carrying out research on existing
community networks in Africa. Following the “Mapof the Community Network Initiatives in Africa” report,12 the first Summit on Community Networks in
Africa was held in November 2016, supported by theInternet Society.13 During the summit, the team met
9 https://www.ictp.it
10 https://guifi.net/en/node/38392
11 Lertsinsrubtavee, A., et al. (2015). Understanding Internet Usageand Network Locality in a Rural Community Wireless Mesh Network.
Proceedings of the Asian Internet Engineering Conference 2015.
docplayer.net/24614970-Understanding-internet-usage-andnetwork-locality-in-a-rural-community-wireless-mesh-network.html
12 Rey-Moreno, C., & Graaf, M. (2016). Map of the Community
Network Initiatives in Africa. In L. Belli (Ed.), Community
connectivity: Building the Internet from scratch. Annual report of
the UN IGF Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309291449_Map_of_the_Community_Network_Initiatives_in_Africa
13 Rey-Moreno, C. (2017, 12 January). 1st Summit on
Community Networks in Africa Report. InternetSociety. https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/
doc/2017/1st-summit-on-community-networks-in-africa-report

Going back to the drawing board

14 openschoolskenya.org

kenya / 167

inspiring to see how these schools do their best to
deliver learning to a population that seems forgotten by the relevant government institutions.
This phase focused on promoting the use of
ICTs for education. This entails providing schools
with access to digital educational content throughthe e‑learning platform and digital tools for records
management. Teachers would also receive ICT
training and be taught how to use the e‑learning
platform to digitise their lesson plans and deliver
learning to students.
In 2017, through a partnership with the Internet Society, the International Centre of Theoretical
Physics and Rhinotivity (Denmark),15 TunapandaNET
deployed four nodes serving two schools with over
1,500 students and a youth centre serving 300 local youths. The network provides access to offline
educational resources and capacity building for thedifferent network user groups. In 2018/2019, thenetwork will be expanding to 10 additional centres –seven schools, two youth centres and one women’scentre. This will be done in partnership with the Internet Society Kenya Chapter16 through the InternetSociety’s Beyond the Net Funding Programme.17 The
seven schools have a total of 2,900 students while
the community centres will be adding 550 users to
the network. It is estimated that the network will
have 5,000 users by 2019.
TunapandaNET provides the following services18
to partner institutions:•

Access to the internet.

•

The Swag e‑learning platform, which enables
users to access learning resources as well as
create content. Through the platform, teachers
can create digitised lesson plans and curricula.
The goal is to provide locally relevant digitised
educational resources. The platform also hascontent that teaches the youth skills in technology, design and business. These microcourses are derived from Tunapanda’s threemonth curricula.

•

Digital skills training for teachers, youth andwomen, equipping them with relevant skills in
education, work and entrepreneurship.

•

Technical support for schools and community
centres.

15
16
17
18

https://twitter.com/rhinotivity?lang=en
https://www.isoc.or.ke
https://www.internetsociety.org/beyond-the-net
We are offering the services for free for a period of six months,
after which institutions will start paying. We are still working out abusiness/payment model.

The centres will receive a free six-month trial period
for all the services, during which the TunapandaNET
team will conduct research with partner institutions
that will help determine ownership and businessmodels for sustainability.
The network – which uses the 2.4 GHz and
5.8GHz unlicensed spectrum – now has three main
layers: core, distribution and access. The core layer is the Wi-Fi network backbone, as well as a data
centre, responsible for hosting the Swag e‑learning
platform, open educational resources and a school
management system.
The distribution layer is responsible for connecting the access and core layers. To overcome
interference from obstacles such as buildings andtrees, there are two base stations set up on highpoints in Kibera. The hardware used for the basestations are the Ubiquiti LiteBeam AC grid and Ubiquiti LiteBeam AC. The Litebeam AC grid is used forthe backhaul connection to Tunapanda Institute.
The access layer, which provides the connection to
the end-users, has either Ubiquiti LiteBeam AC or
Ubiquiti NanoStation M5 and 2.4 GHz D-Link wireless access points. This layer is responsible for
distributing internet access and other network services to the end-users.

Beyond access: Building innovative learningand earning communities“Building community networks is 20% technical engineering and 80% social engineering.”–Michuki Mwangi (Internet Society)
With the low literacy levels in the community, mostfind it difficult to understand the value that the internet would bring to their lives. There is always the“So what?” question. Unless the community members see tangible solutions to their local needs, thenetwork is not sustainable. Going “beyond access”
means individuals and communities being able toaccess better education, health and government
services. They should be able to innovate and create local solutions to their unique challenges, suchas new markets for their products and services, thepreservation of indigenous cultures, and amplifying
the voices of the unheard. There is also the challenge of how to incentivise the community to bepart of the network as volunteers, or even to takepart in the capacity-building programmes. Kibera
has many NGOs that give monetary benefits to thecommunity, and this creates an expectation fromthe community.
There is also some competition among schools
and NGOs which can hinder collaboration. The

168 / Global Information Society Watchchallenge and opportunity ahead lie in building learning and earning communities within the
network, and bringing together the different stakeholders to work collaboratively.
The network can be a catalyst in enabling thecommunity to create solutions and boost the local
economy. As local schools continue to adopt ICTs,
they need maintenance services. The network is
working towards equipping local youth with computer hardware, software and network skills tomeet the network maintenance needs, and thereby
increase their earning potential. Youth in Kibera arevery passionate about art and music and the network can be a platform connecting them to local andinternational markets. The network is also working
towards training women in e‑entrepreneurship sothey can better the business potential of their handmade crafts such as handbags and jewellery.

The gender gap
The gender gap can be addressed from two perspectives: the team and network users. Only two of
the seven members of the TunapandaNET team arefemale. This is a symptom of few women embarking
on technology-related careers in Kenya. The main
challenge faced by female team members is accessto some of the network’s partner institutions, due toinsecurity and fear of harassment from unemployedmale youth. Thus, we female team members haveto be accompanied by male team members for all
partner visits.
For the network users, very few women and girls
are interested in digital skills training programmesor technology-related careers. During the team’s interview with form four students at St. Christine highschool, only one girl out of 23 girls was interested
in a career in science, technology, engineering, andmathematics (STEM). None of the girls knew about
technology-related careers or had heard about
computer science or coding. Although the school
has a computer lab, the school manager said that
only the male students used it frequently. When the
girls were asked why, they answered that they did
not see how learning computers would help their
desired careers. I took that opportunity to sharewith the girls my journey to becoming a network
engineer and quite a number took an interest in
learning more on technology.
From this experience at St. Christine school
and other partner institutions, it was found outthat a majority of girls and women in Kibera havevery limited knowledge of technology and technology-related careers, and see it as a male domain.
Other challenges are high costs of ICT devices suchas computers and smartphones. To access the internet, women would have to use local cybercafés,
which are mostly used and run by males. Many
women have expressed fear of sexual harassmentin the cybercafés. Relevance is another issue: women often cannot see how the internet can be used totackle the challenges they face.
In 2016, Tunapanda started an initiative called
Tech Dada (Tech Sisters) to address these challenges through a mentorship programme for girls
aged 14 to 20, and offering digital literacy training
for women. These programmes are done in partnership with centres connected to the TunapandaNET
community network. The initiative has in the past
partnered with Plan International Kenya throughthe Adolescent Girls Initiative Kenya,19 which provided online safety training for the programme’s peer
mentors. It has also trained local women championsin Kibera through the Women Voices programme,20
which used ICTs to amplify women’s voices in governance issues in Kibera.
Currently, none of the women from the community is involved in the technical aspects of the
network. However, the network is working towards
increasing the number of women in the community
with technical expertise by encouraging more women to start with the digital literacy training, after
which they can proceed to the advanced courses
in technology. These courses are to be offered ina local women’s centre that the network will beconnecting.

Action steps
Community networks are like entrepreneurial startups: it takes resilience, learning from failures, andefficient management of available resources tobuild one. It is an iterative process, as technology
and community needs keep evolving. They alsoneed institutional support to survive.
The following steps would strengthen community networks in Kenya:•

Lower the operating fees: The Communications
Authority of Kenya develops the national radio
frequency plan and a publicly available National Table of Frequency Allocation.21 Community
networks such as TunapandaNET fall under network facility providers of infrastructure andcontent providers. The initial licence fees under

19 www.popcouncil.org/research/adolescent-girls-initiative-action-research-program
20 https://womenvoicesictchoices.org
21 www.ca.go.ke/index.php/frequency-spectrum

kenya / 169these categories are between USD 1,000 and
USD 2,000 within a county boundary.22 These
fees are difficult for communities such as Kibera
to meet. For community networks to have an impact in poor communities in Kenya, these fees
need to be lowered considerably.
•

Create policy incentives for community networks: In the country’s Wireless Broadband
Spectrum Policy, drafted in 2017, some of the
proposed principles include offering incentives
to encourage deployment in rural areas and tax
exemptions for initiatives with public interest

22 www.ca.go.ke/images/downloads/TELECOMMUNICATION/
LicensingProcedures/New%20Market%20Structure%20
Under%20The%20Unified%20Licensing%20Framework%20-February%202017.pdf

objectives, such as research and development.23
Community networks should be given such policy incentives, given their efforts in connecting
underserved areas.
•

Raise awareness: Finally, given that TunapandaNET is the only community network in Kenya
at the moment, it is important to promote moreawareness on community networks in the country. This would help TunapandaNET in gaining
buy-in from the community and build local
partnerships and collaborations to support the
network.

23 www.ict.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DRAFT-WIRELESSBROADBAND-SPECTRUM-POLICY-Final.pdf

170 / Global Information Society Watch

Kyrgyzstan
Connecting Kyrgyzstan, village by village...

From “barefoot engineers” to building
antennas: Getting inspired aboutcommunity networks

Internet Society Kyrgyzstan Chapter
Isabek Asanbaev and Talant Sultanov
isoc.kg

Introduction
The Internet Society (ISOC) Kyrgyzstan Chapter
is setting up a community network in the villageof Suusamyr in Chui, the northernmost region in
Kyrgyzstan.1
Roughly 25% of Kyrgyz citizens are online, with
64% of these living in urban areas.2 While community networks can help rural citizens access theinternet and narrow the digital divide, they are notmentioned at all in the country’s information andcommunications technology (ICT) policies. Radio
spectrum is also heavily regulated and one has toapply to register frequencies. The process can takearound six months.
The aim of the Suusamyr community network
is to create business opportunities in tourism forthe community, as well as to offer the community achance to learn new skills and develop human capital. The internet will also improve the quality andavailability of social services, and promote accountability through enabling the closer monitoring ofmunicipal bodies. This report outlines our progressso far, and what we need to do next.

The ISOC Chapter in Kyrgyzstan was established in
2014. ISOC officers from headquarters in the United States then presented the idea of community
networks to us, giving the example of the so-called“barefoot engineers” in Nepal who went from village to village and set up community networks.
This example got the Chapter members very excited. Later in 2016 the ISOC Kyrgyz Chapter hosted
a roundtable on community networks and broughta presenter from India, who spoke about a community network that helped an Indian village enter thee‑market with their unique handmade textiles.
One of the participants at the roundtable wasa self-employed engineer who built antennas thatstrengthen the signal of the mobile internet for people in locations with poor coverage. He was very
excited about the idea of community networks. The
Chapter immediately took him into consideration as
an engineer for the community network project. We
started applying for ISOC’s Beyond the Net funding3in the hope of securing a grant.
Applications for Beyond the Net funding are primarily accepted from ISOC Chapters or projects withan ISOC Chapter actively involved. ISOC supports
projects that help the community, providing tools
and skills and creating visibility for the Chapter.

In search of a village to connect

1

2

The ISOC Kyrgyzstan Chapter is involved in a number of otherinitiatives too. One is the installation of an internet exchange
point (IXP) in the city of Osh, located in the Ferghana Valley. This
project will help decrease the internet access costs for people
in the southern regions of Kyrgyzstan. The initiative also has thepotential to impact on access costs in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan,where costs are extremely high. The other project is “Spring ofKnowledge”, or internet-in-a-box for schools in Kyrgyzstan. It
involves the installation of an Orange Pi Zero minicomputer, a
Wi-Fi router and a two-terabyte external hard drive in 20 ruralschools that have no internet access. This equipment will givehigh schoolers offline access to Wikipedia, the Khan Academy
Lite, as well as many other digital learning materials in local
languages. Together with the help of ISOC headquarters we arealso organising capacity-building events on IXPs and community
networks for regional operators, field professionals and academia.
DR Analytica. (2017). Kyrgyz Republic: The 2016 ICT Sector
Overview. https://analytica.digital.report/wp-content/
uploads/2017/07/Kyrgyzstan-The-2016-ICT-Sector-Overview.pdf

We started looking for a suitable location. The main
criteria was that it should have no internet of any
kind, which meant no mobile data coverage, andthat internet service providers (ISPs) were not likely
to offer services in the community any time soon.
We found a promising village near the famous tourist attraction called San Tash – two large piles ofstones in the Karkara Valley, which have intrigued
archaeologists for centuries. There are several theories about how and why they came into existence.
The history of San Tash goes back more thanhalf a millennium. One explanation of the piles ofstones goes like this: When the Mongol warlord Tamerlane (also known as Amir Timur) was going to3

https://www.internetsociety.org/beyond-the-net

Kyrgyzstan / 171

battle, he told each of his warriors to find one stone
and throw it onto a pile. They did so, and by the timethey finished there was a huge pile the size of a hill.
When they returned from the battle, Tamerlane told
them to do it again. As a result, there were two hillsof stones, both hills of different sizes. That is how
he counted his losses.
The piles have been there for centuries. Many
people from all over the world come to see them.
The locals make business from the tourists, and we
hoped that internet access via a community network
would help the community attract more tourists,
and make searching for accommodation and otherservices more accessible to the visitors.
Winter passed and fortunately for the villagers
a government-owned ISP had begun offering connectivity to the village. For us it meant that we had
to once again search for a suitable location. The
search was long, as the criteria were hard to matchand even harder to verify since we had to physically travel to all the possible locations. We neededa village that was not connected – preferably noteven with mobile data – but was still within 50 km
from the backbone of any ISP that was willing tocooperate (many do not want the competition of acommunity network).
We travelled all around the country, whichis relatively small but very mountainous. There
were several other promising villages. One ofthem was Sheker, a village in the Talas region in
the northwestern part of the country, and homeof Kyrgyzstan’s most prominent person, the writer Chyngyz Aitmatov. One of his greatest novels iscalled “The First Teacher”, a story about the firsteducated person who came to a remote village toteach children during the times of Lenin. This year
will be the 90th anniversary of Aitmatov’s birth,and it will be widely celebrated throughout the
Turkic world and the former Soviet Union. It would
be great, we felt, to give Sheker another “firstteacher” in the form of a community network. However, later we found out that it was impossible toconnect the village using our equipment, as it required more than one repeater.

Reading a map of the backbone
to find a village
We needed to hasten the search, so we found awholesale ISP with the second-largest backbone in
the country, Elcat,4 and negotiated with them. They
shared a map of their backbone infrastructure withus, which included coordinates of their nodes. This
4

www.elcat.kg/en

narrowed down our search dramatically and we finally decided on the village of Suusamyr. We visitedthe village and spoke to the head of the Local Self
Government (LSG). He informed us that there was
no internet of any kind available in the village. The
reason is that the valley – also called Suusamyr –is surrounded by high-altitude mountains, making
it hard to connect to the internet. The winter in thevalley also lasts for six months instead of three.
The population of Suusamyr is 2,674 people according to the 2009 population census. The lengthof the valley where it is located is 155 km. The altitude of the bottom of the valley ranges from 2,000
meters to 3,200 meters above sea level. The valley
is full of beautiful vistas: mountains, forests, lakes
and rivers. It is one of the top tourist destinations in
Kyrgyzstan. Some popular tourist activities include
hiking, rafting, horseback riding, paragliding, andkumis, the seasonal mare’s milk detox.

Building a bridge
The first stage of the project involves setting up awireless link that will connect the village to Elcat’s
fibre-optic backbone. The wireless link will use
AirFiber AF-5X 5.8 GHz radio systems, with 34 dBi
antennas installed on 15-metre-high masts. To
increase the speed, a MIMO Multiplexer will be installed, allowing us to use four airFiber radios witha single dish antenna.
The second stage is building a fibre-optic network in the village. This will include the installationof several distribution boxes at the crossroads in thevillage where the fibre-optic highway runs. At first
we aim to connect 50 subscribers free of charge.
These will include schools and municipal buildings,
as well as low-income families.

Expected community benefits and challenges
One proposal that the community made was to increase the presence of local businesses on the web.
For example, guesthouses in Suusamyr would be
registered on websites such as Booking.com, making them more accessible to modern tourists.
However, overall, most villagers should benefit
from the community network, as it is common forpeople to share resources with fellow villagers,
especially given the fact that most villagers are related to each other. For example, one can go to aneighbour’s house to use the internet for a shorttime to search for necessary information or getsome social service that is provided by the government online. The community network will increase
the availability of a number of social services thatare available online and otherwise would require

172 / Global Information Society Watch

travel to the regional centre many kilometres away.
These include applying for a passport, registering
a vehicle or real estate, registering a marriage or
getting a divorce, and for biometrical registration.
The main obstacle that made us lose all our
hope was the requirement to register the use of
frequencies. We thought that we could use certain
frequencies as long as nobody else was using them.
When we found out that we needed to register themand that it takes half a year just to go through theapplication process, we were devastated for abouta week. It would be helpful if obtaining frequencies
took less time – one month, for example. In comparison, obtaining a data transfer licence takes three tofour weeks, and is not that hard.
Because of this we started looking for alternative solutions. It was most feasible to find acompany that had registered frequencies and thatwas willing to cooperate. We discovered SkynetTele­­com LLC. Skynet w ill be buying internet bandwidth from Elcat and selling it to the community
network at a small margin.
Another challenge, but one we anticipated, wasthe terrain. There is no direct visibility from the Elcat
node to the village. We still need to connect to the
Elcat backbone, so that Skynet can buy the bandwidth
for the village. We have to install a repeater that has
direct visibility to both the Elcat node and the village.
We have found a perfect location for the repeater andare currently installing a mast on the hill.

Action steps
We are currently in the process of applying for a licence for data transfer that needs to be obtained
from the regulator, the State Agency for Communication. It is also necessary to have the head of the
LSG establish a municipal enterprise together with
the ISOC Chapter. LSGs were established by law in2011 in Kyrgyzstan as part of a process of the decentralisation of state power. Municipal enterprises areusually established by LSGs to provide community
services such as trash disposal and street lighting
among other local-level services.5
One of the most important aspects of our initiative is scalability – and we want the community
in Suusamyr to be able to help other communities
to set up their networks. In this way we feel the
project can be replicated from unconnected community to community and village to village, where
the community members themselves become thebarefoot engineers witnessed in Nepal. During theroundtable on community networks back in 2016,
among the participants were a number of heads of
LSGs who stated that they have the budget to set
up community networks and would love to learn
how. We plan to send a concept note on community
networks with all the necessary steps described indetail to all of the 453 LSGs in Kyrgyzstan, including
the contact information of the engineers in Suusamyr whom we will train to make them able to trainothers.

5

Post script: We are actually moving away from this concept
because of an issue with the State Committee for National
Security. Every ISP is obliged by law to buy and install SORM
(Russian: Система оперативно-разыскных мероприятий,“System for Operative Investigative Activities”). This is thetechnical specification for lawful interception interfaces oftelecommunications and telephone networks operating in
Kyrgyzstan (first implemented in Russia). The current form of thespecification enables the targeted surveillance of both telephone
and internet communications. It costs between USD 40,000 and
USD 100,000. Obviously our little project cannot afford it. We will
have to keep Skynet as our alternative solution, including when it
comes to the billing of the subscribers.

Kyrgyzstan / 173

MALAYSIAThe gender dimension towards establishing community
networks for indigenous peoples in Peninsular Malaysia

Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (EMPOWER)Angela M. Kuga Thaswww.empowermalaysia.org

Introduction
Arguably one of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities in Peninsular Malaysia are
the indigenous women (Orang Asli women in Malay). While many Malaysians today know about thenative land rights issues of these peoples, it took
more than 30 years before this level of awarenesswas achieved. In fact, it is through the internet thatthe level of awareness accelerated, in particularon the issue of the Baram Dam in Sarawak.1 It is,however, taking even longer to achieve a greater
consciousness about the gender inequality issues
faced by Orang Asli women among Orang Asli women themselves, among seasoned activists who haveworked on the native land rights of the Orang Asli,and among other human rights activists. This phenomenon is very much symptomatic of how genderequality is still not very well understood even by
those who champion human rights or deem themselves progressive.
As EMPOWER we have tried to enhance theanalytical and advocacy skills of Orang Asli women since 2013, with the idea that whatever issues
they face, they would have to self-mobilise, selforganise and advocate on their own initiative, taking ownership of the problem and engaging directlyin strategising and seeking a solution, and eventually solving the problem.
The work of consciousness raising and capacity building is slow and frustrating. This is certainly
not something new when it comes to working with
communities. We have witnessed the common phenomenon where women fail to acknowledge thatgender inequality exists in their community, as“things have always been that way”. For example,
while getting Orang Asli women to identify and acknowledge the issues of gender inequality that they
face has been an uphill task, even getting them toacknowledge that domestic violence or violence1

See Bardeen, S. (2016, 22 March). Baram Dam Stopped! A
Victory for Indigenous Rights. International Rivers. https://www.
internationalrivers.org/blogs/433-18

against women (VAW) takes place in their communities is challenging. That there are men who preferto marry and not work and rely on their wives tosupport them, for the Orang Asli women, is also nota gender inequality issue. They are just matter-offact life issues that some women are unfortunate
enough to face. In fact, in almost all workshops wehave conducted, the Orang Asli women we have engaged with would rather have my colleagues and I
believe that VAW and gender-based discrimination
do not exist in their communities.
You may be asking at this point, how does thisin any way relate to the idea of community networks
for these peoples? A lot, in fact, especially in thecontext of a new government that was voted in on
9 May 2018, and the optimism that there are moreallies in government to work with compared to theprevious one.2

Advocating for community networks“There is free internet bandwidth in Malaysia” – so I
was told, but that was not the full answer I needed.
It signalled the beginning of EMPOWER’s efforts to
explore how best to move ahead with working with
the Orang Asli community in Malaysia on establishing community networks with them, with a specificfocus on involving the Orang Asli women and girls.
There are only about 148,000 Orang Asli in thewhole of Peninsular Malaysia.3 They are primarily
located in the states of Perak, Kelantan, Pahang,
Johor, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. They are also
very divided: divided by groups of who knows who,of who can work with who, of who married who andwho did not marry who; and they are not necessarily united in a village, not necessarily united throughmarriage, and certainly not necessarily united
2

3

At the time of writing, the new government has been in power
for less than 100 days, but many feel that political will is still
weak, as only recently – on 4 August 2018 – another Orang Asli
blockade was torn down by a durian plantation corporation in
Kelantan. See Mahsinah Abdullah, A. (2018, 16 February). 800
Orang Asli set up blockades against logging, durian plantationnear Gua Musang. New Straits Times. https://www.nst.com.my/
news/nation/2018/02/336207/800-orang-asli-set-blockadesagainst-logging-durian-plantation-near-gua and Lin, K. J. (2018, 4August). Orang Asli claim blockade cut down by durian company.
Malaysiakini. https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/437481
2008 data. Expected to be much lower in 2018, estimated at
100,000.

174 / Global Information Society Watchthrough ethnicity. Officially, there are 18 Orang Aslitribes – Bateq, Jahai, Kensiu, Kintaq, Lanoh, Mendriq, Cheq Wong, Jah Hut, Mah Meri, Semai, Semaq
Beri, Temiar, Jakun, Orang Kanaq, Orang Kuala,Orang Seletar, Semelai and Temuan – categorised
under three main groups according to their different
languages and customs:•

Semang (or Negrito), generally confined to thenorthern portion of the peninsula•

Senoi, residing in the central region•

Proto-Malay (or Aboriginal Malay), in the southern region.

As many as 76.9% of the Orang Asli are consideredpoor, with 35.2% deemed “very poor”. The literacy
rate is only 43% and life expectancy at an averageof 53 years old. Some Orang Asli remain on native
lands, others have set up homes closer to or within
urbanised areas, and some others have relocated toOrang Asli resettlements and poor quality government housing which usually means no opportunity
at all for owning land. So, while native land rights
issues are very pressing for some, not all face theseissues in the same way.
For example, with the advent of the new government of Malaysia as mentioned earlier, after 61
years of rule under the same dominant political parties, two advocacies unfolded. One was the demandthat the Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli (JAKOA),4 thegovernment department that is supposed to lookafter their interests, welfare and development, becompletely abolished. The other was to reform
JAKOA, to ensure that Orang Asli held key positions in JAKOA and that decision making was moretransparent, inclusive and participatory with thecommunity.
The reality is that not all Orang Asli are able torely on their traditional livelihoods any longer andwaged work is necessary. As such, initially there
was a prominent clash of positions in civil society as
well as among the Orang Asli. However, as consultations start to be organised, with the most recent
one held on 21 July 2018, the position appears to
be moving towards reforming JAKOA. In line with
this, advocating and getting buy-in to the idea ofcommunity networks therefore has to be very muchneeds-based and consultative as well, or it will not
be prioritised at all.
To try to unpack the challenges further, I discuss
three scenarios, trying to maintain anonymity at thesame time to safeguard the privacy of the Orang Asliwhom we have consulted.
4

Department for the Advancement of Indigenous Peoples.

Scenario 1
We visited quite a self-contained village. The headof the village is reportedly one of the more educated of the Orang Asli village heads, having been
attached to a higher institution of learning before
his retirement. We discussed issues faced, and wehighlighted that there were three areas that wewould persist in working on, and it is only in theseareas that we would be able to collaborate withthem, as our resources and capacities too werelimited. The three areas are: gender awarenessraising and advocacy capacity-building training;training women to engage in community schools
development; and the establishment of community
networks.
It was interesting to see the dynamics as we sat
in a circle discussing the issues. There were more
women than men, but men appeared to have a moresignificant weight when they spoke. All were very
interested in the training of teachers for community
schools, primarily because they saw education as
the only way out of poverty for their children, andeventually for themselves.
Prior to arriving at this village, I had heard thatthe villagers were creating problems for one of thecommunity teacher volunteers, who is perceived as
an outsider and who married into the community. She
was one of the two Orang Asli women we brought toan educational training workshop on phonics as ateaching methodology and approach. She was not at
this consultation, but the second woman, who is seen
as one of the women community leaders, was.
The villagers said they wanted a young man to
be trained as a community teacher rather than anyof the women. The woman community leader whom
we had developed a long relationship with, and who
has participated in at least five of our workshops,
agreed and reiterated this desire. I was a little taken
aback, considering how long we had already worked
with this community, with at least five of the women having attended two of our trainings. I had also
expected that at least one of the two women whom
we brought to the educational training workshop on
phonics would be put forward as a potential trainee, together with the young man. Instead, the retort
was, “Must it be only women?”
The concept of a community network, however, did appeal to one Orang Asli woman at theconsultation. She had married an outsider andspoke Mandarin. She already had an entrepreneurial mind-set. She was happily elaborating on how
many villagers they had and how the community
school could benefit, as well as a number of othervillages.

Malaysia / 175

I shared how they could build their own communication tower, and when the village head asked if
setting up the communications tower would be legal, and I answered “No”, all conversation stopped
immediately. Even when I explained that we would
need to find a way to work on getting those in authority to make an exception, no one would broach
the subject again or asked how this could be done
when the village head switched the topic and started
informing us of his ideas and potential collaboration with a university for an extended vocational
training programme that would include the young
people from the village. Discussions subsequently
returned to the issue of education, especially English education for the children, and we could notraise the subject of community networks again.
Yet – in something of an irony – the women in
the village had been organising group activities
among themselves by playing and following tutorial
videos from YouTube at the community hall once a
week.

Scenario 2
The next village we visited was closer to urban development but it appeared much more run down.
Population density seemed higher as houses were
packed closer together, and it lacked stable connectivity despite the close proximity to the city. When
we broached the subject of community networks
here, there was very limited and selective interest
from one younger Orang Asli woman. She was moreinterested in having a computer and a printer andfor connectivity to be set up in the village head’s
home, as they wanted to advocate against the sandstone mining nearby that was affecting the qualityof their air and health.
The message we received was that not everyone
would be welcoming of a community network, andthat it was best to be low-key and small-scale andkeep the equipment with the village head.
The wife of the village head attended the consultation, but we could not get a clear reason as towhy community members would not be completely
agreeable to having a community network, which
would benefit many more people rather than justthe house of the village head and those closely connected to the village head.

Scenario 3
We also organised a consultation during a training
with Orang Asli women who live in villages that aresemi-urbanised or urbanised, but we organised thistraining-cum-consultation outside of their villages.
These women were very interested and concurredthat there was a need for a community network
where they live. They were keen on saving communication costs, developing an income-generating
arm, and being able to organise to make demandson the government. This was just after the results of
the 14th general election had been announced, sothey already knew that there was a change in government. While they persisted in saying that they
do not want to have any engagement in politics,
these women were more political than the others in
Scenarios 1 and 2 in how they wanted updates on
how to move ahead with a community network, andother advocacies such as on basic infrastructure issues, health and education.
Looking back at how we conducted the consultations on community networks, I felt that we could
get clearer responses and expressed needs fromthe women if they were outside of their villages,
away from not only the men and the gender-power dynamics that come with that, but the prevalentpolitics in these villages. I felt that even though
women were very much present in Scenario 1, only
two or three women would speak, and only when
prompted. However, bringing women to participate
in a consultation outside their villages meant thinking of:•Who else would need to accompany them?
Sometimes their husbands would insist on participating, or the women would insist that theirhusbands attend as well.

•

Providing facilities and caregiving for theirchildren.

•Considering paying an opportunity cost for daily
wages lost for those days.

•

Ensuring that it only took a day for such a consultation. A two-day event would already be
problematic for some, especially if paying an
opportunity cost for daily wages lost was notpossible.

Action steps
As EMPOWER proceeds with seeking face-to-faceconsultations with key ministries in the new government of Malaysia, much needs to be done topush for policy and institutional reforms. We havebeen trying to organise a national Orang Asli women’s consultation since the start of 2018. It has been
postponed from April to May and in July, yet again.
The resistance comes from the “official structures” of the networks and villages, rather than
the women themselves. EMPOWER has spoken
with established women leaders of the community, who have expressed support but with little

176 / Global Information Society Watchfollow-through in real terms. In private, a few Orang
Asli women have expressed interest to EMPOWER
staff, but appear to not know how to proceed without inviting the ire of those in power around them.
EMPOWER still intends to hold the national
Orang Asli women’s consultation this year (2018)
and at least one more in 2019 so that the Orang Asliwomen can meet and update each other.
However, the question now arises: Would sucha national consultation be considered successful if

we only had 15 women, the average number of participants we expect for a workshop with Orang Asliwomen? To many, this would appear to be a failure,but the sheer effort of trying to bring these Orang
Asli women together so that they are better able toexpress their needs and priorities for advocacies
and initiatives that would benefit them, their children and their communities, remains unmeasurable
and too often considered insignificant in the wholevalue chain of development initiatives.

Malaysia / 177

mexicocommunity networks in Mexico: A path towards technologicalautonomy in rural and indigenous communities

REDES A.C., Rhizomatica and Colectivo Ik’ta K’op
Carlos Baca-Feldman, Peter Bloom, Mariano Gómez andErick Huertawww.redesac.org.mx, www.rhizomatica.org, www.
iktakop.org

Introduction
In 2016, a national survey developed by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (INEGI)1
indicated that 47% of citizens in Mexico use a computer, 59.5% are internet users and 73.6% have a cell
phone. In addition, the states with the highest index in
the digital divide are also those that have the greatest
economic challenges: Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas.
In these states, where most of the countries’ indigenous population is concentrated, broadband access is
17.5% and telephony is 23% on average. Although thedata comes from government agencies and may not be
entirely accurate, similar observations have been madein studies by non-governmental organisations.2
When these statistics are presented as inputs
for public policy making, the difficulties are characterised as “market failure” – as if the solution lay infinding ways for large telecommunication companies
to develop models that allow them to obtain an economic benefit while meeting the connectivity needsof the poorest populations of the country. This has
shown to be unfeasible so far. Another option is forthe government itself to seek solutions through its
public programmes and budgets, which are usuallylimited by clientelist dynamics. However, as indicatedin the “Toolkit of Best Practices and Policy Recommendations, Module 3: ICT for Indigenous Peoples
and Communities” of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU),3 projects in which the decision

1
2

3

INEGI. (2016). Encuesta Nacional sobre Disponibilidad y Uso deTecnologías de la Información en los Hogares (ENDUTIH).
An important study on this matter was developed by the Red
por los Derechos Digitales (R3D), titled El estirón de México
Conectado: ¿cuánto creció realmente el número de usuarios deInternet en 2015? and available at: https://r3d.mx/2017/03/12/elestiron-de-mexico-conectado-cuanto-crecio-realmente-el-numerode-usuarios-de-internet-en-2015
International Telecommunication Union (ITU). (2011). Toolboxof best practices and policy recommendations. Module 3:
ICT for indigenous peoples and communities. Available (inSpanish) at: connectaschool.org/sites/default/files/pdf_cache/
fd0f754e2ab3e39da5172bc484cf4247.pdf

making and operation of last-mile networks are madeby the community itself are the only ones that havebeen shown to be appropriate for connectivity inmore remote areas.
In this context, there have been several communities that have sought to escape from the logic of
the market or the state to solve their connectivity
problems. In Mexico, there are many indigenous
peoples who maintain organisational, economic
and political systems that are not completely anchored in the capitalist mode of production; andtheir telecommunications projects reflect this wayof understanding and being in the world. In thisreport our intention is to discuss some of the experiences that have been developed in Mexico
considering this perspective: a community cellular
network in Oaxaca; a community intranet in Abasolo, Chiapas; and Techio Comunitario, a technicians
training programme aimed at rural and indigenous
communities.

Community networks as a“constant negotiation”
From a legal perspective, these projects are coveredby the second article of the Mexican constitution,
one that indicates the right of the indigenous peoples to develop their own systems of organisationand indigenous customary law, known as “usesand customs”.4 Their status is also protected by
Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO).5 In addition to these, Article 16 of the
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
upholds the rights of indigenous peoples to acquire, administer and operate their own means ofcommunication.
As Laval and Dardot6 point out, in addition to alegal framework, an institutional framework is required that can put into practice the sense of “thecommons” in social relations. This occurs from thepractice of the communities themselves and the impact on public policies that are generated from the
projects that are being developed.
4
5
6

www.ordenjuridico.gob.mx/Constitucion/articulos/2.pdf
www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C169
Laval, C., & Dardot, P. (2015). Común. Ensayo sobre la revolución
en el siglo XXI. Barcelona: Gedisa Editores.

178 / Global Information Society Watch

The telecommunication projects outlined in thisreport are community-based, and as such, they contain and reinforce the values and ways of life of thecommunity. They also repurpose and appropriatetechnology according to each community’s economic, political and social organisational forms. In thisway, the technology does not determine existingsocial relations, but rather is transformed to give
way to new modes of use, generation of content andparticular and novel infrastructure. Jaime Martinez
Luna gives us a clear idea of ​these statements when
explaining the concept of comunalidad (or communality), the way of life of the indigenous peoples of
the Sierra Juarez in Oaxaca, that is based on fourpillars: land and territory, collective work or tequio,
participatory political organisation, and the festival.
For him, life in these communities is not completely
isolated from the globalised system; on the contrary, it finds itself in a constant negotiation between
the local and that which is foreign.7
For this reason, following Belli,8 community networks serve different logics both in their use and in thevery way in which they are built. Since each community
imprints its way of life through its appropriation of the
network, we cannot generalise from these projects, aseach one has particularities that make it different fromthe others explored in this chapter.

The community cellular network in Oaxaca
In 2013, a connectivity project using mobile telephony emerged in Talea de Castro, Oaxaca, from ameeting between indigenous communities, hackers
and activists. This experience is based on the relationship that exists between communality as a wayof life characteristic of Oaxacan indigenous peoples
and the possibilities that emanate from the use andtransformation of certain technologies. As pointed
out by Peter Bloom,9 the system of community government, the notion of autonomy and the commonsare elements that were key in the construction anddevelopment of the process. Today there are 14 operating communities with coverage in 63 localities
that have, for the first time, built a federated, autonomous cellular telephone network that is managed
and operated by and for the communities. In total,
3,500 users are currently served.
7
8

9

Martínez Luna, J. (2013). Textos sobre el camino andado (Vol. I).
Oaxaca, Mexico: CSEIIO.
Belli, L. (Ed.). (2017). Community networks: the Internet by thepeople, for the people. Official Outcome of the UN IGF Dynamic
Coalition on Community Connectivity. Rio de Janeiro: FGV Direito
Rio.
Bloom, P. (2015). La Telefonía Celular Comunitaria como Alternativa
al Sistema Hegemónico de las Comunicaciones en México: Un
estudio de caso de las nuevas iniciativas de la Sierra Juárez deOaxaca. [Master’s thesis not published]. Mexico: UAM-X.

In this process, various organisations havecollaborated in the construction of the community
cellular model. Rhizomatica10 is the organisationthat created the model and started the operationin the communities. Projects like Osmocom11 in Germany have been very important for the developmentof the free software used in the project. The legal
framework and systematisation has been createdthrough collaboration with Redes por la Diversidad,
Equidad y Sustentabilidad A.C. (REDES A.C.).12
In 2016, the operating communities, Rhizomatica and REDES A.C. founded a stand-alone,
non-profit entity called Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias A.C. (TIC A.C.).13 This entity
brings together the member communities of the
network for technical support, peer-to-peer supportand maintenance of their networks. TIC A.C. is a fully licensed, social-indigenous operator of cellular
services.
For the development of these cellular networks,
it was necessary to establish different approaches
in the economic, organisational, technological andlegal dimensions while drawing on a generic modelfor the network. For more detailed information oneach of them, you can consult the Community Mobile Telephony Manual.14 Some of the key featuresof the model are:•

Network architecture: It is a hybrid network integrated by three different networks, a first-mile
local network managed by the community, consisting of a cellular base station that operates in
the 850 MHz band providing cellular coverageand services to standard mobile phones, aswell as providing inbound and outbound callingover VoIP; middle-mile IP transport provided bysmall wireless internet providers; and the fibre
backbone and core internet infrastructure operated by large telecoms companies that allow for
the interconnection and transportation of data.

•

The legal model has two fundamental components: broad self-regulation based on theinternal norms of the communities themselves
and the association they have created (TIC A.C.);and an indigenous social-use concession, whichis comprised of a concession or licence to use
spectrum in the 850 MHz band in five states of
the country and a single concession to provide
telecommunications services throughout thenation.

10
11
12
13
14

https://www.rhizomatica.org
https://osmocom.org
https://www.redesac.org.mx
https://www.tic-ac.org
https://archive.org/details/MANUALTICENGFINAL

Mexico / 179•The technological base of the network focuseson two principles: the ease of operation andaffordability of infrastructure (approximately
USD 5,000). To this end, the project has integrated software from Osmocom in addition tothat developed by Rhizomatica such as an administration interface. All code is free and open
source software and is accessible through public repositories and documentation.15 Regarding
the infrastructure of the network, the local network consists of a cellular base station which
the community owns and manages as communal property.

•

The organisational base, as already mentioned,
takes as a central element the organisational
forms of local indigenous communities. First,
the decision to form a new local network is
made by the general assembly of each community. Second, the governing structure of theassociation (TIC A.C.) is composed of a members’ assembly and an executive body, which
are reinforced by staff working in strategic areas like operations, administration, community
relations, innovation and maintenance.

•

The economic basis of the project is best understood through the lens of Braudel’s writings16
on the three-level distinction of economies:
global, regional/local and subsistence. The local network operates at the subsistence level
and is managed by the community itself, thetransport network17 is operated by a local company, and the backbone network is operated bya global company. In this model the community is part of an association that can deal in a
global economy given its integration. The costof the service is approximately USD 2 per user
per month, of which USD 1.25 is direct income
to the community and USD 0.75 is set aside forthe association. This includes unlimited calls
and text messages inside the network, withoutbound long-distance calling requiring credit top-up.

Although a great advance has been made in theway towards the technological autonomy of thesecommunities, there is still a long way to go andmany ways to continue to improve the process.
Some examples of these challenges are technological, others are social, such as the participation of
15 https://wiki.rhizomatica.org/index.php/Main_Page and https://www.github.com/rhizomatica
16 Braudel, F. (1980). On History. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
17 The middle-mile or backhaul network.

women. At present, issues such as the expansion
to other states of the country, the development oflocally relevant applications, the elimination of legal barriers derived from the current regulation, andthe production of content for the network, are being
addressed in conjunction with the communities andally organisations.

Community intranets: The case of the Tzeltal
community of Abasolo in Chiapas
Community intranets are projects that indigenous
communities have developed in Mexico to copewith the lack of connectivity or limited connectivity. They are characterised by a semi-closed andlocal system of Wi-Fi links that provides wirelessaccess to locally hosted content that they consider culturally, educationally and socially relevant.
Through this type of project, a lack of connectivity
or very limited access to the internet becomes anopportunity to define what content is necessary
to produce and share locally, and what content
from outside the community is relevant. They also
provide an opportunity to redefine the characteristics of the network architecture that are the mostappropriate, all based on the way of life of each
community.
Since 2017, as part of a project supported by
the Internet Society’s Beyond the Net initiative andawarded to Rhizomatica,18 a model of community
intranets is being developed in four communities
in Mexico: Abasolo in Chiapas, Guadalupe Ocotlán in Nayarit and Santa María Tlahuitoltepec andSanta María Yaviche in Oaxaca. This is being donewith the support of REDES A.C., the Telecommunications Postgraduate Programme of the Universidad
Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa (UAM-I), theBoca de Polen Communicators Network, and AlterMundi, among others.
The project is still in the construction stage inthe four communities, and currently the intranetsin the communities are disconnected from eachother. In the medium term, the general intention isto establish a network of intranets that allows thesharing of content among the communities that participate in the project. The most advanced case todate is that of the Tzeltal community of Abasolo in
Chiapas, which is why we take it as a reference inthis report.
The precursor to this intranet project arose seven years ago, at the community high school, wherea computer science teacher, Luis Ramón Alvarado

18 https://www.internetsociety.org/beyond-the-net

180 / Global Information Society Watch

Pascasio, developed IntraBach,19 an educational
initiative that allows students to access relevant
and quality content to reinforce their studies. Thisinitiative continues to operate today in 15 communities in the region and is constantly nourished bycontent. Mariano Gómez, a former student of Luis
Ramón, and Neyder Domínguez, co-founder of thegroup, supported the development of IntraBach andlater formed a collective called Ik’ta K’op20 whose
purpose is to develop a model of community connectivity for internet access in Abasolo,21 one which
simultaneously provides access to a database of
local content resources through the community
intranet. This model is known as the Yaj’noptik Intranet, and provides around 1,000 users in Abasolo
and five neighbouring communities with internet
connectivity and local content.
The elements that make up the model of the
Ik’ta K’op collective are:•

The technological aspect works as follows:
global internet connectivity is provided througha connection to Telmex, the incumbent telco in
Mexico, in the municipality of Oxchuc, 27 km
away. Point-to-point links were installed to thecommunity of Abasolo, where it is distributed
through 19 nodes, covering 60% of the population. A hotspot server running free software isconnected to the local intranet and gives users
access to the internet.

•

The economic aspect is governed by the principle of collective acquisition of equipment,
through what is known in Tzeltal as “Mankomun”.22 The economic model that allows the
project to be sustainable is based on providing
internet access to users at a relatively affordable cost, with packages from USD 0.50 per hour
to USD 10 for a monthly package. However, if aperson does not have the economic capacity to
pay for the service, they can still use the service
in exchange for their collaboration as volunteers in the care and maintenance of the nodes,
painting towers, loading equipment, and evenas blacksmiths and carpenters that enable the
network to continue functioning.

19 www.intrabach.org
20 www.iktakop.org
21 Before the emergence of this project, the internet was available ina small cybercafé using a voucher system, but the model in which
it was distributed was not based on community principles.
22 An analogy allows us to understand this principle. In somefestivities, such as the All Souls’ Day, a cow is bought for thecelebration. This is done by the community sharing the costs, and,
subsequently, the animal is sacrificed and the meat is distributed
equally. The community selects a day for the sacrifice, andeveryone who participates in the work is also fed.

•

The organisational base is in the process of being built and includes the project developers
and people in the community interested in the
project. At the moment it is composed of “caretakers of nodes”, people in charge of giving
maintenance and having a node in their houses
that connects to the network and gives service
to the users in that area. Also included are activities such as taking care of the equipment
so that it is not stolen, warning the operators
about technical issues, selling access coupons,
giving service to users and providing a space
for the safeguarding of the equipment. Each ofthese caregivers also has the right to access theinternet at no cost as in-kind payment for theirservices.

The development of this project has allowed thecommunity to make calls to their relatives and acquaintances in other parts of the country or in the
United States without the need to walk to the telephone booth or travel approximately 40 minutes
to the nearest municipality. Likewise, economic
development has been encouraged by allowing
the sale of products over the internet, the use of
online banking and payment services, and tourism
promotion. The promotion of education is anotherkey element in the group’s objectives, so the highschool has a free connection and the local content
server provided through IntraBach23 is constantly
updated.
The challenges currently faced by the Ik’ta K’op
collective relate to issues such as the project’s relationship with the community, and the creation andintegration of local content on the server.
Attention is also being given to the technological, economic and sustainability needs of the
project.

The Techio Comunitario training programme
Although this last case is not a community network,
we believe it is important to include because thetraining and capacity building of people from rural areas who wish to develop projects related totelecommunications is crucial to improve accessconditions in rural and indigenous communities.
The Techio Comunitario24 project is composed ofthree elements that aim to train technicians specialised in telecommunications in rural and indigenous
communities: the Diploma for Community Telecommunications and Broadcasting Promoters, four
23 At the moment there are two intranets in Abasolo: IntraBach andYaj’noptik Intranet. IntraBach only serves the high school.
24 https://techiocomunitario.net

Mexico / 181

technological laboratories, and an online learning
platform. In the first diploma course, held between
October 2016 and May 2017, a total of 36 people
from six states in Mexico participated, all of whom
committed to assist ongoing communication initiatives in their communities. In total there were 17
participating organisations and the general coordination was overseen by REDES A.C. and Palabra
Radio.
The training process is based on participatory
research carried out from 2012 to 2015 with trainers
of indigenous and community communicators. The
initial intention was to systematise the needs thatexisted at the training level through a series of interviews and participatory meetings with key actors
in these areas. Based on the results of the research,
the creation of a capacity-building programme fortechnological capabilities was envisaged.
The academic structure of the diploma wasbased on eight modules. First, a common core thatcovered the topics of community communicationand technologies, electricity, electronics and free
software. Subsequently, participants had the possibility to choose between one of the three specialties
offered: radio broadcasting, wireless internet networks, and community cellular telephony. Finally,an integration module was carried out in which theissues of licensing and regulation and sustainability
were addressed. Each of these modules was carriedout in different locations that included the states ofOaxaca, Chiapas and Puebla, and the coordinationof each was carried out by an organisation belonging to the advisory committee.
The methodology used was based on the educational practices of indigenous peoples regarding
the transmission and socialisation of knowledge.
The pedagogy was also inspired by the milpa (a millennial agrosystem in which the basic ingredients of
Mexican cuisine are harvested) that has substantive
elements: praxis, daily life experience, creation andsharing. It also drew from general experiences in
popular education models and the approaches offree knowledge societies. The methodology of thistraining process is systematised in the book Haciendo Milpa.25
The challenges in the construction of this training process have been the breaking of paradigms
about teaching and the ways of evaluating learning. Another important challenge was the inclusionof women in the process. Although there was animportant effort to get more women to participate
25 https://docs.wixstatic.com/
ugd/68af39_802ae1aeee674783bba4cd8dfa102d03.pdf

in the diploma programme, only one of a total ofseven that were accepted to enter the programmefinished the course. Despite this, some of the benefits are palpable. These include, for example,
the planning of the community intranet throughthe participation of members of the Ik’ta K’op
collective in the diploma, and the installation ofcommunity radios by the participants. Finally, theplanning of future projects based on the knowledge and relationships built in the training process
will be one of the key elements to be developed in
the short term.

Conclusions
In Mexico, community networks have been processes that sought to address the digital dividethat exists in rural or indigenous communities.
That the solutions have come from the communities themselves has ensured the appropriation oftechnology by communities, and the inclusion of
their values ​and ways of life in the solutions. Using
this approach, we can articulate experiences that
go beyond the utilitarian vision of the market andthe state that have proven to be incapable of serving communities with particularities such as those
discussed in each of these projects. In this sense,
these projects reaffirm the premise that when
the decisions and the operation of technologicalprojects are in the hands of the communities themselves, the projects can be very successful.
Additionally, the three experiences presented
contain particularities in which the choice of technologies and ways of proceeding are in constantdialogue with local values and organisational forms.
As such – as the first two projects show – technology can become a tool of social transformation,rather than being an end in itself.

Action steps
We cannot generalise about community networks
in Mexico from what has been presented here, as
space limitations have not allowed us to share allof the experiences, some successful and others not
so much.
However, the challenges of community networks in Mexico are many. First, it is very important
to encourage the participation of women in technological issues. There is still a very strong belief inthe communities that men are the ones who should
attend to these issues. Second, in terms of legislation, although a good stretch of the road has been
covered, it is still necessary to influence secondary
regulations and laws that allow for the applicationof constitutional laws in regards to the right to

182 / Global Information Society Watch

communication and information. Third, it is necessary to develop even more technologies that allow
connectivity at low cost and with simple operating
modes for people in general. And fourth, and finally, we believe it is essential to create organisationaland economic models that allow these experiences
to be sustainable over time and not depend on only
one or two people for their realisation.

Although the challenges are many, we believethat the path towards technological autonomy inrural and indigenous communities in Mexico hasadvanced steadily in recent years. What remains is
to continue walking together with the communities
and articulating efforts at the local, national and international level.26

26 We recommend watching a video on public policies fromindigenous peoples that is available in Spanish at: https://fimic.
wordpress.com/2017/08/15/videos-sesiones-del-fimic

Mexico / 183

myanmar
The community network as a connectivity strategy for ruraland remote Myanmar

Alternative Solutions for Rural Communities(ASORCOM)
Michael Suantak
www.asorcom.net

Introduction
Alternative Solutions for Rural Communities (ASOR­COM), a community wireless network, was built in
the Siyin Valley for 20 villages with around 8,500
people living there. The Siyin Valley is a mountainous region in Chin state in the northwest of
Myanmar, with peaks reaching up to over 2,100
metres. The network operated between April 2013
and 2017, before the arrival of mobile services in
the area forced the project to evolve to meet newcommunity needs.
The network was set up by the Siyin-Chin Youth
Network Organisation (SCYNO)1 and the Siyin Project.2 These two organisations were eager to help
and develop the communities where many of theirmembers had grown up, and whose needs they
were familiar with. They wanted to change the community and build a better, more sustainable society.
The communities involved in the community
network were made up of vegetable farmers mostly
dependent on shifting cultivation. Their seasonal
produce was sold in the nearest town called Kale,
almost 100 kilometres away.
This report describes the impact of the networkon the communities in the valley.

Technical implementation
When the project first started in 2013, they used thecheapest wireless devices available in town: a TPLink brand long-range wireless access point. Oneof the team members, Thomas Khaipi, who studied
and lived in Germany, bought two Village Telco3 devices and tested them as a communication solution
for communities in the Siyin Valley. However, they
were not useful as a long-range wireless network
solution because they only worked well when they
1
2
3

SCYNO was formed by Siyin youth with the aim of doing social
work for communities in Myanmar.
The Siyin Project was also formed by Siyin youth to raise funds
outside of Myanmar to support SCYNO and other activities.
https://villagetelco.org

were set up close to each other. The project also
faced other challenges: for example, the Myanmar
government (a military dictatorship) had taken
away some devices and warned not to set up private networks without their permission, which had
to be passed by the union ministry from Naypyidaw.
At that time internet censorship was taking placeand building private networks was not encouraged.
Later on, the team got the opportunity to buy
and install Ubiquiti4 devices. They changed the network topology and redesigned the network, using 5
GHz for the backhaul connection and for the main
connection between the villages, while 2.4 GHz
devices were used for the connection inside thevillages. The old TP-Link devices were also used for
wireless access point connectivity inside the buildings. They were gradually replaced with Ubiquiti
devices which supported mesh firmware. For someareas, such as school compounds, Commotion5
mesh firmware with Ubiquiti devices was used.

Community engagement and impact
The community members supported the initial pilot project from the beginning. Many times they
had discussed and shared alternative ways to solve
their communication difficulties, their poverty, lackof skills and knowledge, and educational challenges. Many joined the team and shared their physicalenergy to cut down tall trees in the jungle and bringthem to the villages to use as masts for the Wi-Fi
antennas. Some shared their houses for accommodation while we set up the networks, and preparedfood for a series of community meetings in the different villages. Some shops donated tea, coffee,
cold drinks and cake for lunches when there wereactivities. Other shops discounted the cost of petroland diesel used for the project.
As part of the project, we sold some used
computers and mobile phones with credit and instalment plans to the communities. We organised
some basic computer and mobile training workshops on how to use the internet and social media.
When they had their own devices they could playand learn much more effectively. They built their
45

https://www.ubnt.com
https://commotionwireless.net

184 / Global Information Society Watchconfidence in using information and communications technology (ICT) devices and software tools.
They could communicate with their family members
and their relatives who live in other places in Myanmar and abroad.
As their main income related to cultivation, theylearned techniques and methods for agriculture
and food production by doing online research. They
also learned how to check the weather forecast.
They could communicate with buyers from cities
and negotiate the vegetable prices before sending
their produce to the town markets. School teachers
shared what they learned about the internet with
their students. Students also had the opportunity
to use the internet, and to read, see and learn many
new things.
As the women’s population was bigger thanthe men’s in the Siyin Valley, most of the hard
physical work was done by the men, but the tasksof organising and communicating with other communities in the other villages were mostly done by
women. Financial and administrative work, such as
bookkeeping and playing the role of treasurer andsecretary for meetings and discussions, was in thehands of women. As the shop owners were women,
donation and discounting decisions were made bythem as well.
Given that the project planned to collect a small
amount of money as a contribution from users to
pay for the shared internet bill and other expenditures, women in the community led the collection
process and the management of the income every
month. Some young women and men even met partners online, and ended up getting married. Some
women learned textile design and techniques formaking clothes, and made them for themselves andsometimes sold them to other community members.
As the project had its own local server, it could
download and host Khan Academy6 and World
Possible7 content for educational purposes. Entertainment videos were also hosted on our local
server, so that network users did not need to buy
DVDs and use the internet for entertainment any­more. Instead, they could enjoy their selected
entertainment “channel” on their smartphone or
laptop from their home.
One unique story from our project involves ateacher who was a young woman and who worked
at a high school in Thuklai village in the Siyin Valley. She had come from a city called Monyua, which
is more than 800 kilometers away. This was thefirst time she had travelled to Chin state, and she

felt alone and scared. She said that she used tocry every day in the beginning, but because of the
ASOR­COM wireless internet she could now connect
with her family and friends who were far away. She
also said that she was now very happy in Thuklai
village. Her friends, who are also teachers in theother villages in other parts of Chin state, wanted totransfer to Thuklai because of the easy access to theinternet and the support from the local community.

6
7

8

https://www.khanacademy.org
https://worldpossible.org

Lessons learned
Freedom is not the same as getting things for free.
Sometimes people do not value services that they
do not have to pay for. To empower people to have
responsible behaviour when using the community
networks and maintaining them in a sustainable
way, we asked for contributions, not only of money,
but also their time, whether through physical labour or other forms of volunteer engagement.
Sometimes users would fight amongst themselves. Some users downloaded videos and games
that affected connectivity for everyone. Sometimes people wanted to charge their neighbours
for connecting to their router. We have had to offer counselling to resolve these disputes. We havealso had to install software to monitor and control
the system to limit heavy downloads and access to“adult” content, and to restrict some users during
school hours.
Some reported that community users only spenttime using social media, which they felt was not
improving their lives in significant ways. In orderto change this and encourage users to read more
widely, we set up a system where users first had tocomplete a quiz with general knowledge questions
before being granted a week’s internet access. Ifthey did not know the answers they would have to
go do some research in the local library folder on
the network.
Sometimes parents complained that teachers
used social media during school hours instead of
focusing on school lessons and teaching. The team
met with the communities and teachers and agreed
on limiting the use of social media and internet access during school hours, which, as mentioned, wasconfigured on the system.
There was no national electrical grid in the
project area, so the project had to depend onhydropower8 and solar power. During the rainyseasons, hydropower stations were washed away
by flash floods, and solar power was made ineffective by heavy cloud cover. The network did have a
Private hydropower stations were built by individual households in
Chin state to get electricity.

Myanmar / 185

backup generator, but the diesel needed to run it
led to extra costs for the communities. This meantthat the use of the network was limited in the rainyseasons.

Changing needs
The ASORCOM community Wi-Fi network was active
until the end of 2017. In mid-2017 the area received
mobile telephone coverage by the MPT GSM network. Later Ooredoo 3G and Telenor 3G also offered
their services to the area. Because of this, the network needed to develop new plans, which included
upgrading the network so that it could be used for
local community media including audio podcasts,
video streaming and IPTV. A data server was set up
to assist with local administration.
At present, the team is working on supporting
community radio stations in Myanmar. It is setting
up a community FM radio station in the area and has
been engaged in conducting surveys, meeting with
communities, offering radio journalism training andworkshops, and drafting constitutions and bylaws
for community radio stations which will contributetowards reforming the national broadcasting law.
The team has also been forming a development
committee for the communities in the valley andbuilding a music recording studio.

Action steps: The need to create
a community wireless cooperative
In the absence of strong business cases for
traditional network expansion, community wireless mesh networks have been successfully

implemented in other industrialised and developing
nations to address major barriers to internet adoption and universal connectivity. But deployments ofcommunity-owned networks often require outside
support, including capital grants or technical assistance. Rather than relying on external mechanisms
for assistance, a cooperative seeding organisation
formed in-country could continuously provide thenecessary support for multiple community networks, and act as an intermediary between thecommunities and high-level stakeholders such as
wholesale internet service providers (ISPs), equipment vendors and the government.
In order to create such a cooperative, ASORCOM
has proposed the formation of the Community Wireless Cooperative (CWC) with the aim of promoting asustainable, low-cost approach to expanding internet connectivity to rural, remote and underserved
areas of Myanmar.
At the moment there is only one community
network in Myanmar and ASORCOM encourages
and supports setting up many others. When there
are many autonomous community networks in the
country, they will effectively form a new digitally
linked constituency of alternative network operators that provide ICT services to their communities
and catalyse new social and economic development
opportunities.
The new “information constituencies” will
also be in a position to represent the interests ofMyanmar’s digitally underserved communities
and contribute to policy recommendations for thedesign and implementation of Myanmar’s ICT infrastructure and proposed universal service fund.9

9To build community networks in Myanmar, financial support fromsuch a fund is necessary.

186 / Global Information Society Watchnamibia
The seed of a community network

In this village you have a lot of elderly people
looking after their many, many grandchildrenthat are going to school. Where are they goingto get the money to buy internet data to do theschool work? Because they are depending on
their grandparents and the little their parents
send them. And you have some of the parents
here as well, but they are unemployed and do
not have incomes. They are trying to get theirchildren through school, to at least go to highschool, because here we only have to go tograde 10. So they are trying to get them to go tograde 11 and 12 and finish, and at least try andget a job and let’s say “rescue” the rest of thefamily. But if you do not have the means, andthere is no one helping you, then what you aretrying to do to help your child is difficult.

Internet Society (ISOC)
Quentillian Louw in conversation with Jane Coffin
and Colin Muller
https://www.isoc.org

Introduction
How is a community network born? In many cases,
through someone who experiences the limitationsof living in a remote area, and at the same timerealises the potential that the community could
experience if only it could have a better connection
to the net. That is, a community network needs achampion.
This report is the story of such a champion:someone who is trying to bring change, even if it isa small change, to his community. He is doing thisrecognising that small change can lead to bigger
change and to complete transformations of the livesof the community.
This is the story of Quentillian Louw and his
project that is the seed of a community network in
Namibia. It is based on an interview conducted with
Quentillian by the Internet Society’s Jane Coffin andan ISOC intern, Colin Muller.

There are two mobile networks accessible fromtown, a 3G network from Telecom Namibia and a 4G
network from MTC. But access speeds are not fast:
2 Mbps or 2.5 Mbps in 4G. According to Quentillian,data access can cost from one Namibian “dollar
something” per megabyte, to about two dollars per
megabyte:
But for us that is a bit heavy. It all comes down
to affordability. People do not feel included ifthey do not have the money or the means toaccess a network because they know that otherpeople access it. The price for data is expensive,
especially in Groot Aub.

How it began
Getting kids through school...
In 2015, while Quentillian was finishing his studies
at university, he met a professor, Nic Bidwell,1 who
taught him about wireless networks that were being
set up across the globe. He read about a project inZambia called Macha Works,2 a community networkthat started with a very small link to the internet.
The impact that that link had on the community iswhat convinced him to take on a research project on
the theme. After the research was finished in 2016,
he wondered how he could turn theory into reality,
to assist his community.
That is how the project started, in a village
called Groot Aub located about 60 kilometres southof Windhoek, where 6,000 people live. According toQuentillian:
1
2

Other than the mobile networks, there was no otherway to access the internet in the village. While theschools ran a “one laptop per child” project, they
were closed after hours when the kids actually hadtime to use the computers. Quentillian also noticed
that some of the school kids had got hold of one
school’s Wi-Fi password and were squatting aroundthe school yard at night or in the afternoons connecting through their mobile devices. He saw thepossibilities: he wanted to help grade 10 learners
pass their exams by providing them with the necessary online resources, because there is no libraryin the town:

Author of the thematic report “Community networks: Stories andpower” in this edition of GISWatch.
See the Zambia country report in this edition of GISWatch.

namibia / 187

Many of the kids leave the school at 12 or 1 p.m.
and they are not allowed back in to go use thelabs and the internet connection – because
there is no teacher willing to go sit there withthem and monitor them. There is the one laptop per child project, so they have those laptops
and internet connection, but what I see mosthere is the teachers in the school houses using
the connection after hours, rather than the children being allowed to access the internet on theschool premises and make use of the laptops.
From the start, Quentillian was searching for ways
to get the students online. He couldn’t provide internet access, so he provided a service to download
files for them upon their request:
It feels really bad when you walk in the street
and you see the person you were in class with;they are a bum now, they did not make it. And
you wonder what was the difference between
you and them. And I saw that my mother was ateacher and I was lucky to have that. She could
afford to get me the necessary resources I needed and what I needed to pass. And you can seethat that might be the reason why the other person did not make it, because they did not havethat. So it is kind of like a mission, trying to provide those who don’t have, to provide them thechance to get out.

...and helping startups
A second objective, besides helping students, wasto try and get small local entrepreneurs information
about businesses that they wanted to start up. For
example, if somebody wants to start a car repair
business, they might need information on specificengines, which Quentillian tries to provide to themby searching online.
Quentillian is also working with a very active
community member who has a lot of fresh ideas
to contribute to the project. However, his work can
get lonely sometimes. The project team is madeup of Quentillian, Nic Bidwell as an advisor, andsometimes there are others who are willing to help
sustain it:
They just simply help out when they can, thenthey move on when they have the opportunity
to make money or get a job or anything like that.
So my position is basically just, how do I put it?
The only one; yeah, a start-up.

Building for the future
There is a big demandCurrently Quentillian is searching for ways to share
his internet access more broadly, though the connection he has does not have good bandwidth rightnow. He also feels limited, sometimes finding it difficult to get community members everything they
ask for.
Because of this he wants to turn this project intoa mesh network, which implies getting people involved and installing devices at their houses. “Thiswill make the network robust,” he explains. “Whenone device goes down, you have the other one moving around it.”
Quentillian thinks the network has to be reliable, and to be available when people need it. It also
needs to be convenient, covering as large an area
as possible:
There is a big demand. I have noticed thatamong the youth, the first thing – or these days,
the basic necessity to them – is a smartphone.
They want to be able to go online and use Facebook and Instagram and all of that. It is funnythat for most of them, the next step after themobile phone is a laptop or a desktop computer. But what I have seen with most of the kids
surrounding me is that they are able to accessthe internet from their houses. They actually
use their mobile phones.
He thinks inclusion is what will drive the adoption
and growth of the network. If more people benefit
from it, more people will want to keep it up and running, and more people will be interested in keeping
it growing.

Funding and sustaining a free network
The main challenge at the moment is funding – allof the devices he has are ones he has saved up for.
He also taught himself how to install and manage
them. He feels this is just the beginning of a shared
network, and hopes to find enough funding to beable to install point-to-point connections in key areas of the village:
So you have point-to-point connections from thedifferent locations, and at each location that iswhere you can now provide mesh from the main
node that you have for that location, then justmesh in that entire area. But then once the main
node fails, the mesh for that area is disconnected from the server and the rest of the locations.
Quentillian would like to start a formal organisation
to manage the network:
If funding was available to pay for a connection, for let’s say a certain amount of time into
the future, and I knew that there was no needto pay that, and I knew that there were backup
devices available, I wouldn’t mind giving my

188 / Global Information Society Watch

time, on weekends, to keep the network up
and all of that, because that is what I want to
do now, and I am already giving my own moneyfrom my side, my own internet connection, andI am sharing it. If an organisation were to start
it would have to be non-profit, because I don’t
see me saying that providers are charging and it
is too expensive for people to afford it and thenyet I come still charging. It is not like the money
is coming to me, it could still come back to theorganisation. But the whole point is having anorganisation to help self-sustain the network.
So let’s say it is non-profit, so you just havepeople contribute; I don’t know in what way, butthat is still something to work out.

Getting the community involved
Another challenge is how to make the community
get involved:
So in terms of social challenges, try to get people involved who are like-minded; you should
always remember that. Get people in who want
to do the same thing. Don’t get people in who
you believe have good contacts, because that
doesn’t work at the end of the day.
Quentillian is exploring several ways to involvecommunity members:
The way I would put it, is that it is to your own
benefit. If I feel like a person cannot see that
it is for their own benefit, then I cannot workwith that person, because they are not trying tobenefit the entire community now, they are justlooking out for themselves. Because if someone
comes to tell you, “I have something here, it is
not going to directly benefit you immediately,
but it is for the greater good, it is here to benefit
everyone around you, and in so doing also benefit you in a way,” it is in that sense that you aresupposed to grab that with both hands and gowith it. Those are the kind of people I look for,because if I go to you and explain it to you one
time, and you feel like you are not part of it, thenwe just go on and explain it to the next person
until you find like-minded individuals who actually want to do something for the communityand develop it. That is why you need to find thatone person in the location that is like-minded
and willing to do it for the people around him.
When you have that person, he is now more able
to tell you which people in that area are more
willing to also do that.

He wants to provide the connection freely, and at thesame time think of ways for it to generate income:Once it has all the devices and it is a fully running
network and you have people in the community
working on it, and you have educated them on
how to maintain the network and possibly growthe network, you also have to find some way offunding all of that without having people pay
for access to the internet. I still have to look atother examples of how people did it. How community networks sustain the network without
having to get extra funding just to do that.
I want to look at other models, at how people
sustain this over a long period of time withoutcharging. I know that that is not a good thingin terms of sustainability, but I am sure there issome way. Someone has done it before, and they
have managed to keep the network up without
people having to pay for it. I want to learn what
other community networks are doing.
We are also talking about starting an NGO tojust make sure that funds don’t get misused andthat no one person has power over funds or to
make all the decisions, because let’s say I get tomake all the decisions, and I think I am making
the right decision but it is not the right one in
the eyes of others, and it is not benefiting others. You don’t want that. You want it in a way to
be a mixed group of people from different partsof the village. For the mesh network to work weneed to have devices in certain houses in eachof the different locations in the village. So you
need to have one person from that location thatyou can use to reach people in that area interested in participating in the project, and all ofthat.

Show the benefit and grow it from there
Quentillian was given advice to go out into the community, informing them and teaching them how to
use Wi-Fi and convince them to support the cause,
but he is wondering if this is the right approach. The
community has been disillusioned by many failed
projects that did not bring them real benefits, heexplained, adding:namibia / 189

In Groot Aub it is not going to work like that.
What you have to do is put it up, set the network up, have it running, get the people to tell
you what content they want. Then show them
how to use it. And show them that it is actually
benefiting them. Tell them that if they use theirmobile devices they can access these resourcesand can even go in and request more if theyneed something else. Because what happens isthat arguments will calm down. If you approachthem in the beginning they will want to know
how they are going to benefit monetarily, whatmoney they can get out of it. If you are in charge,
what are you getting for doing it. That’s how it
is, sort of a mentality problem. That is the mentality here. So in my opinion, I believe you set itup, you have it running, and then you show thebenefit of it and then grow it from there.

The will to fightQuentillian has been attending regional meetings,
such as the Third Summit on Community Networks
in Africa3 in the Eastern Cape in September, tomeet others that are setting up similar projects. He
concludes:
It makes it feel a bit small compared to theothers that I have seen. But meeting other people doing the same thing gives you sort of likesomething to look forward to. It kind of tells youthat there is help out there. If you need help
there are people you can ask. So it helps you.
It makes you feel like you are small, but it kindof gives you the will to fight. Like you want tobecome like those networks.

He plans to start a train-the-trainer project where
community members can train other community
members:
Once you step away, you give it over to the community completely, and everyone is trained andthey can continue training each other. You canalways be there to help in emergencies or when
it is really needed, but the plan is for it to beowned and run by the community itself.

3

https://www.internetsociety.org/events/
summit-community-networks-africa/2018

190 / Global Information Society Watch

nepalConnecting Himalayan villages in Nepal to the outside
world: The tale of the Nepal Wireless Networking Projecta village in a mountainous region ended up offering
education and telemedicine, and an opportunity togenerate income through local e‑commerce platforms, to communities in remote regions of Nepal.

National Innovation Centre
Mahabir Pun
https://www.nicnepal.org and nepalwireless.net

Policy, economic and political background

Introduction
This report describes the experience of the Nepal
Wireless Networking Project (NWNP), a grassroots
initiative in remote Himalayan communities in Nepal. Launched in 2001 in Nangi, the project has been
extended to more than 200 villages over 17 years. It
is currently the only community network in Nepal –although others are emerging and looking to draw
on NWNP’s experience.
The initial objective of NWNP was to address
the dire need for communication services in the remote mountain villages. At that time, in 2001, there
was not a single village that had modern telecommunications and transportation facilities. Instead,villagers had to walk several hours – or even days
– to exchange messages, or just to make a phonecall. Most people in the villages were not aware of
the potential offered by either computers or theinternet.
The project might have been just a dream, if
social activist and team leader of NWNP Mahabir
Pun had not written an email to a BBC group forum1
out of curiosity, asking for help from volunteers toconnect a Himalayan village. BBC subsequently
published an article on his work.2 To his surprise,
he received an overwhelming response from volunteers around the world. The idea of NWNP started tomaterialise after that.
With the help of volunteers using thethen-emerging Wi-Fi technology, the villagers in
Nangi informally started NWNP in 2001. After doing various phases of trial and error for one and ahalf years using quite basic indoor Wi-Fi devices
and homebuilt antennas, they managed to get theconnection to work in the village. As the network
grew, the project started to receive media attention,and funding from individuals started coming. As aresult, a simple project that was started to connect
12BBC. (2004, 25 May). Wi-fi lifeline for Nepal’s farmers. BBC News.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3744075.stm
BBC. (2001, 22 October). Village in the clouds embraces computers.
BBC News. https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1606580.stm

When NWNP was launched, there was great political instability in Nepal due to a Maoist insurgency.
As a result, Nepal’s government policy for the development of wireless networks was very strict. At
that time, the import and use of any kind of wireless networking equipment in Nepal was illegal.
Because of this, the equipment was brought withthe help of international volunteers and university students. After the restoration of democracy in2006, NWNP lobbied with the association of internet service providers (ISPs)3 and demanded that the
2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz frequencies on the ISM band
be de-licensed. As a result of this the government
de-licensed those frequencies in September 2006.
A second regulatory obstacle was that to become an ISP in Nepal, it was necessary to pay a hugelicence fee. NWNP lobbied the regulatory body, the
Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA),4 to reduce the licence fee. As a result the NTA issued a
new law that made the licensing procedure simple.
It also reduced the fee to just 100 Nepalese rupees(around USD 1) a year for those who want to work asrural ISPs. These regulatory changes helped community networks to easily get licences in Nepal, andalso to legally provide internet access and IT services in the rural areas.

An innovative experience
NWNP certainly has had an innovative and interesting beginning to share with wireless communities
around the world. Back in 2001, while villagers in
Nangi were looking for different ideas to bring theinternet to the remote mountain communities using
Wi-Fi technology, most of the engineers and experts
in the communications field had told them that itwas not possible to make a long-range wirelesslink using normal Wi-Fi routers. Their main concern
was the lack of funding to buy high-end equipment
3
4

nepal / 191

ispan.net.np
https://nta.gov.np

and the distance of over 40 km that the radio signal
had to cover to connect Nangi to the nearest city,
Pokhara.
Despite negative feedback from the experts,
the NWNP team members decided to continue conducting field experiments using basic equipment,such as a 2.4 GHz indoor wireless router with 60
MW transmitting power, normal switches, and solar
power sources. These devices were donated by individuals from abroad. At the beginning, NWNP had toeven use home-built dish antennas because thesewere not available on the market.
After conducting several field experiments overa period of one and a half years, in May 2002, the
NWNP team managed to connect the village to thecity of Pokhara using a dial-up internet service. The
technical experts, who were sceptical of the project,
were amazed because – technically – it was not possible to make a 40-km link using indoor routers andhome-built antennas, especially when the area issurrounded by high mountains.
NWNP has now acquired powerful wirelessequipment for connectivity, and has rolled out tomore than 200 villages in 15 districts of Nepal. Solar
power systems have been installed at the repeater
stations to make the networks robust and reliable.
The project is gradually adding various applications
and services for the benefit of the villagers.

Technical configuration
NWNP was started from scratch, and was built gradually over a time span of about 17 years – and it isstill growing. The project has set up base stationsin three cities, Kathmandu, Pokhara and Gorakha,
to which the villages are connected. The base stations have routers and servers that are linked to theinternet through a leased optical fibre line. Fromthe base stations, a series of repeater stations havebeen built on the mountain tops to connect different
villages. The access points on the mountain tops
work as relay stations that distribute the internet to
end-users in the villages. All the villages are connected to the access points through point-to-point
or point-to-multipoint wireless links.
High-speed backhaul radios operate on a dedicated core local-area network (LAN) that reaches
from the base stations to different districts throughthe relay stations. The longest point-to-point link
NWNP has made is 59 km from one mountain top toanother. The distance between an access point andend-users ranges from 2 km to 10 km. The villages
that are connected to the network are divided into
different sub-nets to manage the network smoothly. Routers have been installed at each of therelay stations. These provide DHCP5 services to endusers and serve as interfaces between the backbone,wireless LAN (WLAN), and local distribution LANs.
For the point-to-point backhaul links, unlicensed 5.8 GHz wireless devices made by different
companies have been used. However, for the lastmile connectivity and for the hotspots, 2.4 GHz
wireless devices are being used. These devices
using unlicensed bands are now easily available on
the market. This is affordable equipment that canbe used to bring broadband services to rural areas. However, the main constraint of using 2.4 GHz
and 5.8 GHz frequencies is that it requires a clear
line of sight to connect the rural areas, whereas
the villages in mountainous regions are scatteredacross a diverse topography. Furthermore, if there
is a big tree, small hill or mound or harsh weather
along the path of the radio waves, the signals get
blocked or the signal strength decreases drastically.
Because of these hindrances, NWNP is facing someproblems in its efforts to connect the most remotevillages using wireless equipment in the 2.4 and 5.8
GHz bands.
To identify alternatives, NWNP conducted apilot project in 2016. The objective was to test thepotentials of TV white space using 460 MHz to 478
MHz, and VHF technology using 192.5 MHz to 202.5
MHz. The pilot project connected eight villages using these technologies. NWNP had been issued witha licence to use those bands; however, getting thelicences was not easy.
The pilot project is still running and it is working quite well. We found that TV white space signals
and VHF bands can travel much greater distancesand overcome obstacles, such as buildings andvegetation.
It would have been good to use devices using
the 900 MHz band for the last-mile connectivity in
Nepal; however, the government has not made itavailable for community networks. For last-mileconnectivity in community networks it is recommended to use the 900 MHz band if it is open for
public use.

Community involvement in NWNP
From the very beginning NWNP has been working
in remote and rural areas. These areas of Nepal aresparsely populated, and the majority of the inhabitants are subsistence farmers. The poorest and least
developed part of the country is in the mountainous
region. Most of the young people (between 20 and

5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Host_Configuration_Protocol

192 / Global Information Society Watch

30 years of age) leave the villages in search of jobs
in the cities or abroad. Because of this, mostly women, children, the youth and old people are living in
the villages.
At the beginning, the villagers in Nangi were
not even aware of the internet. Therefore, it was achallenge to involve community members in building NWNP. However, it did not take long for people
to understand the benefits of having access to aninternet connection, especially once they learned tocommunicate using VoIP, text chat, emails and bulletin boards.
There are many community stakeholders involved in NWNP. These include local schools,
healthcare clinics, businesses, local government
and individuals. The users of the community networks include farmers, teachers, students, healthworkers, development workers and local government officials. Users are mostly younger people
such as students. This is because the students atthe schools get to learn about computers and theinternet first hand.

Project management
For the smooth operation of the community networks, network management committees made up
of community members have been formed to manage the different services provided by NWNP. The
local management committees include members
from mothers’ and women’s groups, social clubs,
school management committees, and communication centres.
The key role of NWNP is to provide technicalsupport to build the network and connect facilities
such as rural schools, healthcare clinics, community
communication centres and local government offices. The servers and routers at the base stations aremaintained by the NWNP system administrators.
It also provides training for the capacity buildingof local technicians so that they can build, run andmaintain the network smoothly.
Each local management committee appoints atechnical person to troubleshoot and fix the technical problems and to provide support for the users
in the village. In case the local problem cannot be
solved by local technicians, NWNP sends technicalteam members to help fix the problem.
Because of the above structure, NWNP does notprovide services directly to the end-users; instead,the services are provided to end-users through the
network management committees of each village.
The management committee is responsible formaintaining and operating the network. The project,however, has to generate income for maintenanceand operation.

One of the key factors contributing to sustainability is that the rural communities should be
involved from the start. If possible, it is importantto then transfer the ownership of the network tocommunities. To ensure financial sustainability, themanagement committees charge reasonable connectivity fees of about USD 15 to USD 30 per monthdepending on the bandwidth used. This monthly
connectivity fee is a bit expensive for the rural population but has been coming down every year. The
monthly fee, paid by the community centres, individual users, local businesses, rural schools andrural clinics, is used to pay for the internet bandwidth cost and to incentivise the technical support
team.

Conclusions
Most rural and remote communities in developing countries face similar key challenges, such as
poor infrastructure, lack of resources, and a lackof skilled person power. Understanding the local
context, and securing the involvement of local andinternational actors and local communities to complement financial resources, are important.
Governments should also access universal
service funds to support community networks andmake them sustainable. However, this has not happened yet in Nepal.
Mobile phone services have now penetrated around 90% of the population of Nepal. At thesame time, Nepal has a federal system of government now and many of the newly elected state andlocal governments are trying to introduce ICT-related services in the villages. Because of this, NWNP
has shifted its priority from communication service
to public services, such as e‑education, e‑health,e‑agriculture, e‑commerce and digital literacy
programmes. NWNP is now working with eight
local governments in developing user-friendly webbased applications and mobile apps which will help
to make the lives of the rural population easier.

Action steps
The following key lessons have been learned
through the NWNP project:•

Use affordable equipment in conjunction withthe 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz unlicensed bands tobuild community networks in sparsely populated areas. These bands are unlicensed in most of
the countries in the world.

•

Involve local stakeholders, such as local businesses, local community organisations, local
governments, and individual community members. They must all be engaged for the creation

nepal / 193

of a smooth operation. Likewise, the network
should be owned by them.
•Train local technicians for the technical sustainability of the network, so that the community
can expand the network when necessary, andtroubleshoot the problems in time.

•

Produce local content in local languages andintegrate digital literacy programmes into the
network roll-out plan to help the rural population appropriate the internet.

•

Acquire subsidies from the government if possible for community networks. This is helpful
at least for a few years at the beginning. It will
be difficult for rural and remote communities tobuild and operate community networks using
their own resources.

•

Lobby the government to use the universal service fund to support community networks.

194 / Global Information Society Watchnigeria
The rehabilitation of a rural community networkin war-torn northern Nigeria

negative impact on women, girls, older persons andpeople with disabilities.

Fantsuam Foundation
John Dada
www.fantsuam.org

Policy context

Introduction
Nigeria boasts high ambitions for broadband penetration. For example, the Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC), whose mission is to promote
universal broadband access,1 has listed this as thefirst point in its eight-point agenda.2 With such commitments coming from the highest information andcommunications technology (ICT) policy bodies in
Nigeria, there seems to be an enabling environment
to fast-track the provision of affordable access supported by skills and tools to enable people to solve
their connectivity challenges.
However, to what extent is this the case?
At the moment, Nigeria has achieved 21% broadband penetration, most of which is urban based andrelies on 3G and 4G mobile technology. The country hopes to increase its broadband penetration to
30% by 20183 and to “increase rural access coverage by 40% by 2020.”4 This modest target has tocontend with the absence of appropriate first-mile
infrastructure.
The Fantsuam Community Wireless Network,
which was set up in 2008 and operated until 2011,
was established to meet the needs of the subsistence farming communities and peri-urban slums of
Kafanchan in the Jema’a Local Government of Kaduna State. These communities are typical in that theylack electricity and road access, and do not haveeducational and health institutions or many smallscale businesses.
The experience of the Fantsuam Community
Wireless Network will be of particular interest to African countries that have experienced or are in thegrip of sectarian violence, with its disproportionate
12
3
4

https://www.ncc.gov.ng/about-ncc/who-we-arehttps://www.ncc.gov.ng/
documents/728-8-point-agenda-milestones/file
https://www.ncc.gov.ng/stakeholder/media-public/
speeches-presentations#2016
Federal Ministry of Communications. (2017). Nigeria ICT
Roadmap 2017-2020. www.commtech.gov.ng/Doc/Nigeria_ICT_
Roadmap_2017-2020.pdf

Nigeria operates a complex system of regulation
for its communication infrastructure, with different
regulatory functions located in different agencies
within the Ministry of Communications. The ministry’s mandate is to “facilitate universal, ubiquitousand cost effective access to communications infrastructure throughout the country”5 through its
departments and agencies: the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA),6
Galaxy Backbone,7 Nigeria Communications Satellite (NIGCOMSAT),8 Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC)9 and Nigerian Postal Service(NIPOST).10 The main government regulators are the
NCC and NITDA.
The NITDA regulates, monitors, evaluates andverifies progress on all national IT policy implementations. Although one of its mandates is “toserve as a clearing house for all IT procurement andservices in the public sector,”11 this has been interpreted to mean that both public and private network
equipment deployed in Nigeria must get the approval of the NITDA. This may be because the agency is
focused on the local high-demand hardware andsoftware market,12 not on the low-cost, open source
resources typically used in community networks.
The NCC and NITDA were responsible for setting
up 867 networks intended to serve marginalised
and underserved communities. Fantsuam Foundation’s efforts to engage these regulators in dialogue
on how to make these networks viable and self-sustaining have yet to yield any positive results.
The nearest projects that may look like community networks in Nigeria are actually networks

5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

nigeria / 195

www.commtech.gov.ng/the-ministry/mct-mandates.html
https://nitda.gov.ng
www.galaxybackbone.com.ng
www.nigcomsat.gov.ng
https://www.ncc.gov.ng
www.nipost.gov.ng
https://nitda.gov.ng/mandate
Amanze-Nwachuku, C. (2016, 12 September). Nigeria: Coscharis
Tech Gets NITDA Approval for Production of Cosmos Computers.
This Day. https://allafrica.com/stories/201609120558.html

set up by the government, the private sector andphilanthropic organisations for disadvantaged, underserved and marginalised communities.
The titles of these projects may give the impression that they function as community networks, but
this is not the case:•Community Communication Centre•

Community ICT Centre•

Public Access Venue

to be made publicly available. Recent research by
APC15 also showed that the process for obtaining
the regulator’s approval for access to this resource
can be quite complicated and too expensive forinterested community networks. In this regard,
Fantsuam Foundation, in partnership with the Centre for Information Technology and Development(CITAD),16 another member of APC, have lobbied theregulator, and have also enlisted other civil society
organisations working in the IT field in Nigeria. Fantsuam’s application to the regulator for permission
to do a pilot using TVWS was turned down.

•

Rural Information Technology Centre.

The Fantsuam Community Wireless Network•

Community Resource Centre•

Community Learning Centre

The top-down mode of establishing these projects,
almost entirely funded externally, does not makethem qualify to be recognised as community networks. The communal ownership of infrastructureis one of the identifying and sustainability-enabling
features of community networks. The absence of
this critical element may explain the non-viability of
most of these projects.
For example, the NCC, which funded several ofthese projects, observed that “many schools andcommunities where the NCC had set up resourceand school knowledge centres, have not put themto adequate use and this is affecting internet penetration in rural areas.”13
The size and political complexity of Nigeria
creates a challenge for accessing information
for marginalised communities. The licensed private sector operators do not have the incentive toprovide services to under- and unserved rural communities, especially because they are able to makesubstantial profits from their urban operations.
The Ministry of Communications has developed
an ICT Roadmap14 which is intended to create two
million jobs by 2020. Achieving this laudable target
can be facilitated if community networks are given
the enabling environment for their establishment
and operations.
There is currently no regulation on community
networks in Nigeria. Frequencies are allocated fromthe office of the regulator and are sometimes allocated by auction, and are also managed from theregulator’s office.
One of the yet-to-be explored communication
technologies that can be available and accessible
to marginalised communities in Nigeria is television
white space (TVWS). However, this resource is yet
13 Nigerian NewsDirect. (2017, 29 September).
Schools, Communities not using ICT Centres – NCC.
Nigerian NewsDirect. nigeriannewsdirect.com/
schools-communities-not-using-ict-centres-ncc
14 Federal Ministry of Communications. (2017). Op. cit.

The cycle of sectarian violence that started in 2011
and continued into 2018 in our host communities
has rendered thousands homeless, and led to anincrease in marginalised, vulnerable and impoverished families and individuals. The war also led
to the deaths of thousands of young men, leaving
behind older persons, traumatised adolescent girls
and young women. However, the cycle of violence
has also destroyed what little communications infrastructure was available in these communities.
The hub of the Fantsuam Community Wireless Network was located in the Fantsuam offices in theperi-urban slum of Bayanloco. From there, radios
were set up within a 10 km radius of the hub.
In this context, Fantsuam Foundation provides
a suite of integrated services as part of its missionof poverty elimination in northern Nigeria. Our key
activities lie in sustainable livelihoods, health,education and social protection, with gender, volunteering and ICTs as cross-cutting concerns.
Our constituency is the rural poor in northern
Nigeria,17 who are among the poorest in the world.18
Literacy levels in the region are also among the lowest in Nigeria. With little disposable income, andjust emerging from the period of prolonged sectarian violence, the provision of basic necessities suchas food, clothing and shelter remains the over-riding
15 Association for Progressive Communications. (2012). Spectrum
for development: Nigeria. https://www.apc.org/sites/default/
files/countries/factsheet%20nigeria_eng.pdf; Jensen, M. (2013).
The role of TV white spaces and dynamic spectrum in helping to
improve internet access in Africa and other developing regions.
In E. Pietrosemoli & M. Zennaro, TV White Spaces: A pragmatic
approach. Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical
Physics. wireless.ictp.it/tvws/book/8.pdf
16 https://www.citad.org
17 Amzat, A. (2017, 24 July). Despite decades of funding, literacy
level in the northern states remains low. The Guardian. https://
guardian.ng/news/despite-decades-of-funding-literacy-level-inthe-northern-states-remains-low
18 Eweniyi, O. (2017, 10 November). Nigeria Is Set To Become The
Poverty Capital Of The World By 2018. Konbini. https://www.
konbini.com/ng/lifestyle/nigeria-poverty-capital-world-2018

196 / Global Information Society Watchpriority. While our activities are always determinedby the host communities’ priorities, we have been
exploring ICTs as an enabler of these priorities.
Making communications accessible and affordable to these populations provides a lifeline forrural communities. Among other things, it allows
them to stay in contact with distant relatives who
send remittances. The low disposable incomes ofthe survivors, coupled with the sparse remaining
communications infrastructure, dictate that information that rebuilds the local economy ought to beprioritised.
Fantsuam’s experience with provision of microfinance services has also shown that women andgirls, while being the most traumatised from thecrisis, remain the most resilient and reliable with regards to the use of their loans. Therefore, the same
approach was taken in our efforts to set up the community network. As far as available records show,
the Fantsuam Community Wireless Network was the
only rural internet service provider (ISP) in Nigeria.

Physical infrastructure
In 2008, when the network was set up, it provided
intranet and internet access to local partners in thecommunity.19 The community network was formed bycommunity-based organisations such as educational
institutions, faith-based institutions, health services,
small enterprises and individuals. We connected tothe internet using satellite dishes and paying a subscription to Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN),
a global satellite network,20 but this was ultimately
unsustainable due to the high costs.
Since 2008, the location, size and operationsof the network have changed in response to theunstable political situation and socioeconomic
challenges of the rural host communities. Now the
only surviving equipment is located in the network
operation centre at the Fantsuam premises. There
are, however, no clients such as rural farming communities and small businesses currently connected
to it. Its user sites have been lost to vandalism andthe violence.
From 2008 to 2011, when the Fantsuam Community Wireless Network was fully operational,
it served a major hospital, two private clinics andthree educational institutions, and was also frequently used by the security services. The network
served 23 individual homes within the 10 km radiusof its operations
19 Balancing Act. (n/d). Nigeria’s Fantsuam pioneers
wireless service dubbed Zittnet. https://www.
balancingact-africa.com/news/telecoms-en/3562/
nigerias-fantsuam-pioneers-wireless-service-dubbed-zittnet
20 www.bgansatellite.com

The power infrastructure consisted of a hybrid
system of a deep-cycle battery bank and 2 KW solar panels. The system charged from three different
sources: the grid when electricity was available, adiesel generator and an array of solar panels. The
network operation centre ran solely from solar energy. The solar power system had been designed toprovide 12V and 24V DC output in order to fit the
input voltage of all low-power servers and workstations that ran the centre infrastructure andtraining classrooms. The centre provided training
in basic computer literacy, computer maintenanceand network configurations, among others. The
network operating centre was designed to host abattery bank of approximately 70 batteries and 24
south-facing solar panels on its 20-degree roof.
In order to reach the participating communities,
a 45-metre-tall mast, equipped with earthing andlightning protection, together with a mandatory
signal light, was erected at the network operating
centre.
The wireless backbone was built with smartBridges airClient multiband point-to-multipoint
outdoor wireless links which included integrated
multiband sectoral antennae that could operate
both in 2.4 GHz and 5.1/5.8 Ghz frequencies. The
airClient equipment used the IEEE 802.11e standard
to support traffic prioritisation and bandwidth management per client.
Now we continue to provide training in basic computer literacy, and internet and computer
maintenance at the centre. The centre is now also
government accredited to offer online university entrance examinations. As mentioned, the equipment
at the centre survived the sectarian violence, including the solar panels. However, we now have to rely
on mobile phone connectivity, which is expensive.

Conclusions
There is an increasing international interest in the
promotion of community networks, and Fantsuam
Foundation’s participation in the various interest
groups may provide an avenue for reaching out tothe Nigerian regulators to engage in a dialogue on
the topic. It is also important to engage the regulators on how marginalised communities can get
access to TVWS. Our international partners include
APC,21 the Net Rights Africa Coalition,22 the Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity (DC3),23

21 https://www.apc.org
22 https://rightscon2018.sched.com/event/EHks/africas-digitalrights-secretariat-net-rights-africa-coalition-and-its-prospects
23 https://www.comconnectivity.org
nigeria / 197

Action steps

ISOC24 and the ISOC Community Networks Special
Interest Group (CNSIG).25
The specific issues of post-war reconstruction,
rehabilitation and reconstruction have to be addressed within a framework that ensures that the
injured and traumatised female populations of
the affected communities are supported so that
their voices are heard in the unfolding development agenda of their communities. This has led
us to explore the use of TVWS for which Fantsuam
Foundation has made efforts to get the regulators’
approval. As mentioned, Fantsuam had applied for
permission to undertake a pilot of the TVWS toserve its internally displaced population, but thishas not been approved yet.
The survival of the Fantsuam Community Wireless
Network – even if it is just the centre – throughout theperiod of crisis represents a hope for a better future
and a reminder of what has been lost and needs tobe replaced in order to restore normalcy to this rural
economy. The deployment of ICTs for use in education, health and agriculture are the current priorities.
The process is being made as inclusive as possible
by providing a range of ancillary services to complement the communication mandate of the network.
Basic digital literacy programmes have now been
established for older persons above the age of 70,
while information and support services, including reproductive health both for rape victims and teenage
mothers, are being provided.

The absence of a coherent policy and strategy forachieving the stated objectives of the regulators26
may benefit from the diplomatic engagement at
ISOC and other international organisations. As akeen participant in many of these international forums, the Nigerian regulator may be persuaded tosupport local initiatives such as those by Fantsuam
Foundation, and liberalise access to TVWS.
While the Fantsuam Community Wireless
Network is actively engaged in the social and community development services of reconstruction,
rehabilitation and reconciliation, Fantsuam Foundation is lobbying the regulators for improved
access to affordable communication infrastructure
for its partner communities. The absence of clear
policy guidelines on the processes of setting up
community networks means that permission has
to be obtained for every major community network
activity.
Local initiatives such as the Fantsuam Community Wireless Network are already focused on
marginalised communities. In our case we havea special interest in facilitating access to ICTs andsupporting the development of internally displaced
women and girls. But an enabling environment isneeded to help similar local initiatives to come on
stream.

24 https://www.internetsociety.org
25 cnsig.info

26 See https://www.ncc.gov.ng/about-ncc/who-we-are and www.
commtech.gov.ng/Doc/Nigeria_ICT_Roadmap_2017-2020.pdf
198 / Global Information Society Watch

Pakistan
Wireless for Communities(W4C) Pakistan

One of the key obstacles to improving internet
penetration in rural and remote areas is last-mileconnectivity. The lack of commercial viability, as
well as huge network roll-out costs, worry operators
who are reluctant to make the necessary investments. Although mobile broadband has emerged as
an excellent alternative to wired last-mile connections, its usage is heavily weighed to benefit urban
and semi-urban areas, rather the rural lands.
For example, in Pakistan, even with over 74.21%
mobile penetration, only 28.14% of the population
uses broadband internet.1 In villages – where morethan 55% of the population lives – the Pakistan
Telecommunication Authority told us that internet
usage is likely to be less than 8%.
Community networks are proven to be an excellent way to address the gap in last-mile internet
connectivity for underserved communities.
Wireless for Communities (W4C) Pakistan ispart of a larger community network programmemanaged by the Internet Society (ISOC) in AsiaPacific, together with its partner organisationsin India, Pakistan and Nepal. The programme involves deploying line-of-sight wireless technology
and low-cost Wi-Fi equipment to create community-owned and operated wireless networks.
Established in December 2015, our pilot community network is situated in “Chak-5 Faiz”. “Chak” isa term used for a scattered community that includes
multiple small villages. Chak-5 Faiz is located 25 kmfrom the city of Multan.

internet. Typically, a telephone company or internet
service provider (ISP) offers backhaul bandwidth.
To keep our operational costs at a minimum andto ensure robust backhaul, we preferred to partnerwith an existing local ISP to build our community
network. This approach would not only save network running costs, but also minimise respective
regulatory and/or policy processes including registration, licensing and compliance.
COMSATS Internet Services (CIS),2 establishedin 1996 as a pioneer ISP in Pakistan, is our local
partner, providing a dedicated 10 Mbps bandwidthfor our community network, as well as on-groundtechnical support through its network engineers.
Our community network is centred around a
55-metre-high tri-pole tower holding sector antennas which gives a two-kilometre area of coveragein a scattered community comprising several small
villages and local schools. The tower acts as basestation, linking clients through both the 2.4 GHz and
5.8 GHz frequency bands – these are categorised as“free or unlicensed spectrum” in Pakistan, meaningthat they can be used by anyone without having alicence or paying a fee. Following a point-to-multipoint (P2MP) topology, the base station broadcasts
to several receiving antennas using time-divisionmultiplexing for maximising bidirectional traffic
flow over longer distances.
The base station set-up also includes network management devices to distribute the total
allocated bandwidth (10 Mbps) to connected clients. These management devices also control theoverall network access through MAC addresses
and usernames/passwords. The access control isimplemented to ensure optimum usage of this community network and prevent an open public Wi-Fi
environment.

The network

Connecting the community

Unlike the traditional, “top-down” commercial
approach, in a community network environment,
deployment starts from the end-user or the “lastmile”. However, your network does require reliable backhaul connectivity (either wired or wireless)in order to carry packets to and from the global

Following the deployment of core network infrastructure, our next goal was to connect thecommunity. In order to try to maximise the 10 Mbps
bandwidth, we conducted a community survey togauge the wireless signal strengths as well as theneeds of the community.

12

Wireless for Communities Pakistan
Naveed Haq
https://wforc.pk

Introduction

https://www.pta.gov.pk//en/telecom-indicators

www.comsats.net.pk

Pakistan / 199

Network base station tower; with attached wireless antennas (right).

Our survey identified a local government schoolfor girls located within the network range. The school
had a non-functional internet connection, runningover a telephone line that had been disconnected formonths. The school computer lab was equipped withcomputers – but because there was no internet nor
teaching staff trained in computers, most of the machines were sheltered in beautiful protective covers
that had rarely been removed. The situation was a bit
ironic and sad: despite having computers, the school
girls were not able to use the internet.
Since this is a government school, we first had
to secure permission from the local district education department – this was given instantly. While wewere installing the equipment, including a wirelessantenna, the students were heard whispering with
joy: “These people have come to connect us with
the internet.” Yes, the internet is a luxury and still adream to many! According to a recent International
Monetary Fund (IMF) report, Pakistan is among the
top eight countries where the majority of the population cannot access or afford the internet.3
3

International Monetary Fund. (2018). Chapter 2: Digital
Government. Fiscal Monitor, April 2018: Capitalizing on
Good Times. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/FM/
Issues/2018/04/06/fiscal-monitor-april-2018

The connectivity for the school was establishedin a few hours and the whole computer lab was provided with internet access – our first client for ourcommunity network. After this the school started
running computer and internet classes once a week.
We also found that a local polytechnic instituteoffering courses in agriculture technology needed connectivity. Agriculture constitutes the largest
sector of Pakistan’s economy. The majority of the
population, directly or indirectly, is dependent on
this sector. It contributes about 24% to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), accounts forhalf of the employed labour force, and is the largest
source of foreign exchange earnings.4
The primary purpose of this institute is to organise diploma courses on agriculture sciences
and promote research on agriculture matters. Here,again, we came to know that a computer lab exists,
but that due to limited internet connectivity bothstudents and staff were not able to perform basic
internet functions such as email. The students had
no choice but to rely on places outside their institute to complete assignments, either at their homes
or at internet cafés in the nearby city.
4

www.pbs.gov.pk/content/agriculture-statistics

200 / Global Information Society Watch

Project team installing network antennas at the agricultural institute.

Our community network project was warmly
welcomed by the institute. They later told us thatthe first thing they did when they got connected
was to open a Facebook account5 and start publishing about their activities.
The third and last site connected through ourcommunity network was a nearby village of 20 to 25
households. Permission to install roof antennas andother equipment at both the school and the poly­technic institute was easy; however, we were a bit
sceptical about how easy it would be in the case of
the village. Our first challenge was to map the mostappropriate house to sync with our base station, andthen, the perhaps more difficult challenge of getting
acceptance and permission to install an antenna – itmay, for example, look strange to villagers.
However, all it took to secure their permission
was to say that our community network would“bring internet to your village.”
We got to know that many households in thevillage have relatives working in the United ArabEmirates (UAE), and the internet for them holds agreat value in that it allows them to make free calls
using Skype. They were facing limited connectivity:
they had no access to wired internet, and the available mobile internet did not work because of weaksignals. As a result they had to travel approximately
two kilometres to use an internet signal. Althoughusing the internet for Skype calls sounds like a bareminimum usage of the real potential of the internet,
for the villagers the ability to talk every day for freewith a family member is of huge value.
To avoid any misuse of the network throughconnecting through unknown devices, we donateda number of pre-programmed tablets to the village.
By the time we had completed our antenna installation and connectivity testing, the news of us
5

https://web.facebook.com/pg/Govt-Pak-German-PolytechnicInstitute-For-AgricultureChak-5-Faiz-Multan-936555679712809/
posts/?ref=page_internal“bringing internet” to communities had spread toseveral nearby villages. A number of villagers appealed for similar internet access, and said theywould be willing to pay a monthly internet accessfee. Unfortunately, these villages fall outside our
network diameter, and we had to give them our regrets. Their requests showed that there is a strong
need to find alternative and sustainable solutions
to address the connectivity gap that exists between
urban and rural areas – and that a community network is one solution.

Owning the network
The most important element to achieve the desired
success from a community network is the ownership of the community network by the connected
community. It is very important to ensure that those
who are connected value the network and online
services – in our case, supplementary educational
content – provided over it. Community ownership ofthe network is also critical to ensuring the sustainability of the network, which in many cases can belarge, complex, costly, and potentially fragile.
In the case of our community network, whereoperational costs are at a bare minimum (due tothe in-kind contribution of backhaul bandwidth aswell as technical support from our partner ISP), theprospect of the network being sustainable is greater. However, equally important is that users get tounderstand that the internet can be used for morethan just browsing, sending emails and making
free Skype calls. The sustainability of a community
network is also about getting the community to understand the “value add” that the internet can offer.

Community training
For the first six months after providing our three clients with internet, we just let them use it in any way
they wanted to. A team of engineers from our partner ISP would make monthly visits to resolve any

Pakistan / 201

Team installing antenna for connecting the village.

technical issues, and also to get regular input/feedback from the community. Yes, there were instances
when wireless router cables were accidentally unplugged, resulting in a panic. These regular visits
included basic troubleshooting exercises for users
so that they could begin to resolve minor issues
themselves.
Now, more than two years since deployment,
the network has never had a major breakdown – ourantennas and equipment operate under the supervision of the community, and users in the connectedvillage have bought an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) unit to keep the internet running during
power load shedding hours.
To develop the capacity of community members
further, as well as to demonstrate the added valueof the internet, we provided training to the school
girls, students at the polytechnic institute andcommunity members in the connected village. This
training was designed using the “train the trainer”
methodology – we train community members andbuild the capacity of a local trainer, who then can
train others in the community, gradually reducing
dependency on us.
The training of the school girls, who were in the
10-14 years age group, was about how to apply theinternet in their learning processes. We had someinteresting discussions with the girls and, yes, it istrue that girls (especially in rural areas) lack ownership, access and control over the use of technology,
in addition to cultural barriers that they face. Someof the girls have computers in their homes, but themales in their families do not allow them to use
them. They also do not have permission to use mobile phones.
Because their exposure to the internet was very
limited, it was imperative to include training material that offers a basic understanding of how theinternet works and what it can offer.
The training provided to the polytechnic institute was about using the internet in agriculture
research and studies. We also provided training tostaff on advanced-level computer usage that helped
them run a community training course for local residents using their computer lab.
The training provided to the village community
was on retrieving useful information about crops,
weather conditions and farming practices that can
improve their harvest – wheat and cotton are two
key crops in the area.
At this point, we have completed two different
training sessions with the groups. We have produced 10 trainers who are ready to deliver their firsttraining sessions in September and October.

Training sessions at the school, at the polytechnic institute and in the village.

202 / Global Information Society Watch

School girls taking an online class.

Online supplementary education

figure 1.

Last year, after analysing bandwidth usage patterns, we saw an opportunity for running a small
online project using unused bandwidth. Our desire
was to do something that not only improves the useof our community network, but also brings value tothe community.
The quality of education in Pakistan’s rural areas is not up to the mark in comparison to urban
and semi-urban areas. The 2015 “Education for All”
review report6 by UNESCO and Pakistan’s Ministryof Education lists the poor quality of education as
one of the key challenges in Pakistan. The reportfurther points to the poor quality of teaching due
to an acute shortage of well-trained and motivatedteachers.
Starting phase three of our community network
project, we decided to run an interesting online test
project offering supplementary education for theschool girls. This project would provide extra academic help to school students to help them achievea better understanding of their study material. Our
objective was not to disturb their regular classes,
but rather to design a different learning experiencethat complements their existing courseware.
To do this, we needed school teachers who preferably had experience in running an online classenvironment. The other requirement was to getapproval from the district education department,
since the permission we had was to connect theschool to the internet only. This time we were also
well received by the government department, andapproval was given in a couple of days.

Online classes baseline vs end-line scores

6

Ministry of Education, Training and Standards in Higher Education.
(2015). Education for All 2015 National Review Report: Pakistan.
unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002297/229718E.pdf

50

44.14

40

35.95

33.35
30

28.45

27.47
19.8

20
10
0

EnglishScienceMathBaseline

EndlineWe ended up partnering with TeleTaleem,7
a local commercial organisation experienced intele-education. They delivered real-time, online lectures on English, mathematics and science for threemonths to grade six girls. The classes were completed a month before their final examination.
To record the impact, a baseline assessment
was carried out before the course started and an
end-line assessment was performed at the course
end. The overall impact assessment results (see thegraph in Figure 1) are really encouraging, with a substantial improvement in mathematics and science.
This truly was a great experience for us in capitalising on the potential of the community network,and moving beyond just access. We have plans to
run similar classes this year too, as well as offering online classes to the polytechnic institute in thenear future.

7

www.teletaleem.com

Pakistan / 203

Conclusion
According to the UN Internet Governance Forum Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity:8
Community networks [...] are a way to develop
future business by creating “digitally savvy”
communities, hungry for more local content andadditional services. These often are not superhigh-tech networks. They serve a local community-driven purpose to connect within and toconnect from the village or community “out”.
They might be local open-source 2G solutions,or Wi-Fi mesh solutions using license-free spectrum. The aim is to build capacity for both thedemand and the supply of digital tools.9
In countries like Pakistan, where around 70%of the population is still not online, community-owned networks are not widely seen as a way
to bridge the digital divide and achieve internet
access for all. While the country’s Universal Service Fund Company10 has embarked on projects
to improve broadband connectivity in rural areas,

the digital divide remains. It is not uncommon forvillagers to have to walk two kilometres to get online, like the villagers in Chak-5 Faiz had to before
we arrived.

Action steps
To promote community networks in Pakistan, thefollowing steps are necessary:•

Streamline or eliminate related regulatory
requirements, especially those that are not applicable to small, community-based networks.

•

Expand universal service and other publicfunding opportunities and include community
networks as eligible for funding from the universal service fund.

•Introduce approaches to provide spectrum access and innovative licensing for community
network operators.

•

Encourage community initiatives to build networks aimed at reducing the digital divide in
Pakistan.

89https://www.comconnectivity.org
Brown, K. (2017). Preface: Putting People at the Heart of theInternet. In L. Belli (Ed.), Community Networks: The Internet by the
People, for the People. Official Outcome of the UN IGF Dynamic
Coalition on Community Connectivity. https://bibliotecadigital.
fgv.br/dspace/bitstream/handle/10438/19401/Community%20
networks%20-%20the%20Internet%20by%20the%20
people%2C%20for%20the%20people.pdf
10 https://usf.org.pk
204 / Global Information Society Watch

PERU
A telecentre in the jungle

Communication Department, Pontificia Universidad
Católica del PerúJuan Bossio
departamento.pucp.edu.pe/comunicaciones

Introduction
This report is not going to be on community networks. In Peru community networks are rare, andare not resilient or sustainable. This is because of a
conjunction of reasons.
Firstly, while laws do not prohibit community
networks, regulations and bureaucracy make it almost impossible to create a community network
able to openly provide telecom services to citizens:
legal procedures need to be done in Lima, most of
the technical requirements such as tests or security
procedures have been established with big telecoms in mind, legally authorised professionals do
not live in rural areas, and so on. What has existed
until now are local communication systems able todeliver communication services to an organisation’s
network, as in the case of the Huaral Valley Agrarian
Information System. This is a Wi-Fi network connecting more than 10 agrarian organisation officesin the Huaral Valley, giving some of the settlements
their first and for some time their only telecommunication service, consisting of a telecentre and aphone terminal.1 However, this is not a community
network in the strict sense, since the system cannot
openly provide services to other organisations, institutions or the public at large.2
The second reason is financial: the equipment isexpensive and far from a community-based organisation’s financial capabilities.

1

2

See the case study on the Huaral Valley Agrarian Information
System at https://www.apc.org/sites/default/files/
APCProPoorKit_CommunityModule_CaseStudy_HuaralValley_
EN.pdf; Belo, R. (2004, 15 December). Wi-fi web reaches farmers in
Peru. BBC. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4071645.stm; Bossio,
J. (2018). From an Information System and Telecenter Network
Project to a Community Network: Building Financial Sustainability
through Social Sustainability. https://www.researchgate.net/
publication/238777579_From_an_Information_System_and_Telecenter_Network_Project_to_a_Community_Network_Building_Financial_Sustainability_through_Social_Sustainability
Nowadays, communications services (telecentre and telephone)
are not provided by Huaral’s system because the Huaral Valley is
now covered by private services.

Thirdly, telecom services – especially mobile –have grown very fast in recent years, reaching mostrural and deprived settlements by now, even though
the availability of the service does not mean that
it is also accessible and affordable, which would
be necessary in order for it to be useful for social
development.
Recent studies by DIRSI,3 a Latin American research network on the social impacts of informationand communications technologies (ICTs), show thaton average, the quality of internet usage is diminishing while usage is growing. Use of the internet forthings other than entertainment or communicationis on average less common now than years ago (i.e.
a lower percentage of internet users are accessing
educational services, e-government services and soon), and even less common in demographics withfewer resources or less education, which are typically groups which access the internet only througha mobile phone.4
Privately owned public internet access points
called “cabinas públicas” – a Peruvian model of cybercafés – have been the main internet access points
in Peru over the past 20 years, since their popularisation among students and young professionals in
the 1990s, up until the moment when mobiles become the main way to access the internet in Peru in
2016. Telecentre projects and strategies seem to be
old fashioned now, both in Peru and Latin America
more generally. Different factors have contributed
to this, one of the most important being the extension of mobile access.
During the 1990s and the beginning of the
century, universal access policies promoted ruralaccess through subsides. Nowadays, public policies
in Peru and most Latin American countries favour
market solutions for increasing access to ICT services, but access does not seem to be the only issue
to look at.

34

peru / 205

https://dirsi.net/web/web/en/about-dirsi/history
See the reports “Panorama del acceso y uso de Internet
exclusivamente desde terminales móviles: El caso de Argentina,
Colombia, Guatemala, Paraguay y Perú” and “Panorama generalde acceso y uso de Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación:
El caso de Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Paraguay y Perú”
available at https://olatics.net/2018/02/06/descargas

To summarise: community networks are notcommon in Peru. Here access to communication
services in general and the internet in particular has
been growing across the country and for all social
sectors, filling gaps in terms of access and availability, firstly through public services (public phones
and cybercafés) and now through private services (mobile). Public policies are now moving fromuniversal access to promotion of private access.
However, a decrease in the diversity of use andthe usage of the internet for social development
purposes has been observed. This report presents
the case of a telecentre network, and shows how ittakes more than access to make a difference. It is
hoped that this will offer insights into community
networks, and enhance the purposeful use of ICTs
in the community context.

A telecentre network in the Amazon
Rural and poor areas have less access to ICT services in Peru, and the Amazon is the geographical zone
with the worst access to communication services in
the country. As a result, rural Amazon settlements
are an important focus when it comes to thosewith fewer opportunities to get connected. Red deTelecentros de la Amazonía (RTA, Amazon Telecentres Network)5 was a project promoted by CEDRO,6a Peruvian NGO, which included 39 centres catering
for community access to ICTs. The telecentres werefirst set up by CEDRO and are now owned and maintained by district-level local governments. Mostof them are in really small and rural localities (14have less than one thousand inhabitants) and had
been the first way for the communities to access theinternet.
These purpose-oriented telecentres train users
and provide information useful for development
such as market and product information for farmers. The network has also organised hackathonsand teleconferences.7 A recent evaluation showsthat 33% of the users have had contact with a government officer through the internet, 32% accessed
information for their businesses, 16% promoted
their products, and 87% used online education opportunities. Nowadays, telecentres from the RTA
are participating in a new project by CEDRO on
small-scale financial services. They collaborate on
the organisation of training workshops on savings,
budgeting, debt management and the selection offinancial service companies.
5
6
7

https://telecentrosamazonicos.com
https://www.cedro.org.pe
Videos on these and other activities are available at https://www.
youtube.com/user/TelecentrosAmazonia

It is interesting to mention here that the project
has drawn the attention of a Peruvian communication provider that would like to offer services tothe remote areas included in the project. Yachay,8
an internet service provider (ISP), is going to offer
private service in 70 localities using part of the project’s installations and equipment. Yachay is part of
the RCP group (RCP is an NGO which was the first
ISP in Peru).

Telecentres in the Monzón Valley
This report is based on the experiences of RTA
telecentres in the Monzón Valley, which is the territory of a district with the same name. The Monzón
District comprises 1,521.4 square kilometres, situated in the high jungle (mountainous jungle),
and is part of the Humalies Province and Huánuco Department. It has an estimated population of
28,605 people, chronic malnutrition affects 44.3%
of kids under five, and around 80% of adults workin agriculture.9 This valley was one of the bigger
producers of coca plants, which are used to makecocaine, until the beginning of this decade. Thanks
to its complicated geography and lack of transport
infrastructure, it was ruled for around 25 years by
Shining Path and drug traffickers. Since 2011 it has
been mostly brought under the control of the state;
far from doing this through police action alone, thegovernment found that the best strategy to sustain
control was a social and economic one: crop substitution. Peasants are now cultivating other crops
besides coca, such as cacao and coffee.
María Teresa Delgado is the coordinator of a
CEDRO project on digital inclusion being implemented in the zone, which includes the Monzón
Valley, with six telecentres, four in settlements withless than one thousand inhabitants. She started towork with telecentres in 2012 and says that one ofmost important outcomes of the RTA was to becomesustainable by getting the support of local governments and the participation of the community
through the “Allies Committee”. The Allies Committees (ACs) are community-based organisations(CBOs) promoted by the RTA project in each rural
settlement that has a telecentre. ACs are independent from both CEDRO and local governments, thelatter of which operate from the central town ofeach district and not the rural settlements where
the telecentres are located. ACs look after the dayto-day administration of the quality and provisionof services. They help telecentre operators when it
comes to organising training and other activities,
89https://yachay.pe
https://www.inei.gob.pe

206 / Global Information Society Watchorganise fundraising activities, and help spendthese funds on small expenses such as computer
accessories or peripherals. Delgado said that the
local government is in charge of the area of socialand economic development at the telecentres.
Richard Clemente is now CEDRO’s digital promoter on finance for the Monzón Valley telecentres,
but has been working for the project for some years.
According to him, the most important effect of the
project is that trainees always want to learn more.
He also mentions some cases in which one wouldfind a direct impact on the living standards of users,
such as the case of a young hairdresser and stylist
who states that she learned much about her business though the internet.

Sachavaca
Sachavaca is a small rural settlement in the Monzón
Valley. It has 300 inhabitants. Its telecentre waslaunched in January 2014.10 Katherine Alvarado,
the telecentre operator, has been working at the
telecentre for just a few months. She was trainedby the former operator. She describes her duties as
training new users and helping other users to findinformation. The telecentre offers some training
programmes with certificates for those students
that complete them.
Kids and teenagers visit the telecentre to lookfor information related to their studies; peasantfarmers visit the telecentre to find out about cocoa cultivation and trade – diseases, prices, places
to sell and so on; school teachers and other state
professionals go there for digital training; housewives go to help with their children’s homework;and small entrepreneurs look up information ona range of topics, from cooking to hairdressing tohandicrafts. People from other settlements close to
Sachavaca also visit the telecentre.
Katherine has attended local CBOs meetingsand visited the school and other places to talkabout the telecentre and its services. Finally, shecoordinates with the AC and meets with them on aregular basis.
As mentioned, the AC is the main link to community – it is critical for sustainability in several
ways, and ensures that the telecentre is community-driven. Milton Sánchez Gopia is the coordinatorof the AC of Sachavaca. He was mayor11 of Sa10 https://www.facebook.com/TelecentroIDSachavaca
11 In rural areas there is a kind of local government in small
settlements (“centros poblados”) that serves as local representation
at the district-level government which would be many kilometresaway. However, this local government does not have any significant
budget or capacity to take important decisions.

chavaca when the installation of the telecentre
started. He was part of the first groups of local
people trained in the telecentre and was invited
to join the AC together with four other membersof the community. Milton explained to us that the
AC coordinates with the telecentre operator (Katherine) and oversees the quality of her work. They
organise activities held in the telecentre, suchas Mother’s Day activities in May, buy small stuff
needed for day-to-day services, ask the district
local government for other things they need, andhold fundraising activities.
But these are just the “formal” things they do.
Through talking to Milton, one realises that a critical
function for members of the AC is to act as champions of the telecentre – promoting its benefits and“spreading the word” about the telecentre from acommunity member’s perspective. Members of the
AC share contact details with local CBOs because
most of them are also part of those organisations.
These include the local mothers’ club, soup kitchen(“comedor popular”), or the producers’ organisation. They promote the use of the telecentre by theschool because their children go there; they appreciate that school teachers and other public servantsenhance their capacities using the telecentre, because those professionals work with and for them.
They get to know about impact on productivity
or trade from farmers themselves, because they are
their friends, relatives or neighbours. By using thetelecentre, organising fundraising or promotional
activities, and sharing information or anecdotes,
they encourage the rest of the community to use
the telecentre too.
Milton says that the telecentre contributes tothe social, cultural and economic developmentof his locality. He says that some young people
trained at the telecentre are now working outsideof the community, thanks to the certificate that theyreceived in the training. There are women-driven
small enterprises, whether involving bijouterie or
cooking, that have been created after getting information through the telecentre, and several peasantfarmers have a accessed information on pest control, cropping and trade issues. He mentioned thecase of Teófilo Cierto, a fish farmer and banana
grower who is offering and selling his products on
the internet. Last but not least, Milton outlines thevideoconferences held between different telecentres who are part of the RTA. During these events,
peasant farmers from different localities in similar
regions share their views and experiences growing
and selling their products so that they may learn
from “others like them”.

peru / 207

Reload telecentres strategies
As this case clearly shows, telecentres may be a
way to enhance purposeful and useful usage of theinternet, making access a real tool for local development. Sachavaca had no mobile service when thetelecentre started. While it now does, the kinds ofthings the population uses the internet for would
not have happened by itself: young people andsome adults would be using social networks, but wefeel that hardly anybody would be using the internet
for development purposes. The growth in mobile access in countries with big social inequalities such
as Peru is closing a divide, but opening another:
the constructive use of that access for bettering thesocioeconomic well-being of communities. Markets
and technologies will not close this alone.

Because of this, and because community networks are difficult if not impossible to sustain at
this point in time in Peru, it is important that policies promote community-driven telecentres toencourage the community appropriation of technology for socioeconomic betterment.
To end this report, it would be fair to restate its
opening thoughts. This report was not about community networks in Peru, but it was about a case thatoutlines a series of lessons that would serve community network projects in other countries: the needto promote the useful application of ICTs, that is, theimportance of getting community members to champion or promote purposeful usage of the internet. It
also points to the value of engaging local public offices in local access projects, among others.

208 / Global Information Society Watch

Philippines
Connecting communities through mobile networks:
The VBTS-CoCoMoNets project

University of the Philippines – Diliman and Universityof Washington
Mary Claire Barela, Josephine Dionisio, Kurtis Heimerl,
Manuel Victor Sapitula and Cedric Angelo Festin

Introduction
Despite the rapid expansion of mobile coveragethroughout the world, roughly 10% of the world’s
population lives beyond the reach of a cell tower.2
This is particularly problematic in the Philippines,
with just under 70% mobile phone penetration.3
Because these isolated and relatively poor communities are not considered commercially viable
within the current business and technology modelof commercial operators, bridging this “last mile”
connectivity gap requires innovative technologicalsolutions.
To combat this, our team, in partnership with alocal telco and local communities, has developed
and deployed GSM community cellular networks(CCNs) in the rural Philippines. The CCNs deliver
basic mobile telephony at a fraction of the capitaland operational expenses of traditional cellular networks by including local agents in the operation of
the network.4 To prove the importance of cellular
access, we are also evaluating the impact of cellularconnectivity in our partner communities, specifically across gender and social networks, through theuse of a longitudinal randomised control trial andparticipatory qualitative research.

1

2

3
4

The Village Base Station Project - Connecting Communities
through Mobile Networks (VBTS-CoCoMoNets) is a collaborative
research project between the University of the Philippines and the
University of California, Berkeley, with linkages to the Universityof Washington, University of California, Davis, and Aurora State
College of Technology. It is being carried out through a project
grant from the Philippines Commission on Higher Education,
through the Philippines-California Advanced Research Institutes
initiative.
GSMA Intelligence. (2015). Rural coverage: strategies
for sustainability. https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/
research/?file=53525bcdac7cd801eccef740e001fd92&download
https://www.statista.com/statistics/570389/
philippines-mobile-phone-user-penetration/
Heimerl, K., Hasan, S., Ali, K., Brewer, E., & Parikh, T. (2013). Local,
Sustainable, Small-Scale Cellular Networks. Paper presented at
the International Conference on Information and Communication
Technologies and Development (ICTD), Cape Town, South Africa,
7-10 December. https://kurti.sh/pubs/vbts_ictd_13.pdf

Our CCNs are deployed in the rural and isolatedbarangays5 of Aurora Province, Philippines. Each barangay has a cell site that provides cellular coverageto the entire community. The system is powered via
solar and is connected to a VSAT backhaul to routecalls and SMS to the broader public telephone network. The network, dubbed “VBTS Konekt Barangay”,
has been in operation for over seven months and withmore than 1,200 subscribers. To date, four out of theseven pilot sites have been launched (Brgy. Umiray in
September 2017, Brgy. Dikapinisan in October 2017,
Brgy. Dibut in February 2018, and Brgy. Diotorin in
May 2018). All seven pilot sites are expected to be
operational by the end of 2018.

Policy, economic and political backgroundOur biggest challenge is the lack of an operationalframework that supports last-mile service delivery
in the context of community networks. The Public
Telecommunications Policy Act of the Philippines,6
which governs the development and delivery of
public telecommunications in the country, statesin its policy declaration that “expansion of thetele­communications network shall give priority to
improving and extending basic services to areas not
yet served.” Since our network uses regulated GSM
frequencies to operate, another large challenge isthe lack of available spectrum that can be assigned
to CCNs and allow them to operate legally. In thePhilippines, all channels on GSM mobile cellular
bands (900/1800/2100 MHz) have been allocatedto incumbent mobile network operators. On top ofthis, licences cover the entire country with no “useit-or-lose-it” provisions, forbidding local actors.
As such, even in areas where these telcos have no
presence, small-scale cellular networks cannot just
operate without coordinating with the regulatory agency and the assigned frequency owner. The
creation of policies to support rural connectivity(such as a universal access fund or spectrum sharing) would help in extending basic communication
services in the country and is actually part of the
5
6

The barangay is the smallest political unit in the Philippines. It isabbreviated as Brgy.
Philippine Republic Act No. 7925. (1995). An Act to Promote andGovern the Development of the Philippine Telecommunications andthe Delivery of Public Telecommunications Services.

philippines / 209

mandates of the law. The Philippine Department
of Information and Communications Technology
and the country’s regulatory agency, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), have
yet to formulate a new policy on “refarming” andredistributing the spectrum that will foster better
delivery of communication services in the country7
or on the creation of a universal service fund.8
The current framework presents myriad barriers
for small, community players to participate. To beable to operate telecommunications services, an organisation will have to first secure a congressional
franchise and a certificate of public convenience andnecessity (CPCN) which will prove their financial,technical and legal capability to offer the proposedservices.9 On top of this, carriers (including small local operators) also have a number of other licences
they must acquire for operation, including environmental clearance certificates, height clearances,and the local mayor’s permit. All in all, there are as
many as 25 permits needed for each cell site.10 The
sheer number of required permits is very difficult fora small entity to complete.
In the past, access initiatives in the Philippines
have concentrated on providing internet access toremote and rural parts of the country. These networks typically employ point-to-point, long-range
Wi-Fi links to connect institutions, such as schools,
to the nearest internet point of presence. One example is the Digital Provide initiative,11 where secondary
schools in Batanes were connected to the internet
service provider using long-range Wi-Fi links. These
initiatives were largely “top-down” in nature andfocused on basic IP connectivity rather than community ownership. Over time, the expansion of mobileinternet access in suburban and provincial areas has
rendered some of these networks inactive.12
7

Marcelo, P. (2018, 4 March). DICT drafting policy onfrequency reallocation. BusinessWorld. bworldonline.com/
dict-drafting-policy-frequency-reallocation
8 National Economic and Development Authority. (2017). Philippine
Development Plan 2017-2022. pdp.neda.gov.ph/wp-content/
uploads/2017/01/PDP-2017-2022-07-20-2017.pdf
9 King-Dominguez, R., & Acebedo, R. (2013). Philippines. In L.
Garzaniti & N. Good (Eds.), Telecoms and Media: An overview ofregulation in 44 jurisdictions worldwide. London: Law BusinessResearch Ltd. www.syciplaw.com/Documents/T2013%20
Philippines.pdf
10 Camus, M. (2018, 20 January). Gov’t pushes new cell
tower scheme for level field, better service. Philippine
Daily Inquirer. business.inquirer.net/244506/
govt-pushes-new-cell-tower-scheme-level-field-better-service
11 Ramos, M. C. Jr. (2008). Addressing the digital divide in Philippine
education. Paper presented at the 1st Workshop on WirelessBroadband Access for Communities and Rural Developing Regions,Karlstad, Sweden, 11-12 December.
12 Gonzales, C. (2018, 5 May). Batanes now LTE-connected.
Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/technology/
news/201837-batanes-lte-4g-smart-connection

Engaging partners and community
participation
Our first major innovation is our public-private
partnership for sharing cellular spectrum with alarge mobile operator. Given the absence of regulatory support and spectrum access for community
cellular networks in the Philippines, we found it
necessary to find a partner that shares the project’s
vision and that would allow the community network to operate under their frequency licence. We
found that partner in Globe Telecom,13 a major telecommunications company in the Philippines. Since
our sites have a smaller subscriber base than what
it would consider viable, our community network
deployments are placed under its corporate social
responsibility programme.
Our engagement on the ground is founded on
the sustained collaboration between several institutions: higher education institutions such as the
University of the Philippines (UP) and Aurora State
College of Technology (ASCOT), the telecommunication company (Globe), local government units
at municipal and barangay levels, and operational
cooperatives in the area. Through top-level agreements, Globe consented to the use of 2G frequency
under their franchise. In addition, Globe allowed us
to use their SIMs and cloud services which provide
the interconnect from the VBTS network to otherphone networks. Globe is also assisting the project
to comply with the required NTC permits, such asradio station licences and pricing approvals.
Partnership with local government units at themunicipal level is crucial because of their administrative authority over the project sites. In rollingout the infrastructural requirements of the CCNs,
municipal mayors facilitated the legal appropriation of lands where the towers were allowed to bebuilt, and helped expedite the issuance of various
permits and clearances for construction of the village base stations within their areas of jurisdiction.
The municipal governments helped mobilise local
labour that assisted university-based engineers
and also helped identify potential partner cooperatives based on track record in project management.
In due course, the municipal governments allocatedfunds in their annual budget for the maintenance ofthe village base station towers and for the mobilisation of community-based civilian security forces toprotect the towers and CCN-related equipment frompossible theft and vandalism.
Cooperatives with municipal-wide operations
are one of many types of organisations at the
13 www.globe.com.ph

210 / Global Information Society Watch

ground level, alongside tribal councils for the indigenous peoples’ communities, and associationsof fisher folk and farmers. Municipal-level cooperatives were chosen as acceptable project partners,
especially for telecommunications, because of
their established juridical personality which madethem eligible to establish business transactions
with Globe, and because of their familiarity withadministrative requirements in managing income-generating activities. They were enjoined
to handle the day-to-day operations, business
management, and maintenance of the community
network, while systematically building the capabilities of community-level associations so that theseassociations may eventually exercise greater control and accountability over the CCNs.
The cooperatives are in charge of the SMSbased electronic load (e‑load) distribution from
Globe to the local retailers. The cooperative orders
the e‑load from Globe on a monthly basis. After thecooperative’s mobile number has been topped up,
the cooperative then distributes it to authorised
local resellers in the communities. The cooperative
receives a wholesale discount from Globe, which inpart is also passed on to the community retailers.
Finally, the gross revenue from all charged calls andtexts on the network are split based on an agreed
revenue-sharing scheme between Globe and thecommunities. In the revenue-sharing scheme, thecooperative gets 80% while the remaining 20%
goes to Globe. Earnings are used by the cooperative
to pay the honoraria of community personnel andas savings for operating expenses beyond the subsidised first year.
The majority of our retailers are women (eightout of ten) and are already running their own sari-­sari or general merchandise stores. Aside fromthe retailer’s discount, the retailer also charges
an additional convenience fee per transaction to
the subscriber, which is a common practice in thePhilippines. On top of e‑load sales, some retailers
grabbed the opportunity to sell mobile phones andmobile phone accessories in their area.
During onboarding, local stakeholders are firstoriented on the goals of the project, with emphasis on community ownership and public service
over profit. Prior to launch, social science researchers facilitated social enterprise training sessions
with cooperatives that had no prior experience in
conducting business-related activities pertaining
to the selling of SIM cards and cellphone load.
VBTS engineers conducted trainings with community maintenance personnel (Level 1) and with
ASCOT engineers (Level 2). The scope of Level
1 revolves around daily maintenance and basic

troubleshooting of the CCN tower and equipment,
which will be performed by community site operators. The scope of Level 2 consists of tasks which
require intermediate technical knowledge or tools
to complete. Technical personnel will coordinate
with higher levels for incidents or issues that theycannot resolve at their level. It was later clarified during a technical breakdown that municipal
engineers will need to be closely involved in troubleshooting hardware-related concerns, which willaid in the efficiency of the CCN system.
On the day of the network launch, we hold asmall programme wherein we introduce the community network, its capabilities and limitations.
The launch events are well attended by community
members, and become useful venues to introduce
our on-ground partners (retailers, maintenance)
and address questions and concerns from the community. Post-launch, we also open an SMS-based
support hotline. This SMS-based service is free
and open to all subscribers in the community. Asidefrom being a channel for community members tosend network-related inquiries, this is also being
used to send questions, suggestions or other feedback to the project team.

Usage trends
Currently, we have more than 1,500 subscribers,
equivalent to more than 81% of the total eligible
population (15 years old and up) across all operational sites. About 40% of the subscribers top up
monthly, spending USD 1.20 per month. Monthly
average revenue per user is around USD 0.60. We
have seen strong usage and adoption in sites thatare tremendously isolated and where the VBTS network is their only means to communicate out of thebarangay. In areas where an alternative service isless challenging to access, subscribers are not dependent on the community network, as they can get
an incidental signal from other networks by walking
several kilometres.
In terms of network traffic, we have observedthat subscribers take more inbound calls than they
make outbound calls – the number of inbound callminutes is six times greater than the number of outbound call minutes. This is indicative of a “call-me”
behaviour where subscribers in the community let
their outside contacts call them instead of making
a call themselves, taking advantage of the fact thatreceiving inbound calls is free. SMS traffic, on theother hand, has the same volume in both directions. Over time, we have observed a general trendof outbound calls and bidirectional SMS traffic
reaching a steady state, but the level of incoming
calls continuing to increase. Subscribers are alsophilippines / 211

budget-sensitive and, as a result, there is a request
for value-for-money promos, such as the “unlimited” call and text bundles offered by conventional
networks.

Technology platform
The second innovative part of this project is thetechnology platform. We have chosen to leverage
the CommunityCellularManager14 (CCM) stack, anovel IP-based cellular core. CCM allows for multiple individuals to run separate community networks
under one technical domain and is split into twotechnical portions: the client and the cloud. In ourcase, Globe manages the CCM cloud installationand provided us an account for our networks. We
manage the client installations, porting the client toa variety of compatible hardware platforms (Nuran
Litecell, Endaga CCN1, Fairwaves UmSITE). We developed additional software-based client featuresthat are necessary for field operations and to assist
with the implementation of our research and evaluation needs, including call and text promo support.
The CCM cloud handles the routing, interconnect,
and phone numbers for our network (and other
Globe community-style installations) – generally
anything having to do with the integration into the
Globe network. This is the first large-scale CCM deployment in the world. Our team led the integration
work with Globe and assisted it in the installationand operation of both the cloud and client inside ofits network.

Social impact
Our mixed-methods approach to social impact
evaluation of the installations, using a randomised
control trial and participatory qualitative research,
is another novelty of this network. In the past decade, roughly four billion individuals in developing
countries have started using mobile phones forthe first time. While qualitative evidence of the
impacts of network access is abundant and clear,outside of a few well-cited papers15 about phones
and agricultural market inefficiencies, there is alack of rigorous (e.g. randomised control trial) empirical evidence16 on how mobile phones affect the
14 https://github.com/facebookincubator/
CommunityCellularManager
15 Jensen, R. (2007). The Digital Provide: Information (Technology),
Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries
Sector. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(3), 879-924; Aker,
J. C. (2010). Information from markets near and far: Mobile phones
and agricultural markets in Niger. American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics, 2(3), 46-59.
16 The is largely due to the immense level of coordination between
academic researchers, government regulators, and commercial
operators that is required to conduct a careful randomised roll-out.

social and economic outcomes of individuals andhouseholds.17 This is in part due to the difficulty
in measuring the causal effects of mobile phone
adoption, since the market-driven spread of mobile phones is not typically exogenous to economic
outcomes. Together with a team of economists andsocial scientists, we are working to develop a rigorous body of evidence of the social and economic
impacts that the mobile phone network brings tocommunities in the rural Philippines.
Though much of the evaluation has yet to becompleted (with the endline survey expected six
months after the installation of the last site), we
have noted some immediate effects. The most obvious impact is in the enabling of communications in
the communities. Prior to the arrival of the network,
locals would need to travel several hours by boat or
rough roads before they could reach an area witha cellular signal. Now they enjoy a more accessible
and convenient way to get in touch with family andcontacts outside their barangay. The community cell
service has also helped the barangay council reportfaster to the municipal government and vice versa.
But more than communications, the CCNs alsoenabled social capital formation. The presence of
the CCN has the potential to contribute to a morevibrant local economy as alternative sources ofincome are spurred through the selling of mobile
phones and mobile phone accessories, and theprovision of repair and maintenance services. Also,
the community cellular service has the potential toconnect previously disparate communities into an
established network of value chains.
Our trainings are not only limited to transferring technical knowledge, but are conducted on
different levels and on different dimensions thatinvolve imparting the message of community benefit and ownership. Aside from training the partnercooperatives and on-the-ground personnel, we also
extended our training to the local government units
and to nearby higher education institutions. Morethan being respondents to the technical difficultiesof the installations, the advancement of their skills
and knowledge is crucial for their future researchand interventions that would attend to the needs ofthe community. The collaboration of knowledge andskills from the institutions brings new ideas andappropriate applications that matter to the local
community, which is the goal of this inclusive effort.
Our experiences in the implementation of the
project render more visible the social infrastructure
17 Aker, J., & Mbiti, I. (2010). Mobile Phones and Economic
Development in Africa. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(3),207-232.

212 / Global Information Society Watchrequirements for replicative and sustainable CCNs.
We have encountered challenges in setting up thebusiness model and structure, as well as creatinga feasible trade and distribution network, as thesesites are far away from traditional financial institutions like banks and remittance centres. Our partner
telco also has internal vendor certifications, traderequirements and processes that our on-the-groundpartners need to satisfy. Because of this there isa need to acknowledge the distinct nature and“business model” of CCNs which should be viewed
differently from how traditional and large telecommunications organisations normally operate.

Conclusion
We believe our experiences contribute a uniqueperspective on community networks in three ways:
1) by involving a novel public-private spectrum licensing partnership between the UP, Globe Telecomand the local communities; 2) using the Community­
CellularManager cellular stack to provide 2G basic
cellular service including voice, SMS and, eventually, data; and 3) a mixed-methods approach tosocial impact evaluation of the installations using
randomised controlled trial and participatory qualitative research.
These factors have allowed us to sustainably
provide cellular coverage to one of the most remoteareas of the Philippines, and an area that incumbent telecoms are unable to profitably serve. It has
also allowed us to help empower the communities
themselves to own and operate their own telecom
equipment. We plan to continue to scale the CCN
solution in the Philippines and hope to continue tohave deployment experiences to share.

Action steps
Our experiences in rolling out CCNs showed that
more needs to be done for small network operators to thrive in the country. As it currently stands,
it would still be difficult for small communities to
set up their own CCN without intervention, such as
from our project, or with a public-private partnership with a mobile operator. We would therefore
propose the following action steps:

Formal and legal institutionalisation of
CCNs as a mode of community-based social
entrepreneurship telco service delivery
The current legal framework has no category where
community networks could fit in. As a result, small
operators are forced to adapt to the model used fortelcos and other large organisations. There is a needto acknowledge the distinct nature and “businessmodel” of CCNs which is a different model altogether from traditional and large telecommunication
organisations. We suggest providing community
networks with a legal character that is bound by
regulatory parameters, entitlements, and sets ofapplicable national and local government standards
for their facilitation and growth.

Designation of an exclusive frequency
licence for CCNs
Our biggest challenge in starting up our CCN deployments is the lack of a dedicated spectrum licencethat can be used for last-mile service delivery. Other
countries have taken the initial steps of opening up
some spectrum so that small networks can operate
legally. For example, the Netherlands has set aside
a portion of the 1800 MHz band for licence-exempt
mobile communications.18 Mexico has set aside 2
x 5 MHz of spectrum in the 800 MHz band for “social” use.19 While our networks are able to operate
through our partnership with Globe, we believe that
it would empower Philippine community networking in the long run if a swath of frequencies wereavailable for development, research and social efforts. With the growth of LTE20 and its support forover 40 different bands, it should be possible toprovide access to CCNs.

Support for scaling up community networks
The number of permits and licences that need to becompleted is already a large barrier that discourages
new and small community operators from venturing
out and starting their own networks. To foster morecommunity networks, such barriers must be simplified and streamlined. It would also help if telecom
equipment were more accessible in the country.
Currently we import most of the telecom equipmentfrom foreign suppliers and manufacturers. It would
help support sustainability if parts could be easilysourced from a local distributor. Lastly, building acommunity network still entails some capital costs
which may be out of reach for some community
organisations. Access to seed funding or capitalfinancing would help encourage the grassroots deployment of CCNs in other unserved communities.

18 Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs. (2016). Radio Spectrum
Policy Memorandum. https://www.government.nl/documents/
reports/2017/03/07/radio-spectrum-policy-memorandum-2016
19 Song, S. (2015, 17 April). How To Let GSM Serve
The People That Other Networks Can’t Reach. Many
Possibilities. https://manypossibilities.net/2015/04/
how-to-let-gsm-serve-the-people-that-other-networks-cant-reach
20 Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a standard for broadband wirelesscommunication for mobile devices.

philippines / 213

Portugal
How to build a wireless network against all odds:
The case of WirelessPT

WirelessPT
Miguel Vieira
https://wirelesspt.net

Introduction
Over the years developing WirelessPT, I found that thebiggest difficulties people mention are how to start awireless network, and uncertainty over how people
will embrace the concept and, ultimately, adhere to it.
Everyone at some point has specific difficulties, but
we all share these deterrents.
To give you an idea about the adversity I faced,
this was the scenario: I was 5,500 km away from thetown of Moitas Venda where the project would be
deployed. Moitas Venda is a civil parish in central Portugal, 6.70 km2 in size and with a population of 866
people. The dominant employer is a local tannery, but
the parish also manufactures tarpaulins and textiles,
and produces marble used in construction. Despite
this industrial dynamism, the parish has not seen a
lot of investment, and has little infrastructure to attract new industries.
Due to its geography,1 the town has always been
known for difficulties in implementing projects using radio frequencies. I had only Pedro Maximiano, along-time friend and project partner, to help me, as I
faced a disgruntled community with low tech skills,
displeased about wireless services following a previously failed wireless project in which some had
invested, and old blocked and damaged hardware
from that project that I could reuse. No one wanted
to or could spend money on wireless networking anymore. On top of it, I had a prejudice towards wirelessnetworking, and knew very little about it.
I was told by someone in the town that since I was
not living there I was clueless about how things needed to be done.
The country context was also hardly amenable tosetting up a user-developed and managed community
network that, in the case of WirelessPT, drew on thepotential of open source software to achieve its aims.
Policies in favour of community networks had neverexisted. The idea of sharing resources in a community
1

It is situated between several small mountains and is elevatedcompared to other towns.

was always looked down on with prejudice or at least
seen as something that could not make money and wastherefore unimportant. Any potential political champions one could find would always want public credit
and visibility for their personal brand in exchange for
their support, sometimes demanding control and trying to dictate how the project would work.
The obstacles could be summed up as: nofunding, archaic politics, isolation, personal egos,
selfishness and no support. And without help, for theend-user the investment would be costly.
At least – and although with some boundaries –the 2.4 and 5 Ghz spectrum was free and available foruse by citizens.

What exactly is WirelessPT?
WirelessPT.net is an open source mesh network
project created, developed and registered by me. Ina mesh network, all routers and/or routing devices
that are added to it will automatically communicate
between themselves in a similar fashion to how
the internet works, in this way creating an identicalcommunication system like the internet but without
cables or wires or the need for human maintenance.
This kind of network concept allows us to create a
network and expand it every time we activate anotherrouter nearby.
A key advantage is that it does not cost much todevelop and implement. At the same time, the network cannot be completely shut down since no one
controls all routers or access points and there is nocentral control point. If one access point goes offline,
the network automatically reorganises itself without
the dead access point.
The router or routing device used is exactly thesame type of router that we can buy in any regularcomputer store. However, we use a very specific typeof software and firmware developed by me which
I have named “mvwrt”. This software makes the
network “self form” and “self heal” in case of any
connectivity rupture – any router added to it will automatically detect the rest of the nearby mesh network,and add itself to it while simultaneously expanding it.
The more routers the network has, the wider its
coverage will be. Some of these routers can be or will
be connected to the internet and in this way all WirelessPT.net users will also have internet access.

214 / Global Information Society Watch

This type of escalation has been successfully
implemented in other places such as Moita, nearMarinha Grande, and Videla, which established a 3.5
km link to Moitas Venda with up to 6 Mbits at 2.4 Ghz.
The project is designed to be deployed in a similar
fashion to a franchise system where every new local
network will follow the documentation on the project
wiki and will have its administrator as the first “nodeowner”. A node owner is any person that at his or her
own expense sets up a wireless access point and either joins or initiates the project in a new location and
who will abide by a user and participant-specific peer
agreement.
At the time of writing, only two open source,
community-managed wireless projects had been successfully implemented in Portugal. Only WirelessPT
is still actively maintained and regulated by a comprehensive user agreement. The other community
network has always been closed to a group of developers who administrate it like a private internet
service provider (ISP) and have never made it attractive to the end-user.

Making the project relevant to the community
In 2009 I realised that although one or two people
could execute the project, I needed to make it open
and attractive to people who were not tech-savvy
and for whom internet access would be for watching
YouTube, updating social media accounts, and using
email and voice services (VoIP). So I decided to build
an online community using the moitasvenda.net URL
to promote the town. This became a portal with aforum, a chatroom where users could communicate,
and an encyclopaedia where information about the
town’s history, culture, traditions, memories, its pastand its people were published.
Then a small section for the wireless network wasadded.
During the next two years a plan was drawn up. I
was going to develop an independent and non-commercial wireless network to provide free-of-charge,
open and democratic access to the highways of information technology among communities. I wanted toallow those without access, due to poor telecommunication infrastructure or limited financial resources,
to gain access to the internet through a cheap, affordable method of telecommunication.
All this would be built by the ordinary citizen, using everyday materials, low-cost equipment ownedby the users, and any available resources.
I decided to develop an open source software
solution for the network, and also build an online
training platform specifically for the wireless community. The training platform includes everythingneeded to learn, educate and train anyone who

becomes interested in expanding the network in its
franchise-type system to other towns. Ultimately theplatform would be used to unify all community wireless networks in Portugal.

Getting your feet wet, even if you can’t swim
My first trip to Moitas Venda to start the initial deployment was the hardest. I had only three weeks to fix
and deploy old broken hardware that was left abandoned by the previous community wireless project,and I had no skills or knowledge on how to manage it.
We also had to talk to a number of disgruntled wireless users and investors who had been involved in theprevious project – it had failed to ensure sustainability and basic functionality in the town – and we had toconvince them to try something different.
In January 2011 – with the assistance of Nuno
Carvalho and the extremely crucial help from Pedro
Maximiano who always helped set up access points
and promoted the project over the years by talking topeople in person, by email, using social media andon forums – the network was launched. The technicalspecs for the network were the following: five broadband fixed-line nodes with access to the internet
served nine wireless routers flashed with a DD-WRT
operating system, which then distributed the connectivity using WDS Wi-Fi links in the 2.4GHz band via
9-15 dBi omnidirectional antennas.
Thanks to Pedro, all the participant members
who had invested in the previous wireless project
and bought hardware to set up their nodes decided
to be part of WirelessPT. It was for them a way to haveinternet access for their families at the cost of the
hardware investment they had already made and was
already installed at their homes. Three of the nodes
we set up were owned by local businessmen andwomen who wanted to extend their home internet
connection to their stores, or vice versa.
Given the initial low resources available, the network was open to a limited number of people: only tothe node owners, their family and friends and whoever contributed in any way to the project. The initialaverage bandwidth was 5 to 10 Mbits, allowing thecommunity to browse sites like YouTube. Later, an accidental connection of 3 km was established to a laptop
using a wireless USB pen which achieved 1 Mbit.
I left the country in the same month as the launch,and during the next two years the network performance was audited.

Building the network community
node by nodePhase one was a success and gave me valuable information for future development. For example, as soon
as the user count increased to an average of 30 users,

portugal / 215

or a gateway would go offline, occasional technicalproblems would happen which revealed the DD-WRTand WDS were limited. Manual administration to fix
problems became a burden, hard or impossible to dowhen remote access was lost.
Simultaneously, a few services that had been
implemented, such as IRC chat, a discussion forum,a mail server, a network-attached storage system, acommunity wiki, VoIP, torrent and even a second-life
server, were removed since the network and users
were not ready for some of them.
By the end of 2012 a new trip was scheduled to
Moitas Venda, and based on lessons learned overthe preceding two years, I decided to develop thetraining platform parallel to the town’s previous
digital community, but now just for the wirelessnetwork and with the objective of sharing my knowledge to provide information and training on how to
deploy a wireless network node, whether for a complex solution or do-it-yourself for non-tech-savvy
people.
Plans for 2013 had challenges. New firmware
and routing protocols were needed in order toeliminate the need for human administration given
the lack of expertise in the community. Setting up
a node should be possible by non-technical people. Hardware had to be replaced, meaning higher
costs, which, given the financial possibilities of thecommunity, and non-existent external financial resources, would be a problem.
Eventually I found the perfect cheap hardware,
but at a “cost”. I was able to find people selling theirhome wireless routers on internet community sales
sites, many times for a fraction of their store price ineither Portugal or where I was. Without any funds tostart, the investment in hardware had to be done by
me in hopes that people would be interested in what
I was developing for them. This led me to scavenge
the city where I was based for years to meet strangers
selling the hardware I needed.
The next step took into account network performance studies, observations and usage tests done
during the first two years in order to develop new
firmware specifically and purposefully designed forthe environmental characteristics of the community.
Based on OpenWrt2 and using Batman-adv3 as therouting protocol, a beta version named “mvwrt” wasdeveloped.
After three weeks of hardware upgrades andreplacements at my own expense, in January 2013 I
created a do-it-yourself wireless node kit which facilitated non-techies to plug and play it anywhere.
23

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWrt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.A.T.M.A.N.

With the new online wireless portal and Pedro’s community communication skills, the network
got more people interested in participating as
node owners as well as users. The nodes were now
300N wireless routers, their count increased to 14,
bandwidth went up to 20 Mbits – there was better
throughput and even a few monetary donations for
hardware from members.
Carefully planned technical administration boosted the network resources and allowed the number ofusers to increase. With the cooperation of the community, the wireless spectrum usage of all types ofwireless routers in the town was organised in orderto maximise the effectiveness of possible bandwidthavailability provided by the network while minimisingradio frequency “overlapping pollution”.

Free to the community
It was now time for another remote audit until thenext three-week visit and upgrade in January 2014.
Based on a year of study and observation with regard
to the network performance upgrades previously deployed, this resulted in a new and stable version of
mvwrt firmware, which was now 100% plug-and-playand self-managed without the need for manual administration, which was crucial to solve all the local
network administration problems previously found.
The node count increased again, as well as theparticipation of four women who owned their local
business and more than one wireless node which
they shared with the community.
Other key people in the network who provided
valuable donations either in hardware or money andhelp were mostly women. For example, my motherproved to be an extremely valuable asset in the town,
who – without any technical skills, but following a few
simple sets of instructions and stickers – was and still
is able to help keep crucial parts of the network running as per remote access needs.
2014 was the year that access to the network became freely open to anyone in the community, with thenumber of users ranging between 50 and 200 at a time.

Plug and play
The next two visits planned for 2016 were going tobe crucial due to the characteristics of the town, thenetwork, its participants, as well as my role as thedeveloper.
Two thirds of the node owners live in Moitas Venda. Half of these people own two nodes. These they
use to share their internet service with their second
owned property, either a business or residence, usinga mesh topology as the travel path to overcome distance and obstacles, and, as a result, saving money
since they had no need for a second ISP account.

216 / Global Information Society Watch

A third of node owners live outside of Portugal,
using the network when they return for vacation to
the town but keeping their node working during theyear. The last group of node owners includes me. I
own five nodes, one gateway that serves the community, and several IPCams to monitor the gateway
location, my property and weather conditions.
This last third is the tech-savvy group that stillworks on the network when present in the town andwhich now also includes Pedro and Ruben Vieira,another network member. Given that the project is located 5,500 km away from me, without any possibilityof me fixing any hardware problems that the network
encounters, new enhancements were required to thephysical structure of the network in order to ensure
continuous operation without the need for human intervention. These included the use of self-sustained
power supply units in case of technical malfunctionsin the electrical grid, as well as rewiring equipment
to the electrical grid to prevent downtime due toequipment being accidentally unplugged or damaged
because of a poor quality plug or faulty power outlet.4
As 2016 arrived, and still operating in the 2.4
GHz frequency, new and improved firmware was deployed. The active node count increased to 22 nodes,
new and different antennas were implemented, andbandwidth went up to 30 usable Mbits. Later, with thework of Ruben, the project expanded and created aplanned 3.5 km link to the town of Videla.
At the same time, and given the growth of the
project, I was invited to present mesh technology at
the University of Minho and participated at the international Battlemesh event held at FEUP, the facultyof engineering at the University of Porto, presenting
WirelessPT and promoting community networks built
by the ordinary citizen.
Since I left the country in May 2016, the network has been running completely on its own: it
is self-sufficient, self-managed, self-healing andself-maintained. Contact with the community has
been mostly online on social media and using the digital platforms mentioned before. Now the deploymentof any wireless node kit can be done by anyone justby plugging it to an electrical outlet.
In 2016 WirelessPT became a registered trademark and after seven years of operation it still
performs as planned and all due to one ingredient: “Ifthere is a will, there is a way!”4

Hiding power and network cables from humans proved to be very
effective in preventing something being unplugged by mistake.
In some places, the only way to shut down an access point is by
shutting down electricity in the whole house or specific rooms. If arouter needs rebooting, the node owner is told to shut down andturn off the electricity at the main electrical supply source. The
node owner will not have to look for any plugs anywhere.

Considerations to take into accountOver the years and despite competitive, closed projects and new technologies, open and self-managed
community networks still have a place in our society,and great potential in rural regions, even without progressive or supportive country policies.
The key to success when developing an independent community network is not to overload thecommunity with all the bells and whistles, but simply
to listen to their needs and how those needs can be
met with new, open and shared technologies and resources at a very low cost. Expert developers are not
the most important ingredient, and in fact they caneven scare the community and lead it to reject the
project due to fear and a lack of understanding of the
project’s technical aspects.
What is imperative is to have trustworthy, key
people in the project who are immersed in the community, and are able to engage the population incommon community interests, even if these are notabout technology, but about the use of technology asa path to achieve a common goal. This will ensure theproject’s sustainability.

Action steps
In order to succeed, community networks need to develop ways to:•

Be open, transparent and enjoy it.

•

Be revolutionary and dare to take a chance.

•

Educate and engage communities about resource-based shared economies.

•

Envision new ways to achieve a better sustainable society at all levels.

•

Be active in causes that are important to thecommunity.

•

Learn from other network implementations anddo not be afraid to re-invent the wheel.

•

Look for individuals who are passionate about relevant interests of the community.

•

Work with local businesses for mutual gains or inpartnership in order to have their participation in
the project.

•

Have members engaged in local politics, either as
constituents or even as candidates running for office who, if elected, will have a stronger voice thatcan make a difference to help support these typesof community projects.

Perhaps the most important thing that needs to beurgently done is to have the European Union develop
regulations that work for community networks.

portugal / 217

Seychelles
Why are there no community networks in the Seychelles?

with, a licence granted under the Licences Act.”5The licence specifies:

Janick Bru1

Introduction
There are no community networks in the Seychelles, an archipelago whose population is foundessentially on four granitic, mountainous anddensely forested islands. The telephone and internet services for fixed points or mobile phones
offered by private telecom companies and internet
service providers (ISPs) reach virtually all cornersof these islands.2 There are currently 33,000 internet subscriptions in the country, nearly all of thembroadband, for around 97,000 inhabitants3 living in
about 25,000 households. Statistics show that 58%
of the population are regular or intermittent usersof the internet.4 This means that there is still a significant group of people who do not have access toand may not use the internet, although many may
own and use mobile phones. It is believed that thissegment is composed of i) the elderly, ii) those withlimited education and/or social problems, and iii)
those who cannot afford to pay for the internet.
The rate of development in the Seychelles is
rapid, and reliance on information and communications technologies (ICTs) is also increasing rapidly.
Could community networks be helpful for the 40%
or so of the population with no ready access to theinternet and the wealth of information available
there? This report looks at the situation in order tounderstand why there are no community networks
in the country.

Legislative and regulatory context
According to the Seychelles Broadcasting and Telecommunication Act of 2000, no one is allowed to“provide a broadcasting service, or a telecommunication service, except under, and in accordance
1

2
3

4

The author liaised with the National Institute for Science,
Technology and Innovation (NISTI) and the Seychelles Community
Training Institute (SECTI) for information about their projects.
Although the quality and speed of connection can vary according
to location.
Zoom. (2018). Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation. This TV
programme informed viewers that for 2017, population estimates
include 17,500 foreign workers.
www.ict.gov.sc/ReportsStatistics/Reports.aspx•

The radio frequency or frequencies allocated to
the licensee.

•

The description of the antenna and transmitterto be used.

•

The geographical area in which a mobile transmitter, where applicable, may be used.

•

The location of the antenna and fixed transmitter.

•

The obligation, if any, to share the frequency allocated with any other person.6

These regulations were somewhat softened by
the Policy on the Use of Fixed Broadband WirelessAccess (FBWA) Frequency Bands (FBWA Policy) of
2004, which set out requirements for operating inthe 2.4 GHz (2400-2483.5 MHz) and 5.7 GHz (57255825 MHz) frequency bands. The Department ofInformation Communications Technology (DICT)
says in the introductory paragraph of the FBWA
Policy that it was “created to allow other users tooperate low powered7 short range devices, in thetwo frequency bands on a licence-exempt basis,
whilst protecting the high powered FBWA operationof the two Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in thesebands.”8 It adds that the purpose is so that “all ISPs[...] can contribute towards the deployment of wireless access nationwide.” It includes the “generalpublic” under its definition of “other users”. These
provisions are nonetheless subject to Part 2, whichlists several points emphasising that any such service must “be operated according to the operational
requirements set by” the DICT.
In practice, a representative of the Seychelles
Licensing Authority (SLA) said that anyone whowanted to offer a broadcasting or internet-related
service needed to prepare and submit a project tothe DICT, which would determine the acceptabilityof such a project. If the project is approved, then the
DICT informs the SLA as to the kind of licence that

5
6
7
8

www.ict.gov.sc/documents/BTA2000.pdf
Ibid.
According to information received, this expression refers toequipment emitting “low frequency” signals under 900 MHz.
www.ict.gov.sc/documents/FBWA%20Policy.pdf

218 / Global Information Society Watch

should be issued. Details of the approval process
are not in the public domain.

Collaborative efforts in the Seychellesin the area of ICTs
There are some community access initiatives in the
Seychelles that seek to use the potential of ICTs toimprove the lives of ordinary citizens. A few of these
could, as a next step, consider setting up a community network to further strengthen the community’s
engagement with, and appropriation of, technology.
There are a number of local community initiatives in the country but they all operate in social
areas, where the only formal requirement is to register as an association. To complete registration, thegroup needs a membership of at least two individuals who agree to work together towards a common
goal. Such groups include the Cancer Concern Association (for cancer victims/survivors and theirrelatives), Night Pastors (for people on the street),and Friends of Prison (to contribute to the rehabilitation of prisoners), to mention a few among thenumerous ones that exist.
For example, while researching this report, I was
introduced to a recent initiative that aims at providing farmers with access to market information andhelping them source buyers. The idea stemmed froma conversation that Manfred Laporte, one of the initiators, had with two friends who are farmers andwho were finding it difficult to sell, or find places
to sell, their products. Laporte, who owns a UKbased IT company, later met a representative of the
Seychelles Agricultural Agency (SAA) and together
they approached the Seychelles National Institutefor Science, Technology and Innovation (NISTI) for
support. They felt that building a knowledge-based
economy, as promoted by the Seychelles government, required the existence of platforms forknowledge sharing.9 The team is currently working
on a platform that will link farmers and producers
with buyers of agricultural produce while maintaining records of the availability of various items
in real time. They are receiving the active supportof the DICT which, according to Laporte, has essentially agreed to provide funds for the subscription
needed for hosting and operating the platform. This
subscription will cost approximately SCR 300,000(about USD 22,300) annually.10 As I suggest below,
this is a crucial commitment from the government to9

Seychelles Nation. (2018, 20 April). Farmers Digital Engagement
Platform: An understanding. www.nation.sc/article.
html?id=258535
10 SCR – Seychelles rupees. Approximate exchange rate: 1 USD = SCR
13.40 in May 2018.

a grassroots-initiated ICT project, because cost is a
key barrier for any ICT initiative to be developed in
the Seychelles.
The project is still being developed and Laporte
hopes that the first phase will be operational within the third quarter of 2018. Farmers and others
should be able to use their mobile phones to accessthe platform and work offline in order to keep costs
low. Laporte states that a number of farmers haveagreed to be part of the pilot. “This is now a community effort with members from SAA, NISTI and
the farming community,” he says. It remains to be
seen what steps will be taken to continue building
momentum within this community in order to attract and, more importantly, maintain a high levelof participation.
The Seychelles Community Training Institute(SECTI) is an NGO which has developed a social action project to provide basic skills and knowledge
to specific groups of citizens so that they become
self-dependent “instead of continuing to depend on
the state social funds.”11 One of the specific objectives is to “strengthen or encourage the use of ICT”
by developing ICT skills that can be used for various
purposes including small projects at the community level.12 The SECTI’s ICT projects target unskilled
young people, those with social problems (including drug addiction)13 and the older population.
Regarding the last group, the organisation feelsthat ICTs are alien to many individuals aged 40 andabove, and that this causes them considerable fear
and anxiety. The SECTI’s overall goals may be somewhat broad, but its objectives for e‑literacy andskills development are specific: they wish to offer
training to introduce the use of ICTs to members of
the community who would otherwise not have thepossibility to acquire such knowledge and skills.
Marie-Nella Azemia, the director of the SECTI,
argues for the importance of unconnected communities getting online:
They need to have access to information andfor this you need to use all relevant tools, theinternet, mobiles and all apps, to keep abreast.
In today’s world, everyone, without exception,needs to know what is going on. You need to
11 SECTI Think Big Project.
12 Ibid.
13 An article from May 2018 gives the results of a recent study
showing that the population of heroin users in Seychelles aged
15 years and above is around 4,800, which is equal to 5.6% of the
population. Laurence, D. (2018, 5 May). Alarming drug results for
Seychelles: survey shows 6 pct of population has used heroin.
Seychelles News Agency. www.seychellesnewsagency.com/
articles/9090/Alarming+drug+results+for+Seychelles+survey+shows++pct+of+population+has+used+heroin

seychelles / 219

network and to have contact with other people,
organisations and communities which are indifferent localities. If you are not connected, if
you do not understand what is going on, if you
cannot talk and engage with others then you
are lost. [...] All people need to be empoweredso that they take their rightful place in society.
This means being able to engage, being able
to understand, being able to participate and tocontribute – for the development of yourself andof the community.14
While there is no experience of community networks
in Seychelles, both Azemia and Laporte believe thatsuch networks could be useful for their projects. According to Laporte:
Community networks can bring stakeholders
closer in order to achieve common goals, forexample as for a health community forum or, in
this case, a Seychellois farmers’ community forbuying and selling agricultural products, and tocontribute to the development of agriculture.
It is a convenient way of bringing together all
sides to create viable economic progress.15
Laporte also highlights the fact that while there
may be well-developed infrastructure for ICTs in the
country, there is actually very little relevant local information online, and until this is rectified, people
in the Seychelles cannot fully benefit from associating at a local level.
Other difficulties highlighted are the slow paceof bureaucratic processes for implementing such
ICT projects and the perception that these processes are somewhat opaque. At this point, though, it isfelt that the main hurdle for connecting and for accessing information in the Seychelles is the cost.16

Key challenges faced in setting up
community networks
Overall, the factors that are seen as the main deterrents to the establishment of community networks
in Seychelles are:•High prices for anything ICT related – equipment, services, maintenance

14 Meeting with Marie-Nella Azemia and Rose Mary Dogley of SECTI,May 2018.
15 Meetings and email exchanges with Manfred Laporte, May 2018.
16 Prices range from SCR 49 for 150 MB for mobile internet to postpaid capped packages which can cost SCR 5,748 for 100 GB. There
are anecdotes about lower-income earners who spend up to SCR
3,000 (about USD 230) a month on communication costs (phone
calls, texts, data) despite the fact that their salary may only bearound SCR 8,000 (USD 615).

•

Regulations regarding equipment and operations that are not always clear and may
sometimes seem contradictory.17

Despite the wide coverage offered by commercial
ISPs, it is evident that areas of need regarding
access to the internet still exist, unrelated to geography and location.
The hurdles to overcome, including the cost ofservices and the cost of equipment as stipulated
by existing regulations, might seem too high fora group of average citizens to choose to venture
into establishing community networks, and perceived benefits from such networks may not seem
worthwhile. The current lack of relevant local content available online is certainly no encouragement– even though developing this content could be a
result of setting up a community network.
Benjamin Sonon, who operates a computer
services company, believes that it is difficult for individuals to cooperate in ventures such as community
networks for various reasons, the main one being
the general socioeconomic climate which does notlend itself to cooperative effort, especially when resources, which are scarce for the average person,
have to be invested.18 Daniel Socrate, a Seychellois
telecom professional,19 considers that the absenceof community networks in Seychelles represents alack of perceived need rather than anything else.
He feels that while there are technically competentpeople who could deliver “traditional” cooperative
solutions, there is no interest in linking up as communities via such solutions because, in his view,people see neither the value nor the potential ofsuch traditional cooperative efforts.
Another drawback mentioned by some is thefact that the main service providers in the country,fiercely commercial entities, have considerable control over the facilities that exist, as they are joint
owners of the fibre optic cables that link the Seychelles to the rest of the world.20 One individualreferred to a major ISP as a “monopoly from colonial times”.
Socrate’s perception, on the other hand, is that“people are linking up as communities via the useof internet through social media platforms such as
17 For example, one of the individuals with whom this was discussed
had difficulty reconciling the idea of “licence exempt” operations
with the fact that these have to be submitted for approval andmust be granted authorisation to operate.
18 Meeting with Benjamin Sonon, May 2018.
19 Telephone and email exchanges with Daniel Socrate, a telecom
professional currently working for a Seychellois ISP.
20 Office of the Vice President. (2010, 11 October). Seychelles tobe connected to the world through the Optic Fibre Submarine
Cable System. www.gov.sc/PressRoom/DisplayPressRelease.
aspx?PRLID=78

220 / Global Information Society Watch

Facebook and WhatsApp” and that since “more than
60% of the population have access to the internet via
their smartphones, the various groups are linking up
through the most effective and modern channels.”
Would the existence of community networks
benefit communities in the Seychelles? One canargue that they would. They could help to foster
greater community spirit and increase collaboration
within communities if people were to see the actual
benefits – such as lower access costs, the “upskilling” of the community, revenue generation, and anincrease in social capital – that could be derived
from them. What is necessary is for a pilot project tobe set up in the Seychelles to show proof of concept– but for that to happen, it needs government support, and buy-in from the communities themselves.

Action steps
Steps to be taken to promote the idea of community
networks in the Seychelles include:•

Raising awareness of community networks andtheir benefits in the media.

•

Fundraising for a pilot project to show proof ofconcept.

•

Approaching policy makers, service providers,and communities themselves to participate in a
multistakeholder discussion on the topic.

•

Lobbying for a change in the application of regulations that impact negatively on the cost ofequipment and services in the Seychelles.

seychelles / 221

South Africa
Challenging inequality in post-apartheid South Africa:
A bottom-up, community-led business model for connectivity

Zenzeleni
Sol Luca de Tena and Carlos Rey-Moreno
zenzeleni.net

Introduction
South Africa is a beacon of industrial capacity andstrong political development in Africa. Despite this,the country has still not managed to deal with thedevastating socioeconomic legacy of apartheid, andwhile politically emancipated it has been unable toescape the dubious honour of being one of the mostunequal societies in the world.1 Around 55.5% of the
population continues to live in poverty,2 with thisnumber reaching 80%3 in the rural areas. Wealth andpoverty are largely racialised, with a majority poor
black African population often unable to afford daily
essentials or access resources, decent education orbasic services.
Poverty and inequality in South Africa are also
expressed through the digital divide. This divide isa reflection of the historic and current socioeconomic reality, but it also threatens future development:
people and communities who lack connectivity, digital opportunities and associated skills and resources
will be further marginalised over time unless interventions are made to change this.
Community networks may present an avenue
to challenge socioeconomic disparities by offeringrural and impoverished communities a chance toown, manage and sell their own affordable, reliablecommunication services. Zenzeleni – a community
network that is based in one of South Africa’s poorest
provinces – is demonstrating the developmental power of community networks by enabling the creation of
local businesses and allowing communities to participate in the development of their own communities.
1.

2

3

Sulla, V., & Zikhali, P. (2018). Overcoming Poverty and Inequality
in South Africa: An Assessment of Drivers, Constraints andOpportunities. World Bank. documents.worldbank.org/curated/
en/530481521735906534/Overcoming-Poverty-and-Inequality-inSouth-Africa-An-Assessment-of-Drivers-Constraints-and-Opportunities
Using the upper-bound poverty line (UBPL). Statistics South
Africa. (2017, 22 August). Poverty on the rise in South Africa. www.
statssa.gov.za/?p=10334
Nassen Smith, M. (2017, 16 October). “Confronting
Inequality”: A report on IFAA Conference. Institute for
African Alternatives. https://ifaaza.org/2017/10/16/
confronting-inequality-a-report-on-ifaa-conferenceCentred around the specific needs and values of theirrespective communities, community networks suchas Zenzeleni are powerful tools that can offer communities much needed connectivity, infrastructure,skills and revenue. They are a mechanism throughwhich localities and people who are structurally marginalised from the greater economy can participate
in the economy as equals, and on their own terms.
This last fact – that community networks allow communities to organise themselves according to theirown priorities and needs, and distribute their benefits in the same manner – means that community
networks offer an appealing alternative to top-down
development and public policy.
This report discusses the context, approach andchallenges faced in setting up Zenzeleni in an attempt to inform and encourage others to learn fromand expand on its experience.

Policy, regulatory and telecommunications
context
South Africa’s telecommunications regulatory framework includes a number of concessions which canbe used for the purposes of greater social inclusion.
These exemptions are significant in that they create
some flexibility for community networks to establish
themselves with fewer bureaucratic burdens andcosts, and enable them to play a role in the telecommunications sector. Perhaps the most important is
the formal licence exemption for operating certain
types of telecommunications infrastructure and services. Zenzeleni has made use of this exemption.4
South Africa also offers a licensing exemption
with regards to Wi-Fi and, recently, television whitespace (TVWS) spectrum, also allowing for higher
radiated power than in many other countries. In theevent that a community network runs out of channels
in its licence-exempt spectrum, the national regulator, the Independent Communications Authority ofSouth Africa (ICASA), also allows a very flexible andlow-cost fee structure in other bands that could be
used in backhaul links.
While crucial, this flexibility is neverthelessnot sufficient to allow communities to establish
4South Africa does not have specific legislation for community
networks.

222 / Global Information Society Watch

community networks. Several other obstacles posea barrier. For instance, communities in rural areas areunlikely to know the details of national telecommunications policies, or even if they do, they are unlikely
to understand the complex language of public policy
and regulations, or the technical processes neededto access opportunities. Such communities may also
not have the access to resources to allow them totravel to regulatory offices to complete application
forms, or to contract the legal services needed toensure they are compliant with various regulations,or the technical services needed to establish the infrastructure to launch their community network. A
complex set of knowledge and skills are required tounderstand and exploit these opportunities.
For its part, Zenzeleni has had a wide range ofcollaborators who stepped in to assist in overcoming these obstacles. They include organisations suchas the University of the Western Cape (UWC)5 thathelps build evidence, Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions6
which offers expertise to navigate the regulation
landscape, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC)7 and the Internet Society (ISOC)8
who provide support through their networks and resources, and other community networks around theworld with whom to share experiences, among others. These collaborations have raised the profile ofZenzeleni, accessing assistance for it at national andinternational levels. Their joint advocacy has been
critical in getting community networks recognised asmechanisms for positive change and connectivity inSouth Africa, and it is partly through their advocacythat in May 2018 the South African government’s Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services(DTPS) formally indicated its intention to collaborate
with and support Zenzeleni during its annual budget
speech in parliament.9

Zenzeleni: Generating capital andopportunities through connectivity
Zenzeleni currently provides affordable, reliable
connectivity within several communities in the rural
Eastern Cape province of South Africa, specificallyin Mankosi, Mcwasa, Nomadolo and Zithulele. Like
many other areas in the Eastern Cape and other partsof South Africa, these communities were deliberately
5
6
7
8
9

https://www.uwc.ac.za
https://www.ellipsis.co.za
https://www.apc.org
https://www.internetsociety.org
Ndabeni-Abrahams, S. (2018, 17 May). Budget Vote 32
Address by Ms. Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, Deputy Minister ofTelecommunications and Postal Services. Africa Newswire. https://africanewswire.za.com/deputy-minister-stella-ndabeni-abrahamstelecommunications-and-postal-services-dept-budget-vote-2018-19

and systematically underdeveloped by the racist andoppressive colonial and, later, apartheid regimes. They
are characterised by extremely high unemployment,
deep levels of poverty, high rates of out-migration bypeople of economically active ages, and a lack of economic infrastructure beyond the presence of general
stores (which stock very basic products) and some limited tourist accommodation. The result is that today,
more than 20 years after the fall of apartheid, unemployment in the area is around 98%.10 Most residents
live on around USD 1 per day, relying on government
old-age and childcare grants or on remittances from
relatives working in urban areas.
Telecommunications constitutes a major portionof the monthly expenses of these village residents– around 25% of monthly costs, according to a fiveyear study by UWC.11 This is partly a consequence ofthe need for telecommunications in a context wherefamilies are so dispersed around the country, andalso because the telecommunications tariffs for thearea, charged by formal service providers, are someof the most expensive in the country.
To illustrate: residents typically buy the smallest
prepaid voucher, ZAR 5 (South African rands)12 at atime, which equates to around five megabits (MB)13of data, or six minutes of call time. Better rates canbe accessed by paying for moderate monthly contracts – such as ZAR 199 for five gigabits (GB) or
ZAR 499 for 20 GB14 – but both are unaffordable tolocal residents. The costs are exacerbated by thefact that vouchers in such areas retail through local
distributors at a 40% margin (hence a ZAR 5 voucher is actually sold for ZAR 7). Residents also have to
pay an additional ZAR 5 to recharge their phones –possibly at a neighbour’s or local shop – as many
do not have electricity at home. Yet once they havepurchased vouchers and charged phones, residents
then struggle with unreliable network coverage.15
It is estimated that 15 communities within the
broader area around Zenzeleni collectively spend
over ZAR 20 million (over USD 1.5 million) on
10 https://wazimap.co.za/profiles/municipality-EC155-nyandeni
11 Rey-Moreno, C. (2015). PhD dissertation, Rey Juan Carlos
University.
12 The currency conversion at time of writing was ZAR 1 = USD 0.08,
so ZAR 5 is USD 0.40.
13 Costs from field research and compared with Stolp, J.
(2017, 16 May). Feeling ripped off about airtime? You
probably are. Fin24. https://www.fin24.com/Tech/Opinion/
feeling-ripped-off-about-airtime-you-probably-are-20170516
14 www.shop.mtn.co.za/crs/browse/productFilter.
jsp?categoryName=SIMOnly
15 Rey-Moreno, C. et al. (2016). An in-depth study of the ICT
ecosystem in a South African rural community: unveilingexpenditure and communication patterns. Information Technology
for Development, 22, Supplement 1, 101-120. https://www.
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02681102.2016.1155145

south africa / 223

telecommunications annually.16 Much of this capital
is not retained locally: it flows back to large telecommunications companies in urban centres, leaving
little capital or other value within the impoverishedcommunities.
Zenzeleni, however, creates local internet service
provider (ISP) businesses that allow the communities to retain their spending internally, and hence
enables them with affordable access to digital resources and a local source of income.

Building up a community network
Zenzeleni (“Do it yourself ” in isiXhosa) was born in2013 through a friendship between a UWC doctoral
student doing action research in the area and a local
community activist. It led to a partnership between
UWC and the local tribal authority of the Mankosi community. The project was co-developed andco-created over a six-year period, during which local
buy-in and support were nurtured and developed.
The project has evolved by placing the community
at its centre, and by responding to the community’s
self-defined needs and opportunities.
At first Zenzeleni was simply a local wirelessintranet providing free voice services between analogue phones connected by solar-powered routers.
It later included an external connection to the internet via a 3G modem to enable these phones to makecalls to national numbers. During the process, thecommunity recognised the opportunity for the solar
station powering the routers to also charge phones,
and they began to offer mobile phone charging services from these routers at a cheaper rate than thelocal retail shops (ZAR 3 rather than ZAR 5). It proveda valuable opportunity for the community to generate income.
These interventions resulted, among otherthings, in a training programme where 12 young local people were guided to use the internet to apply(successfully) for national tertiary education grants.
It was a massive achievement in an area where completing secondary education is rare.
Until this point all of these interventions wereconducted under the auspices and funding of UWC
research. Parallel techno-economic and social studies were undertaken to gauge the barriers that thecommunity experienced in accessing, using and benefiting from telecommunications.
In 2014 Zenzeleni established a local cooperativewith full ICASA licence exemptions to operate and
16 Based on extrapolating the numbers in the conclusion of ReyMoreno, C. et al. (2016) to the population of the communities
in Nyandeni (www.wazimap.co.za/profiles/municipality-EC155nyandeni) and King Sabata Dalindyebo (www.wazimap.co.za/
profiles/municipality-EC157-king-sabata-dalindyebo).

offer communication services. However, efforts toaccess towers – both public and private – and to collaborate with existing telecommunications networks
to access fibre were unsuccessful.
Yet other successes were achieved: in 2016 Zen­zeleni was recognised internationally and received
an ISOC Beyond the Net grant;17 in 2017 it was a finalist in the Mozilla Equal Rating Innovation Challenge;18
and also in 2017 it was awarded the South African national award for Best Innovation with Social Impact.19
Funds from these awards allowed Zenzeleni to create
its own wireless backbone; at first its internet connection was to the National Research and Education
Network via the University of Walter Sisulu (60 km
away from Mankosi as the crow flies).
At the end of 2017, Zenzeleni secured its first private sector client (or anchor tenant), the local branchof a large corporate – and through a like-minded
company, Zenzeleni was able to secure uncontended
access to a fibre connection. Apart from servicing its
four communities, Zenzeleni now offers internet toseven local businesses and three schools.
Currently, Zenzeleni’s solar-powered, wirelessnetwork can carry up to 200 megabits per second(Mbps). While there are still limited connection
points (or hotspots) to the network, the averagemonthly traffic has been 1.5 terabytes (TB), with over
5,000 different devices connected to the network.
Since devices are often shared by several people in ahousehold, the actual number of users is higher. Recently Zenzeleni has started selling uncapped data
vouchers which are active for a month. This voucher model is still being tested. Connectivity for local
businesses and schools occurs at a monthly fee.

Governance structure: A tool for integrationand development
As Zenzeleni has grown, it has evolved two parallel
functions: an umbrella non-profit company (Zenzeleni), and the local community-owned and operated
ISP (the Mankosi cooperative).
The members of the cooperative are elders –men and women – from different community villages.
Among other things, they decide who hosts mobile
charging stations and hotspots, as well as who sells
the vouchers. They have met monthly since 2013 tounderstand and shape Zenzeleni, and to use it tocontribute to the development of their communities and families. In local Xhosa culture the elders
17 https://www.internetsociety.org/beyond-the-net
18 https://challenge.equalrating.com
19 University of the Western Cape. (n/d). Zenzeleni Project Wins
Social Innovation Award For Connecting Rural Community. https://www.uwc.ac.za/News/Pages/Zenzeleni-Project-Wins-SocialInnovation-Award.aspx

224 / Global Information Society Watch

are responsible for caring for their community’s
well-being, and this social vision is as essential toZenzeleni’s sustainability as the economic and technical aspects. The cooperative’s constitution clearlystates the intention for the business to develop thearea and grow opportunities for their children. In
the words of one of the cooperative’s directors, who
spent his life working in the mines: “I didn’t knowthat you could get a little bit of money without having
to go outside of the community to work hard. That is
the future I want for my children”.
The non-profit company acts as a support mechanism for the cooperative and as a bridge between
the local community and the established telecommunications sector. It has four directors drawn from a
range of relevant fields and experiences. Their role is
to guide the cooperative through a myriad of issues
including acquiring licence exemptions, brokering
deals, accessing the relevant technology, building
resources, gathering evidence, advocacy, managing
the network, accessing funding, and creating partnerships, among other things. These tasks are allnecessary for Zenzeleni to operate in the telecommunications sector; yet they are totally removed
from the daily lives of the community. In rural South
Africa, where there are often no services, even thesimplest tasks take days of travel and frustrations
with systems which do not cater for communities.
The intention is that one day the cooperative will
have the skills, resources and access to online services to undertake these tasks autonomously. For
now the non-profit company is required as a support
structure.
At this stage the cooperative generates enoughincome to pay for its own bandwidth, replace infrastructure and grow its network by adding moreaccess points. As it expands, so will the revenue available to the cooperative. The non-profit company has
until recently run on a volunteer basis, with intermittent support from grants. Zenzeleni’s ecosystem (anon-profit company and different cooperatives providing internet access) will reach sustainability whenseveral cooperatives serving different communities
within regions contribute a fee towards maintaining
a network that is treated as a common-pool resource
and managed by the non-profit company.
This year Zenzeleni will test its ability to scale
towards sustainability by expanding to a new areaand seeding a new cooperative. This is partly funded by the South African Department of Science andTechnology and the Technology Innovation Agency,
and will allow Zenzeleni to undertake a more systematic – and resourced – incubation process. Key tothis is setting up systems and transferring skills forcooperatives to take a further step toward autonomy.

Here there is a strong emphasis on the inclusion of
women in taking the lead in the new cooperative andalso further recognising their role within the Zenzeleni ecosystem. Another key focus area for Zenzeleni
is defining its common-pool resource (or commons)approach20 to managing its network infrastructure.
Essentially, the commons is an approach throughwhich the network assets are jointly owned by all who
utilise them. New users can connect to the existing
network, and the costs of maintaining and upgrading
it are shared. This is significant, as the start-up andfixed costs of a network are very high, whereas thoseof increasing bandwidth or expanding a section of
the network are proportionally much lower. This allows users to avoid duplicating infrastructure andservices. It also allows them to access economies ofscale as a large body made up of smaller individual
entities. Since fixed costs are shared among all users, as more users join the network, costs become
increasingly lower for all.
Partnerships with various players in the telecommunications sector are important to increase
the efficiency and benefits of the commons approach. There has been overwhelming interest in
Zenzeleni from other communities in rural and urban
townships21 as well as from local businesses and institutions. The integration of different players, with
communities at its centre, is an opportunity for positive social, racial and economic integration in theSouth African context. However, one of Zenzeleni’s
challenges is to offer a system that promotes benefits for all, but also accounts for socioeconomic
differences in the country so as not to further propagate these.

A model for co-creation
Zenzeleni’s community-centred model holds significant promise to address the digital divide. In theserural and impoverished areas, traditional technology
interventions fail. For instance, donations of computers to schools in the area have seen the technology
remain unused, as people do not have the skills to
use them, or due to a lack of electricity or internet; orthey are stolen soon after being donated, since suchtechnology is a valuable resource in an impoverishedarea. The failure of such interventions, however, is often due to poor or non-existent consultation with theso-called beneficiaries. Zenzeleni has been different.
It is a model of slow co-creation with and through the
20 Zenzeleni bases its common-pool resource management on themodel developed by guifi.net, which services more than 34,000
active nodes. https://guifi.net
21 South African term for informal settlements found outside cities
where people often live in tin shacks and where there are few
services.

south africa / 225

community, and its network has been cared for andused.
Integration will require time and recognitionof different ways of working. Zenzeleni offers hopethat there is an alternative to isolation and marginalisation. Nowadays it is common to see people
huddled around Zenzeleni hotspots: Bongani,22 aboy watching soccer and analysing each players’
moves intently to “up his skills”; young Lundi’s facesuspicious at first, then lighting up when shown how
to access maths learning support videos; Sipho, akeen local rapper, searching the online music world
and finding something of himself in others. Sharing
content that reflects the identity of the amaXhosa isa next step... each one a step toward a more connected and integrated South Africa.

Conclusion
Zenzeleni’s case shows how economically marginalised communities that otherwise depend on
government grants and remittances can, through acommunity network, both access and own high value
services in South Africa. Internet connectivity offers
access to resources that are otherwise not available
in these communities, and the new ISP business provides poor people with a new income stream.
Through ownership, transparency and collaboration, Zenzeleni also shows that technology can bereadily accepted and integrated into rural life. It has
the potential to offer equal resources to all peopleof South Africa, at least online. However, the effective uptake of such technology depends foremoston input and acceptance from the community. It is
important to move slowly, to build trust, acceptanceand knowledge, and to seed and incubate the ISP
businesses.
Collaboration has also been important to overcome the multiple legal, technical, financial andsocial barriers experienced by communities. An
approach responsive to challenges, research and amultidisciplinary team have been critical to the success of Zenzeleni.
All of the above has not happened without challenging the status quo in telecommunications andnorms around development and transformation. But
then, things cannot change and stay the same.
This year Zenzeleni will test its model by scaling
to new areas. We are working hard for this vision, andfollowing in the words of another local cooperative
director: Sifuna uZenzeleni anwenwe nje ngomlilo –“We want Zenzeleni to spread like fire.”

22 Although these examples are real, the children’s names have beenchanged to protect their privacy.

Action steps
The following key steps are necessary to strengthen Zenzeleni and community networks generally inSouth Africa:• Implementation and growth: Zenzeleni needs
to answer the pull from communities that want
their own community network. This will require
some seed funding and a bigger support team(seed funding, partnerships and volunteers arewelcome).
• The importance of local relevance and international collaboration for community networks:Core to the sustainability of the community
network is maintaining its relevance to the local people and context. This requires ongoingreflection and work. Likewise, participating incommunity networks regionally in Africa andglobally offers us a chance to develop a robust
system of peer-to-peer support and sharing ofexperiences to sustain our community networkmodel. This requires ongoing participation in andnurturing of international people networks.
• Collaboration with the South African government
in its policy response to community access: It is
important for community networks in South Africa to engage with the government in its policy
response to local-level access. This will help create more innovative and responsive policies thatenable the potential that community networks
offer for South Africa and the greater region.
• Enabling communities to access infrastructure,
spectrum and regulation: A key regulatory change
relates to infrastructure sharing and cutting redtape. Sharing public and private telecommunications towers, services and spectrum – andsimplifying the bureaucracy to access them – will
increase the potential for communities to deploy
their own community networks, and amount tosignificant resource and cost savings for communities and the sector.
• Engage and support the community: Finally, it isworth restating a simple fact about community
networks: they are for the community. Many ofthe past community access programmes suchas telecentres or e‑schools have failed due to alack of consultation with their beneficiaries, poor
participation of the communities in the initiative,
and a lack of proper technical and other support.
Programmes need to allow communities to determine their priorities and enable them to own andoperate their community assets – they should
not just be passive customers paying for accessto the internet. Long-term capacity building andmentorship support are essential.

226 / Global Information Society Watch

tanzania
Piloting the use of TV white space for community
networks in rural Tanzania

The University of Dodoma, College of Informatics andVirtual Education; Internet Society
Jabhera Matogoro in conversation with Jane Coffin andColin Muller
https://www.udom.ac.tz; https://www.isoc.org

Introduction
The Kondoa Community Network (KCN) is the firstcommunity network to pilot the use of television whitespace (TVWS) in a rural area to address the issue of theinternet gap in Tanzania. Jane Coffin and Colin Muller
from the Internet Society spoke to Jabhera Matogoro,assistant lecturer at the College of Informatics andVirtual Education of the University of Dodoma, who
set up the network. The overarching objectives of thisproject are two-fold: firstly, to pilot the use of TVWS
as an alternative solution to deliver wireless broadband in rural Tanzania; and secondly, to encourage abottom-up approach to connect the unconnected in
Tanzania through the community network model.
Colin: Could you tell us how long the Kondoa
Community Network (KCN) has been operating andhow long it has been an idea of yours and everyone
else working on it?
Matogoro: Actually we started working on TV
white space (TVWS) concepts in 2014, and then in2017 we undertook experimental spectrum measurement to understand how the ultra high frequency(UHF) spectrum band is being utilised in Tanzania,
especially after analogue to digital migration. In early 2018, a team of two members from the Universityof Dodoma visited Kondoa District to engage thecommunity in setting up a community network toconnect the unconnected in the district. The teamconducted a sensitisation and awareness workshop with community members around Kondoa sothat they could own the project and later be able
to sustain it in the future. So, in short, studies on
TVWS started in 2014 but the official operation of
KCN started in May 2018. The official operation inthis context means when internet access was madeavailable to KCN. In a measurement study1 that we
1

Matogoro, J., Mvungi, N. H., Justinian, A., Karandikar, A., & Singh,
J. (2018). Towards Affordable Broadband Communication: A
Quantitative Assessment of TV White Space in Tanzania. https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/towards-affordable-broadbandcommunication-a-quantitative-assess/15909208

conducted it was found that there is a huge potential for using the UHF spectrum band, especially inrural areas where no transmission is currently available. The installed wireless link achieved an internet
speed of 4.53 Mbps and 4.83 Mbps for download
and upload respectively.
Colin: So it started as an idea in 2014, and thendid you give it a name and formalise it later on?
Could you say when you applied for the two-year
authorisation letter2 for experimentation?
Matogoro: Yes, it started as an idea in 2014
when I was working on my PhD research and waslater formalised in 2017. It was soon after that that
we applied for authorisation. The name was given in
our first stakeholder meeting for KCN that was heldon 5 March 2018 at Golden Apple Hotel in Kondoa.
Colin: What areas did you survey before you decided on Kondoa, and how far is this area from theclosest large city?
Matogoro: Kondoa District is located around
140 km from Dodoma City; it is almost a two-hour
car drive from Dodoma to Kondoa. Before selecting an area to host this project, a physical visit wasmade to three districts in Dodoma, namely, Bahi
District, Chamwino District and Kondoa District.
During the physical visit, it was found that Bahi and
Chamwino Districts had better road and communication infrastructure compared to Kondoa District.
The better infrastructure was partly because they
are both located near Dodoma City, around 60 km
and 20 km for Bahi and Chamwino respectively, but
Kondoa District was very much isolated due to poorroad infrastructure, which makes it unattractive formany businesses and hence led to a digital divide.
It should be noted that more than three years ago,
one would spend four to six hours in the car to drivefrom Dodoma City to Kondoa District.
Colin: Could you give a physical description of
Kondoa District? Is it mountainous? Is it flat? And
how many people live there?
Matogoro: It is a mountainous area and hasaround 269,704 people – 136,518 are male and2

An authorisation letter was required because the UHF spectrum
band is licensed spectrum and therefore, for the university totransmit in this spectrum, we needed to have permission from the
Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority.

Tanzania / 227

Kondoa Girls High School teachers, students and project team members.

133,186 are female.3 KCN will connect three educational institutions to the internet. The firstschool was connected in May 2018. The school isa girls-only secondary school with around 810 students and 46 staff. Teachers and students are now
connected to high-speed wireless internet delivered
using TVWS technology. Kondoa Girls High School
is located 4.6 km from the base station which has abackhaul connection. Teachers are very comfortable
and are able to access materials online, undertake
school management online tasks, and can accessresults online.
Colin: You have suggested some reasons – suchas Kondoa’s isolation – but can you say more about
why you wanted to start the community network
initiative?
Matogoro: A big motivation was proving that
TVWS could work. We started the community network initiative because we believe it is among thefeasible solutions to connect the unconnected. KCN
is piloting the use of TVWS for community networks
in rural Tanzania and addressing the current internet
gap. A number of initiatives have been undertaken by various stakeholders in Tanzania to connect
the unconnected using the traditional approaches.
However, only 23 million users4 have access to theinternet and half of Tanzania’s population remains
unconnected. We believe that a community network
initiative and the use of unused UHF spectrum will
3
4

United Republic of Tanzania. (2013). 2012 Population and Housing
Census.
https://tcra.go.tz/images/documents/telecommunication/
TelCom_Statistics_March_2018.pdf

be a feasible solution to address internet connectivity issues in Tanzania.
Colin: Where did you get the idea of using thecommunity network model? Did you maybe learn
from other people also using the community network model or get advice from someone? Or did it
just seem intuitively like the right way to go about
connecting?
Matogoro: I came across the idea when I wasworking on a paper that was reviewing different
approaches to connect the unconnected. It is fromconducting a literature review that I found that acommunity network initiative could also be used as
an alternative to connect the unconnected. In that
direction we also tried to find out a feasible technology to connect the unconnected in rural Tanzania.
We initially thought about using fibre, but it is very
expensive and may not be feasible in places like
Kondoa which is a mountainous area; hence laying
fibre can be difficult and will be more expensive.
Then we thought of Wi-Fi but we found that Wi-Fi
can hardly cover an area of around 200 metres. In
rural, mountainous areas like Kondoa, Wi-Fi could
not be a feasible solution because you might needa lot of access points to cover a larger cell size. But
with TVWS technology in the UHF spectrum band,
you can penetrate mountains, trees and buildings
with a good antenna gain. It is also a feasible solution in a rural area because no one is transmittingin this band. So that was the idea behind it, and weare very excited that our community network has
managed to use TVWS to connect the unconnectedin rural Tanzania.

228 / Global Information Society Watchfigure 1.

The network has four main parts: the transmitter (base station); the receiver (CPE installed at school); the geo-location spectrum database(hosted at the National Internet Data Center in Dar es Salaam); and the communication channel (UHF signal) and 2.4 GHz for end-users toaccess the internet using their laptop and/or smartphone.

Colin: Did you encounter any challenges in using TVWS?
Matogoro: In piloting the use of TVWS for thecommunity network, KCN connected three educational institutions, namely Kondoa Girls HighSchool – which I mentioned earlier – Ula Secondary
School and Bustani Teachers College, which are located 4.6, 3.6 and 1.4 km from the transmitter. In theliterature it is reported that UHF spectrum has good
propagation characteristics to penetrate walls andtrees, but in reality for that to happen one needs tohave an antenna with good antenna gain. A 4 dBi
antenna gain failed to establish a connection to
Bustani Teachers College, which is just about 1.4 km
from the transmitter. This failure is partly because
between Bustani Teachers College and the transmitter there is a heavy forest which is also the sourceof water for Kondoa District. The team is working
to replace this antenna with an 8 dBi antenna gain.
So we can see that sometimes if there is a heavy
forest, one may face challenges in establishing thelink between the transmitter and receiver. However,
TVWS remains a feasible and affordable technology
in rural areas similar to Kondoa.

Jane: Is it a TVWS solution with a mesh network?
Matogoro: Yes, it is TVWS with a mesh network.
Colin: It definitely seems like TVWS is the goodtechnology to use in the terrain you’ve described.
Could you talk about the people that were initiallyinvolved in starting the community network, andmaybe the motivations that brought you and others
together to start the network?
Matogoro: The University of Dodoma5 is leading
the project from the technology side – but actually
it is a project with a number of expert internationalteam members. The project has the following teammembers: Jabhera Matogoro from the Departmentof Computer Science; Prof. Justinian Anatory fromthe Department of Telecommunication Engineeringand Dean of the School of Informatics; Prof. Nerey
Mvungi from the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Dar es Salaam;6 Prof.
Ermanno Pietrosemoli, a senior project researcher
from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics

5
6

https://www.udom.ac.tz/home
https://www.udsm.ac.tz

Tanzania / 229

Technical team members from KCN install equipment at Bustani Teachers College in Kondoa.

(ICTP)7 in Italy; Dr. Marco Zennaro, also a seniorproject researcher from ICTP; Abibu Ntahigiye, thechief executive officer of the Tanzania Network
Information Centre (tzNIC)8 and ISOC Tanzania
Chapter chairman; Nazarius Kirama, ISOC Tanzania
Chapter secretary; and Rebecca Ryakitimbo from
TechChix and an ISOC Tanzania Chapter member.
Community members are represented in this project by the steering committee, which represents
various stakeholders in Kondoa. I have worked with
Prof. Anatory and Prof. Mvungi as research advisor
at the University of Dodoma; I met Prof. Ermanno
and Dr. Marco in a wireless tutorial class in Lusaka,
Zambia during an African Network Operators Group(AfNOG)9 workshop in 2013; I have also worked with
Abibu, Nazar and Rebecca when I served as ISOC
Tanzania Chapter secretary from 2015 to 2017. It isa team of dedicated people who are happy to leadthe project.
Colin: Could you say more about what efforts
you are making to discuss the community network
7
8
9

https://www.ictp.it
https://www.tznic.or.tz
https://www.afnog.org

and get involvement from community members,
and maybe community members that don’t havethe same level of expertise as the researchers you
are working with?
Matogoro: Yes, it is true that community members may not have same level of expertise, but wehave found that most community members even inrural areas know what they expect from the internet. We have also found that in communities there
are people who are naturally interested in some ofthese technical issues, and they are well known by
most community members because of their involvement in undertaking similar technical activities. For
instance, in Kondoa, we found that there are a number of youth who are able to install DSTV antennas.
This made it easy to receive recommendations from
community members forming the steering committee on who could help us. We managed to engage
these youth in installing TVWS antennas. In short,
we are trying to learn from community members inKondoa and identify the local skills available andwe build on this to train them on relevant skills
to support the installed network. We have also
found that the best approach to achieve technical

230 / Global Information Society Watchsustainability in these communities is to adopt alearning-by-doing approach. This becomes interesting to them and they are happy to take the initiative
forward.
Colin: Could you discuss the structure of thesteering committee, who is on it, and how decisions
are made?
Matogoro: The steering committee has members representing government, religious leaders,political leaders, educational institutions, youth
and women around Kondoa District. The decisions
are based on consensus among the steering committee members.
Colin: How do you think the approach to building
this network differs from when a private company
decides to deploy some kind of telecommunication
infrastructure in a region?
Matogoro: The only difference and uniquenessof this approach is that this is a kind of bottom-up
approach. You know, for the private company, deploying a network, in most cases, it’s top down.
They set the price and then people pay for it. But forthe community network, the members of the community network have the power to set the price.
Jane: What advice would you give to someone
who would like to start up a project like this?
Matogoro: One piece of advice is that the community network is the best approach. And having
TVWS as the technology for the middle and last
mile makes it a more feasible alternative to connect
the unconnected, especially in hard-to-reach environments and rural areas with mountainous terrain
similar to Kondoa. I know that there is still a challenge on the technical know-how, but let us work
together to make sure that more communities are

impacted and contribute to the digital economy. I
am aware that most countries – especially developing countries – do not have policies supporting theoperation of both community networks and TVWS,
but that should not be an obstacle in exploring thebenefit from these approaches. However, policy
makers and government should create a favourable
environment for community members to explore
the potentials of these technologies. We need tohave policies and regulations that favour this kindof technology and to develop capacities amongcommunity members. Generally, recommendations
for the technologies to be used might be diverse
depending on the community, but for the person
who is working in a community like Kondoa, thecommunity network is the best approach. But it isvery important to make sure that the community
members own the project.

Acknowledgments
Jabhera Matogoro would like to extend his thanks
to the University of Dodoma and the Internet Society for supporting this project. The project wasalso supported by various stakeholders in different
capacities, including the Tanzania Communications
Regulatory Authority, KCN Steering Committee
Members, faculty members from the College of Informatics and Virtual Education, Dr. Luzango Mfupeand his team from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,10 Rajabu T. Kitunda and his teamfrom Selcom Broadband Limited (UhuruOne),11 Felix Alex who was engaged in the development of ageo-location spectrum database, and KCN TechnicalTeam members (John Wambura, Phabian Misanya,
Abdinasir Mohamed and Sidney Mbele).

10 https://www.csir.co.za
11 www.uhuruone.co.tz

Tanzania / 231

thailand
Building last-metre community networks in Thailand

Internet Education and Research Laboratory (intERLab)– Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Net2Home Social
Enterprise
Kanchana Kanchanasut, Adisorn Lertsinsubtavee,
Apinun Tunpan, Nisarat Tansakul, Preechai
Mekbungwan, Nunthaphat Weshsuwannarugs andParkpoom Tripatana
https://interlab.ait.ac.th

Introduction
Providing connectivity to rural communities has
been one of the most challenging tasks worldwide,
and Thailand is no exception. In this country, fibre
optic connectivity to homes is still confined to provincial capitals and big towns. Although cellular
coverage is extensive, data packages are expensive. More recently, fibre optic networks have been
pushed by the government under the One Access
Per Village Project, with 24,700 villages connectedto the internet by the end of 2017 with one fibre end
per village. But to access the net, villagers have togather around the dropping points similar to thosetelecentre projects in the early days.
TakNet is one of the most successful community
network projects in Thailand, bringing significant
impact and improvement to people’s lives in theprovince of Tak in the northwest of Thailand since2013. Currently 15 communities have set up
networks in their villages, with more than 1,000 residents using community networks on a daily basis.
TakNet remains an experimental project that aims
to provide internet connectivity to rural homes ataffordable rates and acceptable quality. This makes
it different from the telecentre approach. It was alsoplanned for community members to be jointly responsible for the network.
At the time of writing, TakNet is the only community network operating in Thailand. This reportdiscusses key success factors in setting up the
network in response to a lack of connectivity at the
local level.

5 GHz bands in which the transmission range islimited. Nevertheless, this means less freedom tochoose other wireless frequencies that many overseas community networks have. The frequency
restriction limits our network size and coverage.
The use of sub-1 GHz frequency bands such as TV
white space (TVWS) is not allowed in our country.
The Thai regulator, the National Broadcasting and
Telecommunications Commission, is reluctant toease regulations such as using high transmission
for point-to-point communication and deploying rural broadband via TVWS. It is our policy to abide byexisting rules and regulations in our network designand operation, limiting ourselves to the technology
choices that are permissible. We are currently operating with an internet service provider (ISP) licencethat has been issued to our Net2Home social enterprise company (see below).

Network set-up

Regulatory environment

The idea behind TakNet originated from our earlier work in post-disaster communication networks
using mobile network technology. We realised thatfamiliarity with technology is vital for successful
deployment under stressful post-disaster scenarios; our work on community networks was built on
this experience.
In general, a community network is a form of
self-configuring and “self-healing” network whererouters use dynamic routing protocols to form an
ad hoc network. A community network allows individual users to join the network and share theconnectivity by setting up their own relay routers at
a village level up to city scale.
Initially, TakNet was a technical experimentconnecting villagers using wireless mesh networks
which could be easily transformed to become an
emergency communication network in times of natural disasters. Now we use small mobile routers withfirmware called DUMBO,1 designed for post-disaster communication, to connect houses together
using a limited 3G/ADSL gateway to the internet.
The DUMBO firmware includes the Optimized Link
State Routing (OLSR)2 protocol to form the mesh

Even though there is no specific policy in favourof running community networks in Thailand, local regulations allow us to use unlicensed 2.4 and1
2dumbo-technology.interlab.ait.asia
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3626

232 / Global Information Society Watch

network, SIP phones3 and a few other applications
like short message applications that users can deploy. The simplicity of DUMBO firmware enables thecommunity to build or extend the TakNet networkin an ad hoc manner to meet their own needs. Thismeans that in case of natural disasters they would
be able to repurpose their routers, currently fixed totheir walls, to form a post-disaster communication
network almost immediately.

Key success factors of TakNet
The key success factor of our project is its strong
collaboration between three main players: the research and development team led by the Internet
Education and Research Laboratory (intERLab)4of the Asian Institute of Technology, who develop
and apply the DUMBO firmware for the community
network; the corporate social responsibility (CSR)
programme of the Thai Network Information Center
Foundation (THNICF);5 and the local community’s
participation. In addition, as mentioned, our Net2Home social enterprise licence allows us to function
as an ISP.
The intERLab team plays the key role in terms ofsoftware development by customising the DUMBO
firmware to form the wireless mesh network. The
intERLab team also concentrates on research anddevelopment to improve the network infrastructureusing new technologies (e.g. TVWS, LTE small cell)
as well as proposing new services for TakNet such
as VoIP, instant messaging, video-on-demand anddistributed ledger (or shared database) to support
the day-to-day activities of community members.
While doing research and development for TakNet,
intERLab uses TakNet as its research test bed forother research projects, such as using the internetof things (IoT) for monitoring air quality.
In line with its objective of promoting the internet as part of infrastructure development, the
THNICF cooperates with the intERLab team to expand the community network into nearby areas
by using local technicians. Our experience showsthat the key to success is to have simple technology where we can transfer the operation to local
technicians who usually are without proper vocational education and have trouble reading English
instructions. Involving local technicians and having
them gradually take over running the network is our
key strength. They monitor the network and act as
our first-tier support. They are currently capable of3
45

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol
https://interlab.ait.ac.th
https://www.thnic.or.th/en/hometroubleshooting and fixing most network issues.
They are trained by the intERLab team and are thekey to expanding the community network to nearby
areas. They earn more income from installation fees
and commissions if they get more members.
After five years, with our limited resources, wehave expanded to 15 communities and have over
1,000 users. We are introducing different wirelesstechnologies so that we can connect hard-to-reachareas.
A few years after our first community network
village was connected, ISPs started to move in andoffered services to the village. We viewed this asa positive benefit to the community – they would
have better internet access and more choices. We
worked with ISPs in reaching out to those villagers that could not afford the ISP’s standard service
price.
Today, despite the government’s fibre-to-village
project, and the penetration of the networks by the
big ISPs, access is still quite limited. If the villagers
opt for the government network, they have to visit
a telecentre or go to other places where fibre optic
lines get dropped. This can be quite far from theirhomes and cause concerns for parents. If the villagers opt for a commercial ISP, the monthly fees arestill unaffordable for most of them. While last-mile
fibre infrastructures are now receiving attention
from the government, the regulator and big ISPs, weare convinced that the last metres in remote villages can be served very well by community networks.

Pathway to sustainability
Initially, we relied on young volunteers who were
university students or new graduates attending theannual Thailand Networking Group (THNG) Camp6
supported by the THNICF to help us with field deployments. These young volunteers went out tovisit rural villagers and convinced them to get routers installed on the external walls of their homes.
This provides a good start for building a reliable
and resilient community network. DUMBO routersand other equipment were donated by various entities through the THNG Camp and other THNICF
fundraising activities. After the network set-up wascompleted, the intERLab team and the THNG Campmembers trained the villagers in how to use our
network. When the villagers started to use our network, we asked for village volunteers to act as the
local technical support team. Then our researcherstaught the technicians how to maintain the network.

6

www.thng.in.th/#thng-camps

Thailand / 233

It was not successful in the beginning. We had topersevere and teach them slowly. Now they know
how to maintain, expand and deploy new sites.
During the first three years, TakNet wasmaintained on a volunteer basis where the local
technicians cooperated with our technical staff todo some basic troubleshooting and collect users’fees. The fees entailed sharing the cost of the internet subscription fees with some electricity charges
added. This amounted to about USD 2.5 per month
per household. However, the fees collected were
not sufficient for expansion or recovery in case of amajor breakdown such as a router malfunction andreplacement. Such a low fee paying model is notsustainable for the long term due to a lack of funding and human resource support. A solution wasneeded to develop TakNet further so that it could
be attractive to more users who are also willing to
pay more to sustain the network’s operation andgrowth.
To implement this plan, we started a social enterprise called Net2Home in 2016 to fully manage
the services and network deployment of TakNet.
In this new model, the monthly fee for each participant is increased to USD 8 per month to cover
the cost of network equipment installation, maintenance, internet connectivity and the use of local
services (e.g. distributed ledger application, VoIP,
video streaming, chat applications). However, thisnew subscription fee is still three times cheaper
than those of the commercial ISP. After operating
TakNet under the Net2Home company, the numberof deployments increased from one to five communities per year.
We believe that a community network offers
more value to members than just a connection to
the internet. As mentioned, to ensure economic
sustainability, TakNet aims to attract more members
by introducing incentive applications like distributed ledger and chat applications. And with the IoT,
community networks can be extended to provide
services to agriculture and local village manufacturing activities, as well as offering waste or pollution
management solutions inside a community. These
economic and health value-added services could bevery helpful in making the community network moresustainable.

Women at TakNet
TakNet provides local, national and international
opportunities for women in a variety of activities,
such as software/hardware development, network
deployment in several rural villages in the province of Tak, and the chance to present scientificresearch at international conferences. At present,
almost 50% of our team members at intERLab andNet2Home are women, while at the community level
we also found that most of the community leaders
working with us are women.

Conclusions
Internet subscriptions in Thailand are rather expensive even for urban residents with average wages
higher than those in rural areas. The digital divide
is a common social issue. While our experience may
not impact on internet access for extremely remotevillages, a digital divide still exists in villages withjust one or two links to the internet, and we helped
expand these one or two drop points to cover all
houses within the village.
From our five years’ experience, we have
faced several challenges that have required concrete solutions to support the network’s growthand long-term sustainability. Specifically, it will
be very important to incorporate a broader, ambitious vision with core values when designing
the next developmental phases of our rural community wireless mesh networks. Key issues likeenabling faster digital transformation, improving
agriculture yields, creating cleaner and greener
manufacturing systems, and providing tighter socioeconomic integration of rural communities canserve as some important goals and milestones.
To realise our vision, we need to re-think and prioritise from the perspective of villagers’ painful
experiences, to create solutions to tackle the issues they face, and to implement a business modelthat is integrated into these solutions. Modern
developmental approaches such as the “lean andagile” methodology could prove to be highly valuable. We believe that technological innovations
come through research, observation, participationand collaboration. Because of this, activities andfunding in relevant research areas should be madeavailable and managed effectively.

Action steps
The decreasing cost of cellular network services(e.g. 3G/4G) will definitely impact on the cost advantage of our community networks. Currently,
there are low-cost 1 Mbps or 4 Mbps unlimited internet access plans offered by some mobile ISPs.
These could entice our users to switch, but the ability to offer a higher speed (e.g. 10 Mbps to 30 Mbps
during non-peak hours) at similar fees still remains
our key advantage.
Newer and more cost-effective technologies,
both in hardware and network frequencies, are234 / Global Information Society Watchbeing studied and researched. TVWS is a promisingtechnology that is being studied and planned fortesting. This year, the intERLab team and colleagues
from other departments of the Asian Institute ofTechnology are going to run a series of experiments
using TVWS/LTE on TakNet with a special approval
for research purposes from the regulator. We havefound that TakNet users are mostly from the younger generation, while the older generations do nothave enough incentives to use the network. The
THNICF is now supporting a project to build a distributed ledger application for TakNet users to takeadvantage of “last-metre” access more effectively
as part of their day-to-day life. TakNet is and will be
for all members of the community from all ages andgender groups; residents will appreciate TakNet
for more than just buying internet access for theirchildren.

Thailand / 235

tunisia
Sayada inaugurates the first decentralised,
free Wi-Fi community network in Tunisia

iGmenaHamza Ben Mehrez
www.iGmena.org

Introduction
The Tunisian revolution brought the hope for abetter system of internet governance – one that isparticipatory, democratic and open.1 Today, the townof Sayada is pioneering an open government initiative. Since 2013 – and with the support of the local
municipal government – civic technologists inaugurated the first decentralised, free community Wi-Fi
mesh network in the country.2 This is part of a recent
local government code that aims to decentralise thepower of decision making and spending to the local
level.3 Now, with the sharing of the Sayada community network experience, the country is in a strong
position to make an open, free and resilient internet
ecosystem a reality.

Connecting the unconnected
The challenges that Tunisia faces in increasing internet access, especially in rural areas, are significant.
The country is ranked 65th out of 201 countries interms of internet usage.4 The country has 5,472,618
internet users with a penetration rate of 48.1%. The
number of people not connected to the internet is alittle more than that, in the order of 5,902,602 people. Tunisia is ranked ahead of Algeria and Morocco,
its nearest comparable neighbours, in terms of internet usage.5
1

2

3

4
5

Jelidi, R. (2015, 28 November). Online Freedom of Expression in
Tunisia: Finding the Right Balance. iGmena. https://www.igmena.
org/-Online-Freedom-of-Experession-in-Tunisia-Finding-The-RightBalance
Mesh networking is a type of network topology in which a device(node) transmits its own data as well as serving as a relay for othernodes. Routers are used to provide the best and most efficient
data path for effective communication. In the event of a hardware
failure, many routes are available to continue the network
communication process.
Jouini, A. (2015, 22 October). Freedoms on the Internet: Where
does Tunisia Stand? iGmena. https://www.igmena.org/
Freedom-on-the-Internet-Where-does-Tunisia-Standhttps://www.internetworldstats.com/af/tn.htm
Marzouk, H. (2017, 28 June). Utilisateurs d’internet en 2016 : laTunisie classée neuvième en Afrique. L’Economiste Maghrébin.
https://www.leconomistemaghrebin.com/2017/06/28/
internet-user-by-country-2016-tunisie-neuvieme-en-afrique

Official statistics published by the Tunisian national telecommunications regulator in April 2016indicate that there are 516,061 fixed data subscriptions and 7,280,197 mobile data subscriptions,with a penetration rate of 16.02% for fixed data and64.5% for mobile data.6
Most Tunisians are using a 3G/4G connection
with a bandwidth capacity of 180 Gbps. Connecting
100% of the population is still a challenging issue
and the focus of the government is to reach theunconnected people in the rural areas and households below the average income. The main factors
related to increasing connectivity in rural areas
are expanding infrastructure, ensuring affordability, increasing usability and developing innovative
state policies.7
In this context, the coastal town of Sayada, some
140 km from Tunis and in the administrative governorate of Monastir, inaugurated the first free Wi-Fi
community network in Tunisia in December 2013.
The community, represented by students, technology experts, civil society activists, policy makers andmunicipality officials, was helped by CLibre,8 a local
association that aims to promote the culture of afree and open internet. Today, the Sayada community network – called “MeshSayada” – which covers
70% of the town, is a success story of a community-designed wireless network system.9
The community network also serves as a platform for locally hosted content, such as Wikipedia
and OpenStreetMap,10 and will expand to include
more locally created content. The network consistsof 11 rooftop nodes (using 12 routers), including thecultural centre, town hall and nine residences. The
network links major areas of the town and covers
the main streets, the weekly market, the train station and high schools. The routers have been placedin different interconnected nodes to have optimal
6
7

www.intt.tn/fr/index.php?rub=265&srub=363&art=445& status
Verdomski, M. (2017, 21 June). Secure Connectivity – Why It’s
Important and How to Implement It. IoT For All. https://www.
iotforall.com/iot-security-secure-connectivity
8 https://www.facebook.com/CLibretn
9 Naffati, W. (2013, 16 December). La ville de Sayada inaugure le 1er
réseau wifi gratuit communautaire en Tunisie. Tunisie Haut Debit.
https://thd.tn/la-ville-de-sayada-inaugure-le-1er-reseau-wifigratuit-communautaire-en-tunisie
10 https://www.openstreetmap.org

236 / Global Information Society Watchcoverage of the network, whether on the street or
inside the houses.

MeshSayada: A model of grassrootscommunity network development
More than 15 Wi-Fi nodes were installed throughout
the town via two unidirectional transmitters thathave a diffusion angle of 60 degrees. Their range
can reach two or three kilometres in a free zone
without obstacles. The municipality of Mestir provided bandwidth for synchronisation and proxy ofsites to the community of local developers who synchronised the Sayada web portal with the Sayada
Wikimedia site.
Multistakeholder collaboration is critical to theproject. On 13 November, 20 computer scientists
and engineers came together in the Sayada Cultural
Centre with a group of 14 girls (10 to 14 years old)from the city of Mestir and Sousse, Sayada community members, people from nearby towns, andgroups from across Tunisia to learn and contributewith different skills toward building the network.
The Ubuntu Tunisia Association arrived from theneighbouring city of Sousse on the second weekend
to help set up the server and to create the network
portal page. Local engineers, academics and technology experts focused on participatory network
planning, site planning, and solving various technical challenges. Everyone put their skills to practicewhen installing two directional routers on the town
hall and using the router interfaces to test the meshlink distances to connect with battery-poweredrouters set up in the street. Fifty children came toattend the workshop. They later went home and explained MeshSayada to their parents.
Several IT developers from around Tunisia
volunteered to contribute by adding additional
applications and content to the local network. The
applications and content are installed in the network service. These include OpenStreetMap,
Wikipedia in French and Arabic, a collection of 2,500
free books in French, an Etherpad application forcollaborative document editing, and a Media Grid11
application for secure chat and file sharing.12
To consolidate the idea of inclusiveness and thebottom-up approach, a young developer created a
local portal that links to each of these services, andthat allows people to use easy-to-remember names
such as Sayada.mesh or Wikipedia.mesh to accessthe local applications.
11 mediagrid.org
12 Gerety, R., Gunn, A., & Hawkins, W. (2014). Case Study: Mesh
Sayada. https://commotionwireless.net/files/posts/041814-CaseStudy-Sayada.pdf

The project cost the association and the townof Sayada no money. The equipment was provided
entirely by the Open Technology Institute (OTI),13 a
non-governmental organisation that works on community network development to help strengthen
the participation of residents through open government processes. Residents donated their time andeffort to build the Sayada network.
In terms of the network quality, it offers a
useful user experience when accessing web pages, text chat and web-based maps. The challengecame when needing more bandwidth for intensive
tasks, such as file sharing and video streaming.
This would require additional work by local network administrators to optimise links and increase
throughput.
The bandwidth capacity performance declined
between two-hop and three-hop connections. On
average, the two-hop throughput was 2 Mbps, andthe three-hop links averaged 1.8 Mbps. However, the links are of an acceptable quality given thenature of the content on the local server; for web
pages, text chat and web-based maps, the throughput constraints over the network should not resultin a degraded user experience.

Conclusion
Six years after the revolution, a significant contribution has been made towards local development.
After the passing of the local government code on
27 April 2018, 31 municipalities will benefit fromfinancial autonomy to manage local affairs andto ensure the principle of free administration.
Old and newly formed municipalities will work to
include residents in local internet development
policies and projects.14 This will help not only thepeople of Sayada but all Tunisian citizens to participate in the local community development of
their cities.15
Newly elected municipal councils could help
create mesh community networks in other regions
by organising awareness sessions on open budgets, transparency and corruption, the usefulness of
information and communication technology (ICT)and the importance of community networks for theirtowns. Tunisian people hope that the newly electedmunicipal councils will invest resources that havebeen transferred from the centre to the peripheryin modernisation projects, such as the roll-out of
13 https://www.newamerica.org/oti
14 Gerety, R., Gunn, A., & Hawkins, W. (2014). Op. cit.
15 Abderrahim, T. (2017, 19 May). Tunisia’s Decentralization Process
at a Crossroads. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/70035

Tunisia / 237

mobile networks so that all end-users can take advantage of digital opportunities and are able to use
the internet wherever they are.
The new local government code is expected tohelp local authorities to be more financially independent by diversifying their sources of financing
and providing guidance on how to allocate money
for the development of infrastructure. The new legal
framework for decentralisation could consolidate
the multistakeholder bottom-up community networks model and ensure the participation of local
communities in local decision making.

•It is also important to implement new data compression and caching techniques that would
make telecommunications networks operate
more efficiently. This can be possible by deploying open source hardware or making more
efficient use of spectrum. This would benefit
end-users and the community networks themselves with cost-oriented approaches, providing
services that are tailored to the unique needsof the community, empowering local people,
and thereby encouraging involvement in othergrassroots efforts and community affairs andcreating new working opportunities. The result
would be networks that are better able to operate and deliver services and expand internet
access. A virtuous cycle would be promoted by
improving both access to and creation of local
content and services.

•

Tunisia has set an ambitious national strategic plan called “Digital Tunisia 2018” where
deploying infrastructure is central to major national projects such as e‑education, e‑healthand e‑tax. Community networks have a role toplay in this. However, future community networks in the country need to build trust in thecommunities. Community programmes maycompete for funding from the same donor agencies, hampering their ability to collaborate. The
selection of the right donors who have previous
experience working together, both personallyand professionally, can positively affect theirability to collaborate in attaining the community
network objectives.

Action steps
The followings steps are suggested for Tunisia:••

Expanding infrastructure such as the national fibre-optic network through public-private
partnerships is crucial. Partnerships and cooperation are essential to strengthen the national
infrastructure backbone in rural areas.
The promotion and the continued deployment
of internet exchange points (IXPs) is anotherpriority. These will stimulate the further development of the local community network content
and ecosystem. Currently, Tunisia has two IXPs,
TunIXP Tunis and TunIXP Enfidha. Rural areas
need more IXPs to be deployed in other regionsof the country to bring critical infrastructureand services such as interent service providers(ISPs), banks and data centres to these areas.
Tunisia should take the further step of deploying IPv6 in the new services.

238 / Global Information Society WatchUGANDA
Connecting isolated communities in Uganda

BOSCO Uganda
Tonny Okwonga
www.boscouganda.com

Introduction
Battery Operated Systems for Community Outreach(BOSCO) Uganda has been standing by isolated
communities for the past 10 years, providing information and communications technology (ICT)
connectivity and training in northern Uganda.
One prominent observer once called this region
the worst place in the world to be a child: remote,war-affected, culturally scoured, and deeply isolated over more than two decades of brutal insurgency.
Being rooted in a tradition of solidarity with suffering people throughout these conflict years, there isa need to prevent technology from acting primarily
as a conduit for unbridled social forces without concern for their impact on communities.
Technology in service of these forces carries therisk of simply amplifying the loudest social message, communicating to emerging global citizens
that they are really just backward and poor Westernconsumers. We watch this threat unfold with therise of institutions such as sports betting among theyouth in northern Uganda, and the loss of cultural
practices and norms.
We show that this does not have to be the case.

Background
BOSCO Uganda is a non-profit organisation under
the trusteeship of the Archdiocese of Gulu. Back in
2006, many thought that the new technology thatbegan to rock northern Uganda would deprive people of their traditional culture. Yet providing internet
and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) telephonyand solar-powered PCs to rural areas helped to bothconnect people and preserve culture.
Since 2006, BOSCO has supported many isolated, rural communities in gaining connectivity
through ICTs and helped them become part of abroader networked community. Now, as one of
Uganda’s leading NGOs in the area of informationand communications technology and development(ICT&D), it helps to carefully integrate ICTs into local
community needs, leapfrogging missing technicalinfrastructure and working in areas indispensable
to sustainable development, such as mentoring,e‑learning for adolescent refugees, renewable energy, entrepreneurship, and research development.
All these efforts attracted international attention
and BOSCO received the inaugural Breaking Borders Award1 in the technology category from Google
and Global Voices.
BOSCO’s historical competency lies in rural ICT
connectivity and training, but our unique focus isusing that technology for community building. BOS­
CO has provided a high-speed intranet to connect
users with one another across regional communities, and then connected the network to a modest,shared internet connection. The network is poweredby solar energy. The goal is to enable once-isolated
peoples to leapfrog over not just missing technical infrastructure but, importantly, over the social
infrastructure that is missing in war-affected ruralvillages and, thereby, build new foundations for
emerging together into sustainable, globally participatory futures.
For instance, the small community networks,
mushrooming amongst the brown ant hills in places
like Pagak, Jengari, Unyama, and the Pabbo Parish
and Catechist Training Centre, not only enabled theinternet to bring news of events from elsewhere in
Uganda and the world, but also fostered local pride.
These communities have different abilities, yet
travelling along different paths they can arrive at
the goal of rural communities built around sharedcultural values, such as shared land ownership andpeace-building traditions. In short: connecting people, preserving culture.
The craft of building a cyber-catalysed community is a new manifestation of a lost art. It is pressed
into contemporary expression both by the desire
to overcome ever-widening disparities among peoples, resulting from the near-runaway pace of globalchange, coupled with unprecedented opportunities
for collaboration created at the technology edge ofthat change. BOSCO’s mission is precisely to leverage this frontier using ICTs for building international

1

BOSCO Uganda. (2010, 7 May). Archbishop Acceptance Speech– “Breaking Borders Award”. boscouganda.com/2010/05/07/
archbishop-acceptance-speech-breaking-borders-award

uganda / 239

partnerships – both organisation-to-organisationand person-to-person – in support of the emergence of once-isolated communities into new formsof participatory global citizenship. But the fruit ofthese international collaborations must be bridging
the traditional with the sustainable, along pathways that transform, rather than replace the oldwith the new.

BOSCO’s integrated community approach:
The case of CE3
BOSCO’s immediate future is focused on developing connected, entrepreneurial and sustainableecosystems with access to electricity in the communities we serve, to turn isolation and dependence
into self-advocacy. Traditionally, many development
projects follow a one-pronged approach, focusing
time and resources on effecting change through singular pin-point interventions. For instance, take thecase of education. Like many approaches, BOS­CO
includes computer education suited to the needsof the communities and the realities of global interconnectivity: a Web 2.0 collaborative approachwith e‑agriculture, educational outreach, e‑government and others as well as computer-based
entrepreneurial training. However, BOSCO’s CE3
project integrates ICTs for the purpose of education
with a new “eco-electrification” model. Inspiredby Accenture’s corporate citizenship values2 on“Skills to Succeed” and “Environment”, CE3 uses
the collective impact of entrepreneurial education,energy, and connectivity to drive sustainable economic growth in rural communities.
The CE3 project adopts a community-focusedand impact-driven approach to economic development, and was created after close discussions
with rural unconnected communities and NGO
partners operating in northern Uganda. Like manyrural communities throughout rural Africa, our rural
unconnected communities face limited economic opportunities daily. It is an environment where
the youth mature in isolation without access to theinternet, students complete their education andgraduate with few local employment opportunities,
culture discourages risk and entrepreneurship, andbasic infrastructure such as electricity is unavailable – further limiting the development of education,
ICT access and productive entrepreneurial ventures.
Over 50% of children in the developing world
go to primary school without access to electricity –affecting over 291 million children worldwide. The
2

Accenture is a partner on the project. See: https://www.accenture.
com/us-en/company-corporate-citizenshiplack of electricity at these schools limits students
and teachers from being offered basic teaching andlearning tools such as ICTs or e‑learning solutions,as well as infrastructure such as lighting to study
at night or electric water pumps for drinking andcooking. Often these schools are in close proximity
to communities and business owners who also havea strong demand and willingness to pay for reliableenergy, enhance their business and entrepreneurial skillsets to improve their current businesses orstart new ones, and participate in the education andmentorship of students.
The CE3 project aims to equip communities withsolar energy, Wi-Fi connectivity, entrepreneurial
training and mentoring to create businesses andjobs that are more efficient, more diverse, and morelucrative – an economic ecosystem “in a box”. To doso, the CE3 model comprises three interrelated pillars that build on one another.
The first pillar develops entrepreneurial skills
using a blended learning approach: students workthrough a computer-based, self-paced, six-module course with assistance and guidance from acourse facilitator. Designed for CE3, this interactive course walks students through the processof starting a business, and guides them throughthe development of a business plan, an output ofcourse completion. After completing the course,
entrepreneurs enter the mentorship programme,
where they receive face-to-face, one-to-one mentoring from a local business professional and virtual
one-to-one mentoring from an Accenture volunteer
to help bring their business plan to fruition. Local
mentors are comprised of community businessmen
and women who have built successful businesses
and offered to coach young programme graduates.
The skills acquired by programme participants
under the first pillar enable them to leverage theenergy and ICT components of the model to build
businesses and grow the local economy.
The second pillar is energy. In each site location,
the solar energy system is located in partnershipwith an institution that co-invests in the system setup, has built a secure facility to house the systemand has agreed to pay for a certain percentage ofthe power.
Once power is available, each site is equippedwith internet connectivity, enabling the site toparticipate in web-based activities such as entrepreneurship training. ICTs enable the programme
to reach a significantly larger number of current
and aspiring entrepreneurs and provide access to
information that would not be available throughtraditional skills-building programmes.

240 / Global Information Society Watch

Building a community means more than justbuilding ICT centres
Although our focus is still on implementing ICT anddevelopment centres, our activities go far beyond
the provision of computer training. BOSCO engages
in developing and providing long-term solutions forthe social-economic development of the vulnerable
population with whom we work.
Consider the example of expanding the scopeof our work to reach out to the adolescent refugees
and host communities in Adjumani and Arua, near
the South Sudanese border. Between them, theseregions host over half a million refugees from South
Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
BOSCO Uganda has built access points from locallyavailable recycled oil drums (or in some cases metal
plates), which makes them durable. These boxes (or“centres”) are equipped with low-power-consuming
netbooks and/or thin clients (both computer setups were used) that provide access to pre-loaded
educational content called “KOLIBRI”. However, tomake these facilities relevant to the young people
at the settlements, BOSCO staff members always
interact and discuss the intervention with fieldworkers, such as case workers and caregivers, whoare both refugees and nationals working in thechild-friendly spaces and the early childhood development centres managed by Save the Children3
and World Vision4 and funded by UNICEF and other stakeholders. As a result, the learning content
becomes integrated into the support offered to
refugees in order to meet their needs in the mostappropriate way. For example, a vulnerable teenage
mother will, through content provided, learn skills
such as catering, and with the support of her mentor, set up a small baking business.
Through the ICT centres, people living in the refugee settlements have the opportunity to connect
to family and friends currently living in other settlements or still in the conflict zone. This could beachieved either through social media platforms or
through software applications such as Skype, or similar applications pre-installed on each computer by us.
Although the primary beneficiaries of the intervention are youth living in the refugee settlements,

34

https://uganda.savethechildren.net
https://www.wvi.org/uganda

the centre is also open to the general community
living around the area. This encourages the possibility of stronger interaction between the Ugandan
community and the South Sudanese refugees.

Expanding networks and infrastructures
Funded by AFRINIC under the FIRE Africa Grants5
we launched a new project called “Expanding BOSCO-Uganda Internet/Intranet Network Accessto the Rural Remote Communities in Northern
Uganda”. The project is focused on expanding the
BOSCO solar power and internet infrastructure
to remote areas by using long-distance wirelessthat connects rural areas to a central server station and to the world wide web at minimal runningcosts. The system is powered by solar energy, andoffers VoIP telephony and an intranet which connects all stations through an internal high-speed
network and a central server for easy information
sharing amongst the users. The BOSCO expansion
plan goes beyond borders: in the future we also
want to promote ICTs on a non-profit basis outside
Uganda and especially in the war-affected areas
in South Sudan.

Action steps: Our vision for the future
Our vision for the future is based on our experiences
and our achievements. The last 10 years have shown
us that when you dream big, big things can happen.
In this fast-changing world it is often challenging todefine a single future for an organisation like BOSCO Uganda. We will continue to work in our three
key areas of renewable energy, entrepreneurshipand mentorship, and research and development.
Specifically:•

We will be strengthening our ICT backbone andentire infrastructure, for instance, by erecting
towers.

•We need funds to support the acquisition of internet bandwidth to help scale up our networkin remote areas.

•

We need more capacity building in policy andadvocacy to help the unconnected get connected in a way that they can afford.

5

https://www.fireafrica.org

uganda / 241

united states
Building resilience with community technology

Digital Equity Laboratory, The New School; Detroit
Community Technology Project
Greta Byrum and Diana Nucera
https://www.digitalequitylab.org and https://detroitcommunitytech.org

Introduction
Our story begins almost a decade ago, when newtechnologies enabled resistance and sparked awave of digital activism in Tunis, in Tahrir Square, in
New York City’s Zuccotti Park and Washington DC’s
K Street, and around the world. Many groups in the
United States (US) recognised the potential of thatmoment: long-time advocates for media justice andliteracy, public access media organisers, builders ofcommunity Wi-Fi and low-power FM radio, community organisers and civil rights leaders, open techand data advocates, hackers and policy strategists.
This is the story of a vision that emerged amongpeople working together to create community resilience and digital justice between Detroit, NewYork City, Washington DC, and eventually in collaboration with international partners, by building
community-owned internet infrastructure.

Community technology and digitalstewardship
Wireless internet can unlock the enormous
potential in our local communities. These opportunities can only be sustained, however,
if networked technology projects are led bypeople who are deeply invested in their community’s welfare; that is, people with a deep
understanding of – and a desire to maintain –the fabric that binds their community together.1– Diana Nucera
Community networks in the US have long struggled
to grow in parallel with the large international community networks that have emerged, particularly inEurope. Some US standouts have achieved a sustainable operating scale and model, and have provided
a critical long-time service for their communities.
1

Nucera, D. (2014). Two-Way Streets: Forging the Paths Towards
Participatory Civic Technology. Civic Quarterly, 2. https://
civicquarterly.com/article/two-way-streets

Tribal Digital Village Network (TDVNet) has beenbringing free internet to community anchors in indigenous territories since 2001, currently with over
350 miles (over 560 kilometres) of point-to-point
and point-to-multipoint links supporting 86 tribal buildings (and providing a net neutral service).2
Monkeybrains in San Francisco is a nimble independent local wireless internet service provider (WISP)
which uses a combined millimetre-wave, mesh andpoint-to-point system to serve 5,000 locations ona sliding-scale basis.3 Sudo Mesh is a five-year-old
community-owned and run local mesh network
serving Oakland, California,4 while Meta Mesh in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has built out to 65 live sites
comprised of 109 devices.5 And NYC Mesh has built
out 178 nodes using volunteer labour and a decentralised governance model.6
But unlike guifi.net,7 Freifunk8 or Rhizomatica,9in the US we do not have a long history of expanding networks beyond discrete geographic areas orparticular use cases. This has a lot to do with theconsolidation and the political power of the incumbent telecommunications industry, which hastaken many steps to place a stranglehold on local
broadband10 by creating state-level prohibitions onownership of broadband facilities by city governments and by starving local networks of backhaul(bandwidth) by buying out or blocking competing
wholesale bandwidth providers.11 The capture of
the US Federal Communications Commission at thenational level by industry lobbyists has also had a
2
3
4
5
6

https://sctdv.net/about-tdv
https://monkeybrains.net
https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/History
https://www.pittmesh.net
We have not listed many small-scale municipal broadband projects
in the US (and one large one, in Chattanooga, TN), since thischapter is focused on community-led broadband. For information
on municipal broadband in the US see Christopher Mitchell’s workat https://muninetworks.org
7 https://guifi.net/en/node/38392
8 https://freifunk.net/en
9 https://www.rhizomatica.org
10 Koebler, J. (2015, 14 January). The 21 Laws States
Use to Crush Broadband Competition. Motherboard.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/
the-21-laws-states-use-to-crush-broadband-competition
11 Breitbart, J. et al. (2007). The Philadelphia Story: Learning froma Municipal Wireless Pioneer. https://www.newamerica.org/oti/
policy-papers/the-philadelphia-story

242 / Global Information Society Watch

An access point tower constructed by Tribal Digital Village overlooks Pala, California. Photo: Tribal Digital Village

global effect by catalysing the recent repeal of net
neutrality (the Open Internet Order of 2015).12
Another issue that has challenged scale for community networks in the US is that many do not finda subscriber base beyond loyal techie advocatesand small communities. Without a broad base of users – including those who may not be able to afford
the high cost of monopolistic broadband service, or
who may not have (or want to have) the skills, timeor patience for troubleshooting a do-it-yourself(DIY) system – community networks often rely upon
one or two staff, or just volunteers. So, ironically,some community networks with a flat or decentralised governance approach end up serving alreadyinformation- and technology-rich areas, since thoseareas are where volunteers live and work.
As journalist and community network documentarian Armin Medosch puts it, “far-sighted techies
tend towards a linear extrapolation of technologies
into the future without considering other factors, suchas politics, the economy, the fundamental differences
between people in class based societies.”13 Similarly, Alison Powell’s research on community networks
points out their tendency to reinforce “geek publics”
12 https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-order
13 Medosch, A. (2014). The Rise of the Network Commons, Chapter 1(draft). The Next Layer. www.thenextlayer.org/node/1231.html

rather than the “community publics” they purport toserve.14 In the complex political and economic context
of the urban US, the political and economic challenges around digital infrastructure, access and inclusion
have kept many US community wireless networks
from achieving or sustaining scale.

Commotion WirelessStarting in around 2008, a group of media justiceand community wireless activists had a different vision for community wireless. Led by developers andmedia activists who had built Champaign-Urbana,
Illinois’s Indymedia Center and its CUWiN network,15
the Open Technology Institute (OTI)16 began developing Commotion,17 envisioned as an integrated
plug-and-play OpenWrt-based mesh networking
platform that communities could easily deploy,
and which included secure encryption and a suiteof locally hosted applications. With device-based
peer-to-peer dynamic mesh routing, Commotion
would be able to work with or without a connection

14 Powell, A. (2008). WiFi publics: producing community andtechnology. Information, Communication & Society, 11(8), 10681088. eprints.lse.ac.uk/29545
15 https://web.archive.org/web/20041111094354
16 https://www.newamerica.org/oti
17 https://www.commotionwireless.net

United States / 243

to the global internet, and to route traffic aroundpoints of failure automatically. Based on the principles of security, resilience, and local control,
Commotion would be an open-source local communication and media platform to be used from Tahrir
Square to Detroit, in emergencies from Mubarak to
Katrina.18
In 2011, OTI started testing beta versions of Commotion in the field in multiple locations, often working
with groups who were familiar with local media and
DIY radio “barnraisings” and interested in trying
new technologies to advance their work – for example, the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia,19
the Allied Media Projects in Detroit,20 and Occupy K
Street in Washington DC.21 Like many other attempts
at building local wireless, these early tests showedthat without enough local techies and engineers
with dedicated time to spend fixing things, networks
would break frequently, users would get frustrated,
and user confidence and numbers would decline.
Furthermore, stable electricity and bandwidth werea challenge in some locations, and depended on local relationships and governance – that is, network
representatives to be in charge of different aspectsof the networks, from physical hardware to communicating with users and node hosts.

The Detroit Digital Justice Coalition
Meanwhile, in the summer of 2009 at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit,22 a group of leaders came
together to investigate the role that local technology projects might play in restoring communities
harmed by the US economic crisis,23 by training people how to use the internet and technology to create
local micro-economies. The resulting Detroit Digital
Justice Coalition (DDJC)24 was comprised of 13 member organisations and individuals including seniors,
youth, environmental justice communities, welfare
rights activists, hip hop community organisers, community gardeners, independent technologists anddesigners, each one believing that communication
18 Gall, C., & Glanz, J. (2014, 20 April). U.S. Promotes Network to
Foil Digital Spying. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.
com/2014/04/21/us/us-promotes-network-to-foil-digital-spying.
html?_r=0
19 https://mediamobilizing.org
20 https://www.alliedmedia.org
21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_D.C.
22 https://www.alliedmedia.org/ddjc/story
23 The US Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2009 and resulting GreatRecession hit Detroit hard, as the city was already suffering from thedecline of the US auto industry. Foreclosures skyrocketed and thecity went into bankruptcy. The federal government then appointed an
Emergency Manager who had unilateral authority to alter or eliminate
collective bargaining agreements, cut city services, and lay off public
employees, overruling the democratically elected city government.
24 detroitdjc.org

is a fundamental human right.25 The DDJC had a plan
to bring whole communities online, not just isolated
individuals, so the internet would be a welcoming
environment for new users.
For decades, Detroit has topped the list of“worst-connected cities” nationally, with 2013 data
showing nearly 60% of its residents lacking in-homebroadband subscriptions and 40% lacking any connection whatsoever;26 38% of Detroit residents live
below the federal poverty level,27 and since 2014,
tens of thousands have faced water shut-offs andevictions due to tax foreclosure. Yet offline, Detroit’s
organisers knew that vibrant community leaders havebeen steadily transforming the city from the groundup with community gardens, land trusts, co-ops anda thousand other grassroots initiatives enabling local
self-determination. As Allied Media Projects describesin their Media Literacy Guide, the DDJC’s goal was:[T]o use digital technologies to strengthen these
efforts, interconnect them, and make them more
visible. This would shift the online narrative of
the city while propelling communities to rewrite
their offline reality – growing businesses, community programs, and community infrastructure
through media-based organizing skills.28
The Coalition first started building their vision
for digital justice offline by collaborating on a setof shared principles. To develop a common understanding of how to shape the role media andtechnology might play in communities, the Coalition
asked members to answer the following questions:•

How are you currently using media and technology for organisation and economic development?

•

What kind of support and collaboration would
make your work stronger?

•

What should digital justice in Detroit look like?

The Detroit Digital Justice Principles29 were born
through this process, presenting a unifying definition of what digital justice means to the community:
access, participation, common ownership, and
25 At the same time, the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) in
Philadelphia responded to this opportunity by building a Digital
Justice Coalition with groups focused on housing, workers’ rights,
youth, education, and public health. See Breitbart, J. (2014). A
Victory for Digital Justice (Your Tax Dollars at Work). In D. Freedman
et al. (Eds.), Strategies for Media Reform: International Perspectives.
Fordham University Press.
26 Callahan, B. (2014, 3 November). America’s worst-connected big
cities. Redistributing the future. https://redistributingthefuture.
blogspot.com/2014/11/americas-worst-connected-big-cities.html
27 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/
detroitcitymichigan/PST045217
28 https://www.alliedmedia.org/files/dfm_final_web.pdf
29 https://detroitcommunitytech.wordpress.com/
detroit-digital-justice-coalition-principles

244 / Global Information Society Watch

Commotion Construction Kit. Image: Commotion Wirelesshealthy communities, each one describing a different aspect of digital justice.
With these principles and a proposal focusedon a “community technology” approach to creating
healthy technology ecosystems, the DDJC’s member
organisations got to work implementing their vision
through the BTOP federal broadband stimulus programme.30 The Detroit Future programmes built
networks of teachers, youth and artists and trained
them to use media production and web development for organising, teaching and helping small
businesses. By 2011, the Detroit Future programmes
had trained hundreds of Detroiters of all ages to use
technology on their own terms to address a range ofissues from housing to environmental degradation

30 The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) waspart of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of
2009, the Obama administration’s response to the Subprime
Mortgage Crisis and the Great Recession. Coalitions of localorganisations could apply for Public Computer Center andSustainable Broadband Adoption (SBA) grants under the BTOP;
the DDJC and Allied Media Projects were awarded an SBA grant,
which they used to create the Detroit Future Program, comprisedof Detroit Future Schools, Detroit Future Youth and Detroit Future
Media, all of which trained Detroiters on digital skills.

to water shortages, while also providing a platform
for the city’s growing creative entrepreneurship.
At the same time, OTI was working hard to solve
the problem of how to maintain and expand Commotion community wireless networks locally, including in
Detroit. In order to provide local technologists, builders and organisers with documentation, tools andresources, OTI together with Detroit-based social enterprise The Work Department31 developed a prototype“Neighborhood Construction Kit”, which included information modules on everything from how to makea flyer to promote your network to how to install achimney mount on a rooftop. With additional technicalinformation on how to configure Commotion firmware
on standard routers (mostly Ubiquiti) and other devices like Android phones, this became the Commotion
Construction Kit and moved online to live as documentation on the Commotion Wireless GitHub site.32
Still, even with resources available online, OTI
found it difficult to build a stable foundation of network
support among local organisations and advocates,
especially when local organisations had so many
31 https://www.theworkdept.com
32 https://commotionwireless.net

United States / 245

International Community Technology Seed Grantees. Photo: Detroit Community Technology Projectcompeting demands on their time personally and intheir community leadership work. It would take moreorganising, tapping into local movement building,dedicated expertise and resources, plus a whole new
approach to building a new tech-supported economy
and a method for teaching different kinds of learners
about how to build and maintain networks. Detroit’s
organisers and community technologists once again
held the key to bringing these efforts together.

The Detroit Community Technology Project
By training local residents to be “digital stewards” of the networks, community organizers
create employment opportunities and provide
public Internet access while strengtheningsocial networks within the community... At
their most ambitious, these projects suggest
a different way of thinking about work in thedigital future: that we might manage our digital
ecosystem with care and intention rather thanconstantly disrupt and respond to disruption. At
minimum, these projects show the importanceof localism and workforce development to maximize the economic benefits of new networks
and produce technology that is attuned to acommunity’s needs.33 – Joshua Breitbart
33 Breitbart, J. (2015). Telecommunications Policy and the Futureof Work. New America. https://www.newamerica.org/oti/
policy-papers/telecommunications-policy-and-the-future-of-work

In 2012, the DDJC and the Allied Media Projects’
Detroit Future Media partnered with OTI to create the Digital Stewards Program,34 which trainsneighbourhood leaders in designing and deploying
community wireless networks with a commitment
to the Detroit Digital Justice Principles.
The Digital Stewardship training programmeis based on the pedagogy of popular education,
including the idea that everyone brings valuableknowledge and experiences into any learning space.
Instructors take the role of facilitator, building peerto-peer educational conditions through activities
that work for all types of learners. This approach
includes a process of envisioning all of the ways
we can use a community network to strengthen
neighbourhoods and solve local problems, beyond
simply gaining access to the global internet. The
Digital Stewards Program led to the formation of
the Detroit Community Technology Project (DCTP)35
in 2014. DCTP was developed to encompass broader
community technology education, to organise workand to share best practices.
In 2014, OTI and DCTP received funding towork internationally to implement an international

34 Allied Media Projects. (2012, 22 October). AMP partners with theOpen Technology Institute to launch Digital Stewards Program.
https://www.alliedmedia.org/news/2012/10/22/amp-partnersopen-technology-institute-launch-digital-stewards-program
35 https://detroitcommunitytech.org/?q=story

246 / Global Information Society Watch

Community Technology Seed Grants programme,36
supporting 11 community groups internationally toadopt and modify the training for their own contexts. In the process of implementation, OTI and
DCTP found that many international groups would
have difficulty obtaining hardware that would reliably run Commotion, or that they were trying
to achieve different community goals from what
the platform would support. So the project forked
again, this time moving all of the organising andgeneral wireless curriculum onto the Community
Technology Field Guide37 so that it could be moregenerally applicable for different kinds of community technology projects, including but not limited
to Commotion.

Red Hook, Brooklyn and Hurricane Sandy
In 2012, shortly after Digital Stewards launched
in Detroit, OTI also helped bring the Detroit Digital Stewardship curriculum to Red Hook Initiative(RHI)38 in New York. RHI wanted a mesh network tocreate a local online youth-produced radio station,
so with OTI’s help they adapted the Digital Stewardship curriculum on basic community organising,wireless engineering and construction for theirworkforce training programme for young adults living in public housing, and added learning modules
on video production, web design, and professional
development. In partnership with Parsons student
Alyx Baldwin, RHI held participatory design workshops with residents, and by the fall of 2012, RHI’s
Digital Stewards had built a small network serving
some of the major public spaces and community anchors in the neighbourhood.
Although New York is a wealthier city than Detroit, many of its residents face similar challenges inaccessing broadband service: 31% of New Yorkers
currently do not have broadband service at home,including 32% of Black and 33% of Latinx New Yorkers. That is considerably more than the 21% and
23% for White and Asian residents. Geographically,
service is also not equitably distributed. In someneighbourhoods, people would have to pay on average 5% of their income on cable service in thecurrent market, and would have only one option forservice.39
36 Gerety, R. (2015, 4 October). Meet the Community
Technology International Seed Grantees. Allied Media
Projects. https://www.alliedmedia.org/news/2015/10/04/
meet-community-technology-international-seed-grantees
37 https://communitytechnology.github.io
38 https://rhicenter.org
39 Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer. (2018). Truth in
Broadband: Access and Connectivity in New York City. https://
prodnet.www.neca.org/publicationsdocs/wwpdf/042018nyc.pdf

When Hurricane Sandy struck New York in October 2012, flood-prone Red Hook was devastated.
Cell phone service was down and internet service
went out in places. The neighbourhood was dark,with chest-deep water in the streets – but with its
small mesh network, RHI was still able to connect
to its staff and communities in parts of the neighbourhood that had no communications or power
at all for weeks after the storm.40 RHI organised
volunteers using the mesh to help distribute supplies to elders and others unable to leave the public
housing towers in the neighbourhood, and gave
the community a voice online to broadcast what
was happening. People all over the world following
RHI’s Twitter feed put together online shopping lists
and shipped supplies to Red Hook.
Though the Red Hook WiFi41 project was in theworks before Hurricane Sandy struck, it gained
prominence and media attention after the storm.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency(FEMA) boosted RHI’s broadband connection with asatellite uplink, so where the regular internet was
unavailable, residents and government workers
could log on to the mesh to quickly find out whereto pick up supplies or find government officials.
Neighbourhood building owners who had beenwary about allowing RHI to install equipment on
their rooftops joined the network, seeing its importance in areas of the community where power andcommunications were out. The City of New York
opened up a funding opportunity for projects like
Red Hook WiFi, which had provided critical community-led service in the aftermath of the disasterusing innovative technology.
While RHI had led the Red Hook project, OTI
had provided the link to the Detroit curriculum andhelped to adapt and implement it. Building upon
the success in Red Hook, OTI’s umbrella organisation, New America, was awarded a contract with theCity of New York’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) using a federal Sandy recovery grant toscale up the Digital Stewardship approach in New
York City, and created its new Resilient Communities initiative. Resilient Communities started workin 2015 by seeding funding and resources amongcommunity leaders and community-based anchor
organisations committed to building resilience andsupporting affected communities in five low-income Sandy-impacted neighbourhoods throughout
the city (East Harlem, South Bronx, Far Rockaway,
40 Cohen, N. (2014, 20 August). Red Hook’s Cutting-Edge
Wireless Network. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.
com/2014/08/24/nyregion/red-hooks-cutting-edge-wirelessnetwork.html
41 https://redhookwifi.org

United States / 247

Community technology network distribution diagramme.

Sheepshead Bay and Gowanus). At the same time,
the Red Hook Initiative also won a Sandy recovery
contract from the City of New York’s EDC to expand its network and add solar panels to increase
resiliency. The City meanwhile embarked on an effort to build out free wireless systems in the Red
Hook public housing development and two other
New York public housing sites, Queensbridge andMott Haven Houses, looking to weave together integrated systems of community- and City-led Wi-Fi
throughout the city.42

2018: Community technology in Detroit
and New YorkTo meet the need of scaling up the Digital Stewards
Program for the five new communities, New America’s Resilient Communities team once again teamed
up with DCTP to expand upon the Digital Stewards
training programmes, adding emergency management plans to the Digital Stewardship trainings
based on an understanding of building resilience
as a process of building trust and relationships, notjust technological systems.
In the meantime, while the NYC Resilient
Networks project launched in 2016, the Detroit
42 Lewis-Kraus, G. (2016, 3 November). Inside the Battle to Bring
Broadband to New York City’s Public Housing. Wired. https://www.
wired.com/2016/11/bringing-internet-to-new-york-public-housing

Community Technology Project was also launching its new Equitable Internet Initiative (EII),43 a
programme training local residents on wirelessbroadband internet sharing in Detroit neighbourhoods, expanding the number of networks in thecity built by Digital Stewards from around eight to
11. As we launched our work at both sites, Resilient
Networks commissioned DCTP to develop the Community Technology Handbook,44 a resource to share
the approach and pedagogy of popular education
for community technology to train Digital Stewardship trainers in both cities. Following the model ofthe Detroit Digital Justice Principles, project leaders
also started the work by developing a set of sharedprinciples to guide and ground the work in community needs.
EII’s mission is to ensure that more Detroit residents have the ability to leverage online accessand digital technology for social and economic development. Led by three community anchor
43 Detroit Community Technology Project. (2017, 10 April). DCTP
Launches the Equitable Internet Initiative Digital Stewards
Training Program. Allied Media Projects. https://alliedmedia.org/
news/2017/04/10/dctp-launches-equitable-internet-initiativedigital-stewards-training-program
44 Detroit Community Technology Project. (2016, 16 November).
Introducing the “Teaching Community Technology Handbook”.
Allied Media Projects. https://www.alliedmedia.org/
news/2016/11/16/introducing-%E2%80%9Cteaching-communitytechnology-handbook%E2%80%9D

248 / Global Information Society WatchDetroit Digital Stewards install networking equipment. Photos: EII

The Detroit Community Technology Project’s Teaching Community
Technology Handbook.

organisations, EII has now trained stewards acrossthe city, and is already serving households in threeneighbourhoods.45 It has also successfully negotiated contracts for wholesale backhaul and transit
with independent ISPs to provide low-cost wirelessgigabit speeds to residents in its partner neighbourhoods, employing local Digital Stewards to perform
45 Mondry, A. (2017, 31 July). How a surprising partnership will
result in internet for Detroiters lacking access. Model D. www.
modeldmedia.com/features/equitable-internet-initiative-073117.
aspx

maintenance and upkeep and continue to expand
the networks. Forty young people throughout EII
neighbourhoods received training and mentorshipto build local apps to run on the networks, and EII’s
neighbourhoods are also designing resilience plans
based on the networks.46
Resilient Networks NYC is designed towithstand shocks and stresses and provide community-maintained and cooperatively owned criticaltelecommunications infrastructure in flood-prone
areas of New York City. But in the summer of 2017,
even as Resilient Communities and partners had
trained some 30 Digital Stewards citywide, andhurricanes were about to hit Houston, Miami and
Puerto Rico, the Resilient Communities project
had not been able to build a single node yet due
to bureaucratic constraints (federal disaster recovery funding controlled by the city but regulated byfederal officials has created multiple bureaucratic
hurdles due to permitting, paperwork, environmental review, etc.).
Racing to develop a plan for that hurricane season, Resilient Communities adapted its planned
network repair kits to develop the Portable Network
Kit (PNK). The PNK is a collection of off-the-shelfconsumer hardware that can be configured easily tomake your own local online or offline Wi-Fi network
for about USD 800 to USD 3,000, depending on thebattery system. The PNK connects devices in a small
area – anywhere from one building or public square
46 https://detroitcommunitytech.org/eii/resiliency

United States / 249

Yamil Lora from The Point CDC in the South Bronx performs site surveys for a new resilient wireless network. Photo: Danny Peralta

to about a half square mile (1.3 square kilometres)
if you add or “mesh” additional Wi-Fi devices to create a wider range. If you add additional kits, you canmesh them together to create an even wider range.
PNKs have found their way to Dominica andPuerto Rico post Hurricane Maria, and EII is now
beginning to incorporate them into its network as
well. Every participating partner in New York City
will have PNKs to build out and expand their networks in emergencies or for community events andprogrammes.

Scaling up the community technology
approach to resilience
Revolutionary solidarity is what love looks likeat scale. – Diana Nucera
As developed through the partnerships in Detroit
and New York, community technology is a methodof teaching and learning about technology with thegoal of restoring relationships and healing neighbourhoods. Community technologists are those
who have the desire to build, design and facilitate ahealthy integration of technology into people’s lives
and communities, allowing them the fundamental
human right to communicate.
We believe that increasing resilience meansbuilding and deepening relationships and developing creative solutions to strengthen communities intimes of change and uncertainty. Our work starts
from a set of core principles that focus on listening, participation and equity as a foundation forPortable Network Kit. Photo: Resilient Communities

building community resilience. We work with local
leaders and groups to uplift and share creative, visionary and locally rooted solutions – and to makethe systems and institutions they depend on more
responsive.
With the current global emergency due to climate change, a rising tide of authoritarianism, andthe nearly unchecked power of big tech, we see a
critical opportunity now to develop future-readysolutions together with the communities mostaffected by these crises, particularly through the redesign and rebuilding of brittle physical and digital
infrastructures.
Next up for DCTP/EII and Resilient Communities:
DCTP will publish the Community Technology Workbook, which contains six years of learning modules

250 / Global Information Society Watch

and programming primarily designed by DCTP
through the work and partnerships in Detroit andNew York. Meanwhile, network build-out continues,
as does the process of developing sustainable business models for all network anchor organisations in
Detroit and New York City.
Our collaboration responds to all the tectonic
political events and intertwined social, economic
and natural disasters of the last decade: we in the
US have learned about resilience from Maria, Katrina, Sandy, the Flint and Detroit water crises,
PROMESA47 in Puerto Rico and emergency management and the foreclosure crisis in Detroit, theUS nation’s ongoing oppression of people of colour
and immigrants – and of course the rise of Donald
Trump, the spread of surveillance, algorithmic andpredictive criminalisation, and tech-enabled targeted deportation. We recognise that crises like theseare happening around the world. Our hope is that,in the same way we have been able to scale ourwork in the US by creating an adaptable model ofteaching, learning, and responding to local needs
and circumstances, others around the world canadapt and scale up the community technology approach and tools.

planning and building at https://communitytechnology.github.io. Note that some of these resources
may be out of date – stay tuned to the Detroit Community Technology Project’s feed for updated
material in our forthcoming Community Technology
Workbook.
Below, we have crafted a few other ways inwhich you can be a part of the US community technology movement:•

Donate.48 We can always use money. We can alsouse devices that are no more than two years old,or any Ubiquiti brand routers. If donating ethernet cables, we need to know the make andmodel in order to determine if they are capable.

•

Hold critical conversations with your friends andfamily about technology and the future. Brainstorm ways in which we can re-imagine digitalaccess and equity. Check out the chapter on
facilitation in our Teaching Community Technology Handbook49 for ideas on how to do this.

•Let us train you in community technology! If you
feel your community is in need of a community
wireless network, we may be able to train you.
Please fill out the DCTP Community Technology
Training Survey50 if you want to plan a training
in Detroit.

•

Wherever you are, advocate for digital equity:
net neutrality (no price discrimination for internet content; no preferential treatment fordifferent service or content providers); privacy
protections and accountable data stewardshipfor ordinary people; public and community
ownership of infrastructure; and internet equity – digital opportunities, access, and quality ofservice.

We also have a GitHub full of community technology tools for those of you that want to get started•

Remember: communication is a fundamental
human right!

47 PROMESA is the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, andEconomic Stability Act, a 2016 US federal law which, as in Detroit,
gives federally appointed emergency managers the authority
to overrule local elected lawmakers, laws, and systems as an
austerity measure.

48 https://www.alliedmedia.org/dctp/donate
49 https://detroitcommunitytech.org/teachcommtech
50 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUvgR7nGr5vZhoDUYV3xyFg8AWNh0mbf0a3d23_xHFN-I6g/
viewform

Action steps
If you want to know more about us, the best way is
to check out our websites:•

Detroit Community Technology Project –https://detroitcommunitytech.org/?q=story•

Resilient Communities – https://www.
newamerica.org/resilient-communities•

Digital Equity Laboratory – https://www.digitalequitylab.org

United States / 251venezuela
Key challenges to the community network model in Venezuela

Maureen Hernández

Introduction
The digital gap undermines the development opportunities of communities profoundly. The asymmetric
distribution and use of communication resources
negatively affects a developing community, increases its vulnerability, and deepens the vicious cycle inwhich not having access to information inhibits theawareness of this information, and, therefore, theability to claim it as a right.
While, as Ritu Srivastava says,1 the internet has
a democratising effect on society, this is not always
the case in countries that are authoritarian states,or, such as Venezuela, have features in common
with these states.2
Community networks, defined along clear principles such as non-discriminatory and open access, open
participation and community ownership of infrastructure, do not exist in Venezuela – or, if they do, are notwidely known to the internet community in the country.
The reason for this, as I argue in this report, isthat community networks conceptualised in thisway require certain structural conditions to be inplace so that they can flourish. As I point out, atleast three areas in Venezuela – the economy, policies on access, and laws impacting on freedom of
expression – are particularly unsupportive of theopen community network model found in many other parts of the world.

Economic factors
Hyperinflation and purchasing power
Venezuela has a rigid currency exchange control
system, and to understand the economic problem
and how to acquire any equipment not produced in
the country, this problem must be understood first.
1

2

Srivastava, R. (2016). A Network by the Community and for theCommunity. In L. Belli, Community Connectivity: Building theInternet from Scratch. Annual Report of the UN IGF Dynamic
Coalition on Community Connectivity. https://bibliotecadigital.fgv.
br/dspace/handle/10438/17528
Urribarrí, R. (2013). Venezuela: De la Sociedad del Conocimiento
al Socialismo del Siglo XXI. Paper presented at IV Congreso
Venezolano de Investigadores de la Comunicación, Barquisimeto,
Venezuela, 29-30 November. www.congresoinvecom.org/index.
php/invecom2013/INVECOM2013/paper/viewFile/338/353

While acquiring foreign currency is an extremely
cumbersome process, the system has also changed
a lot over the years, which makes it difficult to understand properly. However, what is not difficult tosee is that due to the exchange control system, theimport of any hardware that could be used in a community network is cost prohibitive.
According to calculations by Reuters, the last
update of the currency auction system led to a devaluation of the Venezuelan bolívar fuerte (VEF) of
more than 100% compared to last year. At the timeof writing, the official exchange rate – known as the
DICOM rate3 – was fixed at 201,363.84 VEF per euro(EUR).
There is no official United States dollar (USD)
rate, so for this we will apply a simple rule of three.
At the time of writing, the exchange rate was at EUR
0.86 per USD 1:•

USD calculated rate = EUR rate in VEF x EUR
per USD rate•

USD calculated rate = 201,363.84 x 0.86 =173,172.90 VEF

The equivalent DICOM rate in USD contrasts withthe more than VEF 3,524,330.15 that 1 USD wasworth on the black market at the time of writing,4
the latter which is the de facto exchange rate fora large part of the economy of the country that
does not have access to the auction offered by thegovernment.
This hyperinflation translates into a simple
consequence: the purchasing power of the average
Venezuelan is almost nil.5
The new minimum monthly salary6 in the
country is VEF 4,196,000, calculated based on 30
working days for social benefits with five days aweek as workdays. According to the calculated DICOM rate (VEF 173,172.90/1 USD), the minimum
3
4
5

6

DICOM is now the country’s only official exchange rate, although
US dollars trade on the black market. www.dicom.gob.ve
On 29 July 2018 at https://dolartoday.com
Chinea, E., & Ramirez, M. (2017, 26 December). Venezuelans
scramble to survive as merchants demand dollars. Reuters.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy/
venezuelans-scramble-to-survive-as-merchants-demand-dollarsidUSKBN1EK0XK
dctos.finanzasdigital.com/Gaceta-Oficial-6383-Ajuste-SueldoMinimo.pdf

252 / Global Information Society Watch

Table 1.

Costs of wireless network equipment
DeviceXiaomi MiWiFi R3
TP-Link WDR3600
Ubiquiti PicoStation M2

Mercado Libre Venezuela(VEF)
187,880,5137
200,000,0008
368,000,0009

Amazon.com
(USD)
39.99
49.99
81.49

Work time (days)*1084.76
1154.732124.71

Cost of items on 28 July 2018.

wage represents only USD 30, and only USD 1.47 on
the black market.
Now let us see how “low-cost” the acquisitionof equipment for a wireless network can be in Venezuela. We will compare the prices found on local
and international markets for some equipment
needed for the installation of a LibreMesh10 network(see Table 1).
For local reference we are using MercadoLibre,
the Argentine e‑commerce platform which is dominant in the region and by far the most popular portal
in Venezuela. This platform is very often the only
way to buy computer hardware locally, due to thefact that formal merchants are subject to economic regulations and often price-imposing policies by
the government, frequently leading to their closure.
As a reference for global markets, prices on Amazon.com are included. The work time is calculated
dividing the monthly wage by 30 days.
Based on the figures in Table 1, for a community of 10 families with two economic providers perfamily, for a total of 20 monthly minimum wages, itwould take them almost two whole months of salaries to acquire a Xiaomi MiWiFi R3.
Conclusion: Obviously, what is considered lowcost for many scenarios is difficult (or impossible)
for a working-class community in Venezuela, in thesame way the fees to cover costs associated withthe maintenance of the network or to replace equipment would be too high for the community.

If this is the situation, why not resort to funding?
It is clear that the inability to pay for hardware is
not a problem that we Venezuelans face alone, andthere are several ways to secure financial support
from various organisations. However, these toocome with challenges.

7

https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ve/MLV-503105794-enrutadormodem-conmutador-inalambrico-xiaomi-mi-fi-gestion-_JM
8 https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ve/MLV-515144909-routergigabit-inalambrico-de-banda-dual-n600-tl-wdr3600-_JM
9 https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ve/
MLV-464069979-antena-ubiquiti-nanostation-m2-24-ghz-11dbi-_JM
10 https://libremesh.org

When we talk about grants or subsidies that we
can apply for in Venezuela, it is important to understand that the currency received by the organisationmust be entered into the country legally, that is, atthe DICOM rate. This results in a significant weakening of the purchasing power of the funding received.
To clarify this relationship let’s look at an example. A grant of USD 20,000 at the DICOM rate (VEF
173,172.90) would end up having a net value in bolivars of 3,463,458,040 Bs.
•

Funding in bolívars = Amount (USD) x DICOM
rate (VEF/USD)•

Funding in bolívars = USD 20,000 x 173,172.90= VEF 3,463,458,040

We can, further, use this equation:•

Funding in bolívars/Local cost of the item =Number of units.

In the case of a Ubiquiti PicoStation M2, using theprices in Table 1, VEF 3,463,458,040/368,000,000 =9.41 units
This means that the entire amount of our initialsubsidy would end up transforming into the equivalent of paying for 9.41 Ubiquiti PicoStation units at
local prices. This can be compared to 245 units thatthe same money can buy in the United States with
the initial amount.

Investment by the private or public sector
As of 22 March 2009, the internet was taken off thelist of investment priorities for the nation and considered superfluous spending by presidential instruction,
as gazetted in Official Gazette No. 39,146. This meansthat for the national plan or in the national government’s agenda, access to the internet is considered aluxury. As a result, currency exchange petitions fromthis sector have been put at the bottom of the pile.

Technological factors
Current state of connectivity
Connectivity in Venezuela is going through a critical
period. Internet speeds in the capital of the country
can reach 20 Mbps with some providers (to whichvenezuela / 253

figure 1.

Average broadband internet speed in Venezuela
3.96

2.97

Mbps 1.98

0.99

0

IPYS

A4AI

only a few have access), but when leaving the federal district, the chances of getting a quality service
provider are very few. Venezuela occupies one of
the last positions on global quality of service indexes11 and the last position in the region.12
International phone calls can no longer be madebecause the fixed exchange control policy does notallow operators to cope with the devaluation of thecurrency.13 Because of this, citizens turn to the internet to communicate with the rest of the world – eventhough the state of connectivity is as precarious as
the economic situation.
Figure 1 compares average internet speeds
in Venezuela. We draw on four major reports formeasurements. Firstly, we use the report from IPYS
Venezuela,14 which is from our point of view the mostvaluable source of internet-related and freedom
11 www.speedtest.net/global-index#mobilewww.speedtest.net/
global-index
12 According to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America
and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Venezuela is one of the countries
with the slowest high-speed connections, with about
0.2% connections with a speed of over 10 Mbps. Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. (2018). Stateof broadband in Latin America and the Caribbean. https://
repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/43670/
S1800532_en.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y13 Associated Press. (2016, 11 April). Venezuela’s cellphone providers
suspend international calls. Daily Mail. www.dailymail.co.uk/
wires/ap/article-3534144/Venezuelas-cellphone-providerssuspend-international-calls.html;
14 Balbi, M., et al. (2018, 8 May). Internet surfing at
its minimum. Situation of internet in Venezuela.
IPYS. https://ipysvenezuela.org/2018/05/08/
internet-surfing-at-its-minimum-situation-of-internet-in-venezuela

AkamaiSpeedtestof communication insights in the country. Besides
this report, we draw on data from the Alliance for
Affordable Internet (A4AI),15 Akamai16 and Ookla(Speedtest).17 As they suggest, the average broadband speed does not surpass 4 Mbps, and is reported
to be lower than 2 Mbps by three of the reports.

Spectrum access
Venezuela has set aside the 324 MHz band of spectrum for mobile services, and the national regulator
Conatel has identified portions of spectrum available in the 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1700 MHz,
1900 MHz, 2 GHz and 3.6 GHz bands, as disclosed
in an administrative ruling published in the Official
Gazette back in 2016. This has been confirmed on
several occasions by measurements performed byother authors.18
However, these concessions have been granted
for only two categories: community television and
15 https://a4ai.org/affordability-report/
data/?_year=2017&indicator=ITU_O&country=VEN
16 https://www.akamai.com/uk/en/about/our-thinking/state-of-theinternet-report/global-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-reports.jsp
17 www.speedtest.net/global-index/venezuela#fixed
18 Zennaro, M., & Arcia-Moret, A. (2013). Low cost spectrum
measurements. In E. Pietrosemoli & M. Zennaro, TV WhiteSpaces: A Pragmatic Approach. Abdus Salam International
Centre for Theoretical Physics. wireless.ictp.it/tvws/book/tvws.
pdf; Hernandez, M. (2016). Caracterizacion de los espacios en
blanco del espectro radioelectrico: Caso de studio del Estado
Merida. In L. Belli, Community Connectivity: Building the Internet
from Scratch. Annual Report of the UN IGF Dynamic Coalition on
Community Connectivity. https://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/dspace/handle/10438/17528

254 / Global Information Society Watch

radio stations. Currently there is no information
about any other type of concession on the official
portal of the regulator. This seems in line with the180-degree about-turn taken by the current administration regarding open internet access.19

The threat of theft of infrastructure
The dire economic situation in the country makes
this a key factor that needs to be considered whenattempting to set up communications infrastructure.
In Venezuela, complaints about the massive
theft of infrastructure are public knowledge anddespite investment by private entities in security,
the problem does not go away. The theft of equipment ranges from kilometres of fibre optic cable torepeaters, towers, batteries and antennas.
These forms of vandalism put pressure on any
sort of bottom-up, collaborative governance structure that communities try to put in place. Like a
recent Reuters article states,20 local operators expect a worsening of service quality in the short term
due to theft.

Legislation that works against freedoms
Discouraging policies
When a community network or a local project is set
up by a community, the main thing is the people andthe positive impact of this project on their lives. The
purpose of providing a local connectivity tool is toimprove the quality of the community and not, in
any way, to put these people in danger or under theradar of any legislator. Unfortunately, in Venezuela
there are recent laws that pose a real threat to freedom of expression, especially in digital media.
The first one is the Law against Hate, Intolerance and for Peaceful Coexistence, passed by the
National Constituent Assembly in 2017.21 According to the law, any speech could be described as“hate speech”, and the law could be arbitrarily
applied to imprison someone, which threatens

19 Urribarrí, R. (2013). Op. cit.
20 Oré, D. (2016, 15 December). Crime wave worsens Venezuela’s
already shaky telecoms service. Reuters. https://www.reuters.
com/article/us-venezuela-telecoms/crime-wave-worsensvenezuelas-already-shaky-telecoms-service-idUSKBN1441TH
21 Urribarrí, R. (2013). Op. cit.

freedom of expression and intimidates critics of thegovernment.22 At the same time, the Venezuelan
constitution does not allow people to express opinions anonymously. This enables witch-hunting andthreatens people’s freedom of expression.
On the other hand, there is the creation of theStrategic Centre for Security and Protection of the
Fatherland (CESSPA) in 2013.23 One of the objectivesof CESPPA is to serve as a central repository for information on security, defence and intelligence. The
regulation proposes the creation of an entity whosefunctions will be the surveillance and monitoring ofinternet communications.
This, together with the new definition of “hatespeech”, begs the question: how do you establish
a community network without allowing the users
freedom of speech and having to censor certain
conversations? Community networks base theirprinciple of neutrality, according to Navarro et al.,on “a commons oriented framework for community
networks” where the network can be used for any
participant for any purpose. Therefore, a network
where some types of communications are prohibited expressions (while they are not illegal) is not aneutral network or not a community network.24

Action steps
While it is incredibly difficult to develop community networks in Venezuela, it is not fair to say it is
impossible. The truth lies in trying to understandthe sum of the difficulties and how to find allies tocircumvent them.
Some of these difficulties are out of the control of the community: the exchange rate, the costof equipment, laws that censor free speech, andeven the likely theft of equipment, despite measures a community might take to safeguard their
networks. These point to areas where civil society
can engage legislators and policy makers in searchof solutions.

22 espaciopublico.ong/ley-odio-monopolio-estatal-etica/#.
WuZuMdNuZQK
23 www.el-nacional.com/noticias/politica/oficializan-creacion-delcentro-estrategico-seguridad-proteccion-patria_151643
24 Navarro, L., et al. (2016). A Commons-oriented Framework forCommunity Networks. In L. Belli, Community Connectivity: Building
the Internet from Scratch. Annual Report of the UN IGF Dynamic
Coalition on Community Connectivity. https://bibliotecadigital.fgv.
br/dspace/handle/10438/17528

venezuela / 255

zambia
Community engagement in community networks in ruralZambia: The case of Macha Works

Inspiring local communities

Macha Works
Fred Mweetwa and Gertjan Van Stam
www.machaworks.org

Introduction
Macha is a typical village in the rural areas of Zambia’s Southern Province. Some 135,000 villagers
live in homesteads scattered over a 35-km radius.
Its economy depends on seasonal agriculture andtrade. The average income per villager is USD 1 aday, with subsistence farming of maize the main
livelihood activity. The nearest town is Choma,some 70 km away. Macha has a community radio,
and a mission station run by the Brethren in Christ
church, which also operates a hospital, schools,
and medical research institute. Its focus is on providing medical and educational services to Machaand four other neighbouring chiefdoms. Chief Macha, who is resident in the village, is the outspoken
chief presiding over the Macha chiefdom.
Catalysed by the needs of the medical research
institute, the Macha community has been experimenting with various technologies since 2003
in order to solve the challenge of communicatingwith the rest of the world. Apart from a VHF twoway radio connection with Choma city, the internet
was the only way to communicate with the outside
world until the arrival of the mobile network in late
2006.
After setting up a VSAT satellite link to the internet and building a local Wi-Fi network in 2004,
a non-profit cooperative called Macha Works wasestablished so that the community could take ownership of the network themselves and oversee its
operations, maintenance and expansion. This report discusses the evolution of Macha Works: froma single satellite connection in a village shipping
container, to a project that has resulted in community networks being launched in nearly all theprovinces of the country.1

1Macha Works is part of a network – Worksgroup – with separate
local organisations in different countries. For instance, in Zambia
there are, among others, Mukinge Works and Kalene Works, and in
Zimbabwe there is Murambinda Works. Each organisation has its
own governance structure and is in various stages of development.

Macha Works’ vision is to inspire people in rural areas to reach their collective and individual
potential. Towards that goal, Macha Works has activities in many areas, among which are education(schools, vocational training in health and ICTs),
financial services, energy, transport, and researchand development. It operates inclusively, encouraging the participation of community members
in its various initiatives on an equal basis. What
we call “local talent” actively engage with Macha Works and push its projects forward. Macha
Works also reaches out to other, equally remotecommunities. Those communities delegate their“local talent” to spend considerable time at Macha to learn “the tricks of the trade”. When they
go back to their villages, they set up community
networks. In this way, nine successful community networks have been set up in total: in Macha,
Kalene, Mukinge, Minga, Chitokoloki, Chilonga,
Minga, Chikanta and Lusaka West, covering almost
all provinces in Zambia.
The Macha Works model is anchored in theuniversal African principle of Ubuntu. Ubuntu emphasises communal love and the sharing of one’s
resources: the better-off share with the less-welloff. When resources are shared, costs are reduced
and operations become more efficient, making services affordable for communities.

Working with the community the African way
The Macha Works experience shows that connecting rural communities in Africa is quite a challenge.
Villages lack basic infrastructure, including electricity. Connecting through satellite links is extremely
expensive. The erection of mobile towers meansthat mobile internet is proving to be an alternative.
However, telecoms services do not allow communities to become empowered through setting up
inclusive governance structures, and lack the collective vision offered by community networks.
The African experiences in rural areas are highly
diverse. Each of the nine community networks has
its own story to tell. Each has found a focus; butwhether it is education (Macha) or helping the local
citrus business (Kalene), all focus on the preservation of African culture and lifting the community “to256 / Global Information Society Watchthe next level” by providing internet connectivity,
among other services.
In the process, many social and technical hurdles are encountered. The community recognisesthat most challenges they face, such as poverty anda sense of not valuing their local cultures, are rooted in colonialism, and involve narratives drawn fromimperialism and orientalism. Because of this, technical and social challenges have to be mediated in a
way that takes a long-term view of change, requires
stamina, and a constant rehearsal of local African values and practices. As mentioned, these practices areembedded in Ubuntu or “communal love”. They also
involve specific concepts that have been developed
as a result of the project in Macha: oratio2 or communicating embodied knowledge; relatio or “relational
resource allocation”; animatio, the continuous present moment; and domino, the strive for maturity.

New models of communication for change
Academic literature – when accessible from Macha
using the internet – did not provide useful guidance on how to go about building and maintaining
the kind of community-led networks we wanted
to. Because of this, Macha Works approached national universities and other academic partners tounderstand issues and potential ways of mediating
better. In the process, we found that the ICT-for-development models applicable elsewhere in theworld bore little relevance to the utterly complex
socio-technical contexts and lived experiences incommunities like Macha. Therefore, after acquiring
authoritative guidance in collaboration with Chief
Chikanta, in his former role as the Vice Chairman of
the House of Chiefs, and after the reporting on thepractical experiences we encountered in the Zambian House of Chiefs, we developed a methodologythat involved community members in a way that wasmeaningful to them. As a result of this process, wehave written numerous peer-reviewed and publicly
accessible papers3 about our approach and workand presented them in various academic settings.

Phases in the roll-out of the Macha Works
community network model
Macha Works recognises three distinct phases in its
community intervention and three distinct phasesin the roll-out of its network.

2

3

See, for example: Mawere, M., & van Stam, G. (2017). Oratio: A
Framing of Knowledge in the Context of Technology and Academia.
In M. Mawere & T. R. Mubaya (Eds.), African Studies in the
Academy: The Cornucopia of Theory, Praxis and Transformation in
Africa? Bamenda: Langaa RPCIG.
See: www.vanstam.net/gertjan-van-stamThree phases of community intervention
In the process of responding to local needs, andin order to encourage local agency, Macha Works
draws on the specific communication skills andways of problem solving, mediation, and collaboration embedded in the community. This isimportant to ensure the long-term sustainabilityof the intervention. In particular, it identified threesocial processes in this regard: 1) community engagement, 2) workforce development, and 3) local
thought leadership.
In the process of engaging the community, theorganisation exercises sensitivity to local contextual
frameworks and understandings, for instance, regarding time and space, affecting both the practiceof human interaction and the assessment of realities. Social improvisation integrates the interests ofstakeholders through observation and conversations
in reiterative processes of interaction. Interactions
follow local cultural behaviour patterns and involve
consultation with the entire community. This process
dissuades individualistic action, mediates any power
imbalances experienced in relation to local structures, and engenders an environment with sharedvalues, a common purpose, and sufficient levels ofskill sharing to be able to integrate technologies ina way that is relevant to the community. This form ofcommunity engagement recognises the importanceof human agency and sets up safety nets for the inevitable change in life conditions that the introductionof technologies brings.
By being practical and following the principle of“seeing-is-believing”, local engineers working on
the networks can implement appropriate technological solutions, overcoming challenges in a waythat supports the sustainable progress of the community at large.
Developing a workforce conversant in ICTs andlocal meaning-making creates the agency for interventions. This needs to be an expression alignedwith the local context and culture. It involves a revolution in education, aligning the capacity building inboth content and format with local needs and learning processes.
Access to ICTs plays a crucial part in developing aworkforce in the community and allows the community to access and share knowledge. The internet fuels
local people with drive and vision, nurtures leadershipand builds the community’s technical know-how.
Lastly, thought leadership is a cross-cutting
concern and involves a holistic progression throughfive phases, namely:•

ZAMBIA / 257

Careful positioning, attaining the explicit rightto influence others.

•

Expressed permission, grounded in lasting
relationships.

•

Tangible outcomes, with sustainable achievements through commendable actions.

•

Capacity development, building abilities in individuals and organisations.

•

Honourable representation, through recognition of wholesome and embodied knowledge.

The aim of thought leadership is to “give voice” tothe local narrative: from the community, on activities
in the community, on behalf of the community. These
are the narratives of how ICTs, through the community network, have amplified the local, human intent.

Three phases in the network roll-out
Macha Works has also identified three phases in
the implementation of community networks. These
phases are: 1) sensitisation, 2) development and 3)
fragmentation.
First, the sensitisation phase. This is when thecommunity is not yet aware of the potential of theinternet and has little experience accessing it. In
these cases, LinkNet – the name that was given
to the unit that oversees the technical operations
and expansion of the network – would set up a
work-station hub with connectivity to the internet
in a modified shipping container. The set-up of eachcontainer is designed and tweaked according to the
local realities. For example, solar power is used if
the village is off the national electricity grid. The
container is fitted with a satellite dish for internet
connectivity. The container – which has been called
the LinkNet Resource Container – acts as a socio-technical hub, a social business and a network
operations centre. Its business model operates according to relatio, where the costs are shared byusers and the community at large.
The container has been particularly successful
in engaging the community right from the start,offering a secure, dedicated environment for “local talent” to meet. It also serves as a venue for
ICT training. The value of this first phase has beenrecognised by the Zambian ICT regulator, which has
financed the production and deployment of LinkNet
Resource Containers in various rural communities.
In the second phase, from its base in the LinkNet Resource Container, a local/wide area network
is developed. A multitude of set-ups, whether usingmesh or point-to-point networks, have been implemented, all depending on the local context and the
local expertise of the “local talent”. At this stage, thecommunity network has typically incorporated other community activities – whether offering training

courses, business management support for local
business, or even facilitating air transport to remotelocations. Typically, after some years, the LinkNet
Resource Container becomes too small to accommodate the various activities and the hub needs tobe relocated. In Macha, Macha Works signed a 30year lease and built extensive infrastructure for its
activities, including training institutes.
In the third phase, commercial service providers start showing an interest in the community. As
the demand for connectivity increases in the community, commercial service providers can startroaming the market. In some instances, there may
be sufficient demand to justify laying a terrestrial
broadband connection. In Macha, for instance, thishas been done by Africonnect, a national internet
service provider that was active in Choma.
At this point the market tends to fragment, withindividual institutions in-sourcing their internet
again, depending on individual donor involvement
and the availability of well-skilled IT personnel inthe community. At this time, the activities of Macha
Works shift, with the LinkNet Resource Container
becoming obsolete (it can be relocated to othercommunities). While Macha Works might continue facilitating training and capacity building on anumber of topics, it now becomes involved in the
broader issues faced by rural communities.

Conclusion
It is an indisputable fact that internet connectivity isa powerful tool to empower local communities andto guide their development. The internet can also
help to preserve and share African cultural heritage,and, through the internet, rural Africa can become
part of and enrich the global community.
But the mediation of tensions and conflict thatare inevitable in the resource-deprived rural African environment needs committed leadership.
The development of local skills is also essential.
Socio-technical sustainability is dependent on thelong-term engagement of local talent; local, national and international collaboration and alliances
to withstand the tides and flows of super-colonial
behaviour; community sensitisation on the benefitof accessing the internet; and a commitment to embodied knowledge, transparency and community
ownership.
Macha Works has received the endorsement
and support of many and various organisations
and authorities in Zambia and abroad. They haverecognised the uniqueness of the organisation’sbottom-up approach, where the local community is
responsible for its own development.

258 / Global Information Society Watch

Action steps
The following steps are recommended to support
community networks in Zambia:•

Enable connectivity and access through policy:
Network constraints and access barriers suppress local voices, knowledge and inclusion.

•

Involve trans-disciplinary engagement: Multiple
and complementary understandings of society
and technologies are necessary to reconcile an
abstract international discourse – regimes of
non-locally derived “truth” – with the challenging African realities and access constraints.

••

Think local: Activating local meaning and relevance and the production of local systems andcontent are critical.

•

Involve local: Iterative programmes involving
local end-users and local talent engender embedded solutions and applications.

•

Open development: Holistic, culturally aligned
development involves the sharing of resources.

•

Scaling is hard: Whether or not you can scale up
depends on the local-level context and resource
opportunities.

Value the local: Many avenues are said to havebeen tried, but most appear to not take into account the local context, vocabulary, access andagency.

ZAMBIA / 259

Community Networks
THE 43 COUNTRY REPORTS included in this year’s Global
Information Society Watch (GISWatch) capture the different
experiences and approaches in setting up community
networks across the globe. They show that key ideas,such as participatory governance systems, community
ownership and skills transfer, as well as the “do-it-yourself”
spirit that drives community networks in many different
contexts, are characteristics that lend them a sharedpurpose and approach.
The country reports are framed by eight thematic reportsthat deal with critical issues such as the regulatory
framework necessary to support community networks,
sustainability, local content, feminist infrastructure andcommunity networks, and the importance of being awareof “community stories” and the power structuresembedded in those stories.

GLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY WATCH 2018

GLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY WATCH 2018

		

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GLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY WATCH
2018 Reportwww.GISWatch.org

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