Re: [CNSIG-Council] Reports on our collective status

Hi dear CNSIG Counsil, THIS IS INTERNAL INFORMATION, PLEASE DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE. I must first appologize for the time it took me too share this information with you. I haven't been able to do a proper polishing, but wanted to release the material asap because it might get outdated. I must say it is humbling how much we are doing. Members I interviewed: altermundi atalaya grammarg guifinet ticac rhizomatica sarantaporo coolab fantsuam nethood zenzeleni Members we couldn't coordinate interview with: ninux peoplesopen freifunk The Questions that were asked: * What has been happening lately in your CN? * Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? * What are your challenges in this following period? I hope you can enjoy each other, and this helps us get closer to each other, and see common ground to work on. Regards, ## guifi.net ### What has been happening lately in your CN? During the last 2 years, we have been consolidating the learning we have had during these years to maintain the growth rate, through developing an economic and governance model. Guifi.net has grown a lot, and continues to grow. They have had to extend their connection to CATNIX from 10 to 20Gbits, to the neutral point. The local interconnection for the other operators in Barcelona (not international traffic), have to be extended from 10 to 20. They already had 20 Gbits international traffic. Its international traffic is via Jaztel and Cogent. There will be more than 100k people. Especially by fiber deployment. They do not reach the demand. the people who see the community option through an operator. We have designed the community where infra is procomun, can be used by local companies that commit service to users. If someone does not work and does not want to do DIY, then go to a local company that provides a service / fee to users. Of these there are about 35 that are doing operations, as a means of subsistence. Some have grown quite a lot, with 20 or 30 employees, with some economic power. In the foundation they were all volunteers and there was no infrastructure. The numbers are getting more dizzy and generate conflicts. With fiber deployments they are millions of euros. As operators are also investors, they want to keep the infrastructure, and forget about the commons. There comes a time that a looting of the procomun is generated, they rely on the procomun to be born, and then they want to appropriate it. Normally, people put personal good before common good, with exceptions. In the foundation we have generated a cost center. just as they have to pay the IXP and transit bills, they have to pay Now they have 7 people full time employees, with a majority of women. Rouger Bach was charging for European research projects. The problem is that when these projects are over, it ends. That has been the case with Rouger. Rouger was employed and now it is no more, and instead of the operations we are now with girls, people who have an administration / management / governance profile ... training lawyer, specialization in conflict mediation, without technological profile such as geeks from before, with a management profile with which we are reinforcing. We have Mikel Martos in the technical part. There are 7 people, a small nucleus compared to the monster we are managing. ### Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? We believe we are in the right path. At the beginning we organized spontaneously and we started to organize. Two axes: * Consolidate Guifinet * assemble a model Extend good practices to areas where they have not been implemented. We have been asked periodically, if guifi is doing well because we don't make it grow faster? As we are developing good practices, we realized that we have developed an economic model. There are investors who are willing to invest in these projects. In Europe there are two financing: (feader) [ https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/es/policy/what/glossary/e/european-agr…] (structural funds) that were Grants that looked like it was lost money. If all families are guaranteed, people pay something reasonable. Ramón applied to the Ashoka scholarship, in order to help Guifinet grow without stressing him: developing good practices so that it does not depend on the organization growing so that the model expands. Access funds by following guifinet rules instead of having to put support. Silver must be returned (juncker plan) [ https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/jobs-growth-and-investment/inves… ]. I trust APC and the CNSIG ... we have been very focused on ourselves. This will force us to change this attitude. Before 2024, Catalonia will have fiber connectivity in all urban communities where there is water and electricity. I am not talking about the socioeconomic part (sociological organizations) as languages. What I am talking about, I am trying to simplify: electricity is volts, water is a liquid, to think of the internet as such, as a common good. The internet is a connection that allows us to talk in a chat, and we have to make it reach everyone. for this to work there has to be diversity ... that the internet arrives is cheaper than the light arrives. In many places you will not need the internet to arrive. where there is water and there is light there has to be broadband with fiber, because it is cheaper than bringing water and light. Organize financing mechanisms to guarantee financing if things are done in a certain way. You cannot have verbal agreements on larger scales. It is absurd to duplicate infrastructure. The rest of guifi will work to continue the consolidation of Guifi.net. ### What are your challenges in this following period? Modeling needs everyone (APC, CNSIG). It is not about replacing APC, CNSIG, ISOC, but sitting down / coordinating to make a leap forward all together. The challenge will be like finding a way to coordinate in a leap of this dimension. They have decided to open up, work beyond their territory, get others to take advantage of what interests them. Many of the lessons we learned have been selfish and we have applied them to ourselves. ==================================== ## Coolab ### What has been happening lately in your CN? In the last 6 months, the structure of coolab has changed radically since December, we try to restructure coolab in order to propose new fund missions. Our original plan to receive the investments of the communities did not work. the idea was that the immunities would receive our work / equipment and over a year return these investments, but none of the communities succeeded ... there was commitment but we did not achieve this result. As this project was part of an experimental laboratory we are not dissatisfied with the work ... it is part of our learning how to organize this work with the communities. I have a position to work with communities through contracts. If we are working as professionals, we expect communities to assume responsibilities ... not only in open meetings but in contracts with us. This is a part of a professionalization step of our work. If we think about the work we have done for a long time. Coolab is 2 years old, but activists have been contributing for more than 10 years. Now that we are trying to organize things, contracts are necessary, to restructure our work with communities, professionalize our work, and to objectively receive the investments that we propose to make as this circular fund, which is a very good idea that needs mechanisms effective for the circulation to exist. The community contractually assumes return of the resource in the long term. This is a conclusion we have but we have to work this with lawyers. This is part of the evaluation of our first year of work. We are also looking for more funds. Since December they are working on new applications. With the APC project, they had confidence in the work of Hiure and Marcela, which is the best case, since there is a permanent investment in improving the service. Hiure does both technical and community mobilization work, so it has a very particular characteristic. It is easy to move between communities. Like Troian. From December to here it is a stronger group, we are 8 people who know and trust, with different geographical and activist origins, and we complement each other quite a lot. The Bruno and Thiago are in Europe and the rest in Brazil, so they are making contacts in Europe, which expands the capacity for articulation and thinking with what they are doing. Bruno Vianna was with APC in Spain and Novaes in a spectrum meeting. They participated there when it normally does not happen. They have a contract with APC until December with two full time hiure and marcela. We want all coolab to have a minimum remuneration to make their work more professional. We all have more than 30, we have a lot of experience. Coolab is a mature organization conceptually, organizationally and technically. We want to do professional things, such as ANATEL, ministers, public power, large companies ... we are training ourselves to have a consistent and mature discruse and practice, with a practical background of community networks. The circular model is the same. When we started doing this, they did not have the mechanisms to do this in a clear and organized way. We want to continue with low-cost networks. the mechanisms were not clear, the words of the communities were trusted, but nothing happened. The issue is not to professionalize our relationship but to create legal agreements, contracts. Seek financing to make fund lost. In the indigenous people there is no point in proposing something circular with money for local economic development, because that is not how they think about development. We are very attentive for the different development models with networks. The technical work is super good, the methodologies we put together work. We want to start without internet connection, local connections for them to learn. There is an opening for an experimental work of methodologies. This interests us for the CNs. Pluralization of technologies: Radios are very important for orality, TV too. Why not work with traditional networks. In Venezuela, Chaves made a lot of investment in TV studios to generate another speech. we have to think well how we get involved in this, in analogue / digital communication. ### Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? We are with the APC Pathfinder for internal restructuring of coolab. We have internal gaps. We need to improve the documentation, improve the website, produce and organize content. as always we did not have time for postproduction, document and communicate to the general public. In the next 6 months we will be working on postproduction and multimedia documentation. We have people in the very competent technical part such as Hiure and Troian, Marcela who is working on the gender issue, we will have meetings, seminars, gender, communication. We have people with experience of multimedia material such as bruno who is a filmmaker, has prizes, I think we will have very good results with his ability. Thiago has experience with podcast and will produce podcast. Henrique also works with approval. We think we will have a multimedia documentation in Portuguese. It is planned to put subtitles. We will work on it. We are looking for, there are two very clear routes for this semester: * Hiure's work with librerouter, homologation, legal monitoring with anatel, technical training. * Thiago and Troian infrastructure installation with the indigenous people of Amazonia: they contacted 3 communities and are looking for funds. More than 50 interested communities, will depend on the availability of the communities to receive equipment and training, we will work in Brazil in general. We are also clearer in our institutional role, we are participating more strongly in the IGF meetings, spectrum, we send a round table proposal to the Brazil forum, we are with that more institutional work quite advanced with a work front that complements our work of countryside. the theme of FUST (universal telecommunication service fund). We all pay it, it keeps accumulating, and today it's billions. There is a law to set this fund in motion. I participated in a meeting in Brazil where this was discussed. Companies want to use it to migrate to digital TV, to help the telecommunication service, and we as civil organizations want it for the universalization of non-profit access. Business forces are much larger than ours. There are bureaucratic obstacles that prevent companies from appropriating. Before Bolsonaro there was a dispute that companies were not going to pay more fines, there was a big public fight in Brazil. One way to organize ourselves in the near future, the next step of the community networks to occupy the spaces of APC, ISOC etc. is very effective. for the future so that our guidelines, methodologies, so that we have work strategies, we need a federation, with a legal form. Today we exist we are occupying spaces adopting the existing forms, the form that ISOC asks. The form of APC ... in one way or another the form becomes a way of organizing and we put content in this way. For the near future we should investigate ways to organize more autonomously. We can have other ways of occupying other spaces. Today, if we organize ourselves, we are as or bigger than the big global NGOs ... if we get better involved with the communication groups that already exist we can be next to APC, ISOC. ### What are your challenges in this following period? Events we will be in: Battlemesh, DWebCamp, CLT, LACNOG Panama ( http://www.lacnog.org/pt-br/conferences/lacnog2019/cfp/). LACNOG has the group of operators. There is an infrastructure issue, and the financing issue. It's a technically cutting edge issue too. Joint papers of collective work A great challenge we have is the issue of funds to continue doing our work, which is primarily the installation of community networks, that is why there is coolab, we get together to do field work with autonomous tele-immunization facilities. For this we need funds, such as to generate the new circular model. We can't go back to the facilities now. There is a strong job to do in regulatory work, where it is integrated into community internet networks. The idea of ​​working with digital TV in Brazil. There is a migration agreement until 2023. Until 2023 there is the possibility of exploring ways of use apart from HD TV. 14mbps of communication. Interactive TV will be in all communities. He has researched cell subject, they want to make experience. Bruno started. More than the technical development is in the development of methodology, content production using tools. have funds to make investments not short term. It doesn't work well like that. The risks will be that our discrimination and practices are captured by great actors who do not have the same ideologies as us. connecting the disconnected must include human rights so that people have access to a different way of communicating, they can change the system based on the way they include themselves. Challenge: that the criteria for evaluating projects are not concerned with quantity rather than quality of work being developed to connect these people. ===== ## Atalaya Sur Damian ### What has been happening lately in your CN? They received the technical resources of LACNIC: ASN, IPv4 and IPv6 public addresses. They are delayed with implementation. Through Nico Echaniz they contacted Telespacio, who give satellite internet, and are going to explore an implementation of LACNIC's technical resources. The meeting with Telespacio was not advised to publish the ASN, so they proposed to make a tunnel through the connection they have with Telefónica, make a BGP border with them and publish the resources in that way. When the data comes and goes, it eats a lot of bandwidth so it cuts them in half. They are seeing some other provider. They were talking with the provider that is also in Villa 20, and it seems that through it they could publish the resources through them. Technically, they have always been working with a partner who knows about pfsense which is the router with which they manage the network. He knows him a lot and takes them out of the configuration doubts. It has the ability to establish a BGP edge. With him they will be solving this. LACNIC has in its regulations the allocation of technical resources to non-profit organizations. The idea was to have a leg on the internet really from the technical, but locally we wanted to have some kind of participation through cabase, see how to get bandwidth too. They will not be associated with cabase because they cannot physically reach the exchange point. A provider charged them almost the same transport as the internet. There is a shared infrastructure regulation in Argentina that would be good to explore. We have a free public network, which seeks to occupy public spaces in the neighborhood. Two years ago we did a pilot test with 10 houses. Since this summer we are more re-stressed with bringing connectivity inside the houses (in addition to public roads). We are wiring from house to house carrying internet. Technology: Ethernet With fiber we don't do it for a cost issue. Watchtower is quite over the net. The neighbors contact each other to see if everything is fine on the trunk. once it does not work just there they see what is happening, and finally you will see what happens. For fiber they are thinking of media converters for converters to start. Here where we get the service we have from telephone we had until recently this service as an option. Then another supplier passed by, but not right here ... after they made the Olympic Village in front of us, and thinking that the government wanted to use this place for housing, now several companies pass by. They told us they charged us $ 20 / mbps. at the wholesale level ... if you go as a home neighbor there is not. You see tritubes and fiber on the front of the house but they tell you there is no service. Technology courses in conjunction with the Ministry of Social Development of the Nation, presented a project two years ago and only this year they approved it, so they are with these courses. Since the agenda is quite vague and we have little freedom of action in what we dictate, so we can meet the expectations of the agenda and give an attractive course. * Digital literacy: with older neighbors * Intermediate course, designed for young people * Advanced course, which for now are getting into networks In this way they can meet the demands of neighbors, both those who know and those who do not. In the network they are putting together small networks, there it is planned and to see what has happened what other people have gone through, using the videos that NicoPace put together. The objective is the popular appropriation of technology. The course is taught in two neighborhoods. Universal Access Service Fund, they will be lovingly encouraging ENACOM. They had a talk in NIC.ar referred to see what are the problems of community networks, with a representative of the enacom, another that was added that is permanent, and Nico Echaniz and Damian, and cabase. They didn't want presentations from community networks, but they wanted to get straight to the point to see what was going on with community networks. In particular, we want to sweep it in public, it has been bicycling for us two years ago, we are not moving forward in anything concrete. We made numbers, we showed with graphics everything that I had done with universal service was all fictitious because what I was running only 1% was for ISP network expansion, if you start seeing finite they are all friends. What was striking was that this management that was sending the part, only 1% was what I had connected. The head of ENACOM made commitments: https://youtu.be/jcGRmdiTM0A I was embarrassed that I went to the IGF to say that it had done a role of recognition of community networks, but did not execute a weight. ### Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? Try to get something out of the enacom before they leave. continue with the line of what we have been talking about: increase bandwidth, connect more neighbors, continue with technology courses, and if something goes well. They were thinking about local services. Today the closest thing, when the neighbors connect to the free public network a captive portal with news of the neighborhood. Today it is housed outside. They were thinking of running an audiovisual service. Telefónica put a firewall on their connection. In La Quiaca we have an emby server (https://emby.media/) for media. We did not see what would be useful within the network outside a multimedia content server. ### What are your challenges in this following period? How to get juice from public IPs? Specifically in the technical, what can be done to take advantage of that resource? Continue to see how to make the network sustainable in the sense of how to ensure that each neighbor you want can join the network, and have available bandwidth, and costs can be covered among all ... that scheme is always working to be able to give the discussion too, and grow the network. We do open meetings, but the neighbors who have routers in the house participate more. With those we make monthly meetings. in those meetings we commented on the news that has been, more neighbors have been added through recommendations that in search of active militants, it is the neighbors who propose to other neighbors to join the network, and we do not make so many decisions About the resources as a whole, we talk about the resources that we have and expenses associated with the extension of the network. Each neighbor is in charge of your router. when the possibility arises for a grant, we don't involve the neighbors in that, because they don't participate in it so actively anymore. It implies putting a head, thinking, joining ... and that we have not noticed that it is an activity to which the neighbors join so much, and we do not demand them either, it is in the hands of the companions, manuela for example who is the one who moves the most In the presentations / awards ... we always end up doing the same, advancing in the growth of the network, either buying cables or equipment, or whatever comes up. About the activities we inform the neighbors, and we see that they have more interest we invite you. Actually until the possibility of the technology courses arose, the community network had not had much life, had been a little off. With these courses, we managed to get the courses financed by the Ministry of Education, especially at the time of teaching of those who are teaching. They are giving the courses, chatting with the neighbors seeing how to improve the network. In order for the network to move forward, we need colleagues to be working hard on the network. In Villa 20 there are many neighbors who would like to join the network. The neighbor who understands less sees us as an ISP, those who understand most understand that it is a community network. There are expenses associated with the maintenance of the network that we are trying to prop up. if we can incorporate all the neighbors who want to participate that are very many, this can support the costs of the network itself as well as a salary or periodic expense that may be taking care of the network itself, how to improve it ... we are in that situation we cannot make the network sustainable, but we see that there is some way from which that may be possible, and it is part of gaining scale. For now the problem is that we need more bandwidth. and if not, historically the network was a social leg of the community project, the political organization, a cooperative collective. EVERYTHING: contact with Tunapanda by local services, and contact with Sarantaporo by digital Alphabetinzación ### CNSIG Reflection On the one hand, we understand that we can help with contributing our experience. By sharing our experience we can find coincidences from which a specific action can take place. We are as listeners, we can say that we work on something specific. That with respect to P2P actions, issues touched on the same topic. Something that brings us all together may be something technical related to the regulatory framework. Each one technically implements concrete soutions that have their differences from the rest, and adapting to the rest can take time. On the regulatory side, I believe that if it is common to all, as community networks in any country, legislation / regulation on community networks was legislated. The international arena is where it can be affected with licenses, universal service, training programs, digital literacy, they are all things that go hand in hand with a community network. Something was talked about in the CNSIG with agreeing on what technologies we have, we still had to share this. Then there was some diffusion, ... maybe we could be attentive to each of those aspects to see how to move forward as a whole. Having found ourselves is a value in itself. Language is a limitation, since English is not handled. There is a need to train in English depending on the role. ======== # Grammarg ## What has been happening lately in your CN? traveled to Russia to GMAS had a meeting with BAIF and JANATSU, an insception meeting to kickoff their project, the catalytic grant. discussed them. also talked about how their budget was going to be managed. We will be sharing the budget with Kathleen from APC. The contract with IITB has been signed, still BAIF. Amendment for the contract because they are receiving more money. Even though the fund doesn't come, they have started the work with the project. they selected women in the project, and doing training. she is the digital correspondant in the village. women-first approach. training on digital skills. she is currently doing e-government forms in the village for the villagers. in the pathfinder grant objectives: 1. busting the signals where it is connected, they have connectivity, they want to bust it 2. women-first for training to become digital correspondants sarbani will go to the field to do a case study on digital correspondant who is earning revenues by filling forms for the villagers. also a banking correspondant. this way the villagers have access to banking services through her. Plan to go to the village to have a look to setup a community radio, want to look into the place to check were to setup a community radio. get all the devices, everything ready. at the end of rain season, end of august. Learning from JANATSU. use mobile phones to do broadcast inside the village. We had to hand over the network to the local ISP and the local council, had to move out of that engagement cause it turned to be difficult, the ISP was taking the money from the people, was difficult, the ISP said that we had to replace the device for the people. we ran out of funds and had no way to keep subsidicing the network and let them do. they have the infrastructure. we had to move out of it, they were not learning anything from us anymore. now that they are not with them, sarbani visited and the isp is having problems, hard to estimate bandwidth usage, it is not stable, in may all the men come to the village (otherwise they are not there), can't manage bandwidth req. april-june worked. july everyone left (rainy season for rice crops), so noone is using it now. Sarbani is trying to solve the problem, to get the local people subsidise through advertisements. he has not began yet for the village. he wants a stable network first. what is the bare minimum of bandwidth? talking to the local entrepreneurs who have small shops, in one month we will sort it out. Local content (music, videos..). Travel exchange with Janastu was good. visited two communities radios, to understand why it wold be necesary in our village setup, how can it fill the gap. we can boost signal, but why is radio needed? identifying women livelyhood for the catalytic interventions, so radio is good in that context. Similar project: https://www.facebook.com/rdsHonduras/ ## Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? Focus on women, and community networks. Small community radio. The women on CN the first step is going to be to provide to women. Working on training of Sarbani along with the women of the community. They will setup the community radio themselves. Community Radios lead by women, operations. trying to understand the needs of the women. can talk about economic empowerment, but do they feel it is necesary? trying to understand that part. what is their perspective of economic empowerment. Rural broadband standarization. Together with Ritu. what exactly the needs of the people. different approach. it is the various aspects of rural connecivity: access, availability, acceptability, affordability. each parameter will be standarized. each of the standards will be worked with organizations with others that work on rural broadband. how much bandwidth is necesary in a community? 100? 20? 10? how many people? when we have certain standards, it is easy to understand. sustainability is the other topic. we should not depend on international funding Realted: internet universality indicators: https://researchictafrica.net/2019/04/16/unesco-internet-universality-frame… valeria betancourt is leading the ecautorian implementation of it. valeria(a)apc.org https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000367617 community technologies, it is necessary to focus on them. would like to focus on that too. ## What are your challenges in this following period? setting up the community radio will be the biggest challenge. janastu offered help for setting up the community radio. one is for infrastructure, and the other for handholding the women to take up the role. have to put energies in that direcition. it is hard to open up in radio station. Ritu offered help in this. We anticipate that we will have challenge in setting up rural women lifelihood program, working with many partners, that can be challenging. # Sarandaporo ## What has been happening lately in your CN? since the beginning of the year the network has been expanding, the access layer, through a BNet ISOC's grant, and also own funds. To unifi mesh from open mesh devices. Also implemented different strategies so every node owner now has also mikrotik router in house, so they can have more stable connectivity. They are getting better speed when the network is congested, because they are connecting over a node inside instead of the outdoors one. Increased demand, expanding the access layer, and also the backbone. the price for sarandaporo is 1/5 of the price of the private providers. in part because backbone is provided by the university. studying alternatives in the case university drops, 1000euro/month for 1 00Mbps simetric, mainly because it is secretive. Holidays now so people visit and traffic doubled throughout the summer. We need to increase the throughput, the university gives us 1gbps but we don't have a link that gets all of it to us. there is fiber around but is a private-public fund and they control the fiber, so we are not certain we can get access to that. for now we are increasing wireless links. we have been approached by homo digitalis, an org that works on legal issues on digital access and rights, and want to work with us on legislation gap in greece in relation to community networks. we are looking to kickstart the project, they want to write proposals for state for legislation in favor of community networks in greece. no open data project in relation to open telecom data in greece. Digital literacy discussions and local content generation. have been discussing with Sol from Zenzeleni, framinig it for themselves and others, deserves to be handled as a separate case itself. workshops with local members, safety on the internet. the majority of the community members they don't think about it and they don't feel that they need to dig into... most of the people will get up to the point to develop digital skills, but not more. I have been thinking what we are doing with CN we bring connectivity to the unconnected without explaining, it feels like you bring them into a dangerous area, just using facebook or giving up their data for free. With a documentalist and video editor we did some video interviews of some members and farmers and we are planning to make a short video to document progress and to share our community, it is going to be ~3min video. applied to the european broadband award, first selection will be announced by november met new municipal administration of the municipality, and are friendly with the network, met with them on sunday Discussed common opportunities: - exploring connecting new villages, the municipality will help in reaching them so villagers could do their own or join the sarandaporo.gr. the event will happen in november. - work as advisors for digital strategy of the municipality. first time municipality is so close to them, promising. community members from the region are participating. we tried to encourage women to participate. there are some women in our telegram group. a couple of them are active, like sending messages, troubleshooting or mainteining equipment. seems that women are more involved in organizing community than the technical part. no women in rooftops. the bet is not to make tech friendly for women, but explore the aspects of cns that could feel more natural for them and engage them in relevant activities (community networks are not just about the tech). in relation to digital literacy, i would think that women see this as a more natural space for them can participate more, cause it is about online safety and awareness (like safeguarding children). we have been having some women in our workshops, the space has been welcoming and supportive. one thing is to do a community network, and another one is to change the culture of a place.. local communities in our area are rather conservative. ## Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? 1. build the relationship with the municipality 2. expand the network to 20 farms that have expressed their interest in joining the network. till end of september. 3. digital literacy 4. legal work 5. next big project to fund work 6. renew website, so people from abroad can read news. has been difficult for us. (important!) 7. Android app for farmers (some people were building it), part of a EU-funded project that they were part of, researchers wanted to build a mobile app to help them log tasks that they were doing in the farm so they could produce reports. didn't worked well, and did some research and requirement assessment, but the app itself is not very user friendly. we are looking to make it work to provide this tool to the farmers. ## What are your challenges in this following period? having collaborated with many orgs until now, we see that there is an aspect of us that some people want to take advantage of. sarandaporo.gr it is very well known, academics would like to promote sarandaporo to promote their own image. any organization that comes to us and 'want to help', we now are being more careful about how to select collaborations. doing research for ourselves. # Rhizomatica and TIC A.C. ## What has been happening lately in your CN? ### Rhizomatica We are participating in the APC project, mainly around giving the money away under the pathfinder work, also around writing about technologies (5G). On the technical side we keep developing on 2g tech with osmocom, working on data (gprs+edge). also working on 4g CoLTE project with Matt integration with their existing software. Also working on different research questions (backhaul congestions). working on spectrum access for 4g with TIC and Redes for secondary access to spectrum (700Mhz). Policy stuff mixed with APC, Steve and Erick are working together on secondary use spectrum, access to universal service funds, and doing a lot of regulator training. In relation to Hermes, one of the pathfinder grants for the catalytic interventions is going to a project that is retrofiting HF radio to move data over it (together with the Mozilla money). ### TIC AC TIC people is getting more into spaces, more people from REDES too (Karla as coordinator in APC, CITSAC with Carlos Baca, ...). TIC wants to get more folks out. The language is a challenge, doing English lessons. Continuing to role out 4g networks, in Guerrero now. Exploring a bigger office, running out of space. The satellite capacity donated, they received a training and now they are using it in Guerrero for their backhaul. Might receive more satellite capacity. Oneweb potential collaborations. ## Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? More of the same, continuing to push things. Access to spectrum for LTE. Going to CN gathering to Colombia, and collaborating with Cauca network in Colombia. We will be supporting Tosepan in their regional backhaul for their Bank. We will also be doing a pilot for 4G. ## What are your challenges in this following period? TIC AC: Increase capacity to speak English within the team; integrate new technologies within existing ones (4G w/ 2G); document fully power/protection innovations that have been made over the past year so other can use it. Rhizomatica: continued funding for policy work under Sida/APC project and direct Ford Fdn is unknown for 2020; cotinued support for Colnodo in Cauca - how to do technical support and guidance from afar. # altermundi ## What has been happening lately in your organization? We have been working on the LibreRouter phase 2 project approve the librerouter in argentina We are studying the possibility of producing non-electronic things locally. We support the presentation of a local women's collective for a feminist router factory in Frida and it did not go, and now they will do it to Beyond the Net via the Argentine Chapter of ISOC We were working on the Universal Access Funds, creating a presenter for that. The first project of a community network that attempts to access the fund with the objective of establishing a regional and global presenter is presented, and that the project is under evaluation by the regulatory body. We started to work on creating a model personality for community networks with the figure of mutual we did the first seedbed workshop in Cheran We were selected as APC peers and collectively presented a project that was accepted to facilitate the initial deployment of librerouter in projects in Latin America We have a new communication group, which have been making video and text coverage of relevant activities in which we participate, which gave us new push / presence / ability to convey our message From our role in the CNSIG, we help coordinate the Latin American summit in Colombia and the participation of the communities in the next ITU spectrum meeting in Lima. We support NicoPace to be fulfilling the role of Movement Construction Coordinator in the APC community networks project. We receive visitors from training networks in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil We visit networks in Moinho Brazil, Kenya We are migrating the LibreRouter hardware source code to free tools. We are mentoring Google Summer of Code, mainly the SAn testing thing, and retroshare / elrepo.io We were granted a grant to continue the development of elrepo.io during 2019/2020. ## Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? Finish the approval of the LibreRouter in Argentina, and help it finish in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Cuba. We will try to activate the fabriquita, with internal or own funds. we will continue developing elrepo.io Support to the first deployments of LibreRouters Manufacture and distribution of the first 500 routers. Continue with everything started in the first part of the year. ## What are your challenges in this following period? Link up with the new national administration to continue the lobbying task that we have been doing in recent years the adoption on a larger scale of all the technology that we have been developing for years. The challenge is to be able to respond to expectations. Finish deciphering whether it is feasible to win a share of the universal service funds to the telco, who are fighting for the funds at the same time as us. ==== # Fantsuam Foundation ## What has been happening lately in your org? We received a small grant from APC, not as much as we have expected. We were going to reactivate our network. We wanted to do our network and a second network 50km. With the funds we had we limited to our network. Put a team together to see how we can get a national voice for CN in Nigeria. Apart from Fantsuam there is one more project that is being organized by ISOC Nigeria, we want to start a SIG on CN on Nigeria so we can have a single voice. they are doing it in an urban center, different from ours that has been rural. seeing how we can raise the profile of CNs by getting more individuals and orgs interested in it, so we are not talking alone about CNs, we are more. They called it CNSIG Nigeria, they have 12 members some from ISOC, some from private sector, and some freelance technicians. Now they are building a platform to put solar panels. Power in rural is critical for their work. They have some radios at hand, and looking forward to get the LibreRouter if possible. Yacubu is their major trainer. ## Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? One of the major challenges is the backbone. Carefully following the regulator about access to TVWS. Carlos and Steve met the regulator about it. The conversation has gone cold. The person Carlos and Steve was not high enough in the command chain. In principle the regulator said they did guidelines on TVWS for rural. The regulator said they has developed a framework for the deployment of TVWS in Nigeria The Nigeria regulator reacts positively to international intervention. Don't think ISOC Nigeria chapter values rural. The ISOC Nigeria CN is being deployed in an urban setting. The rural communities where resources for setting up CN is still largely unreached Hope the SIG could help. APC and ISOC could help: For the Nigeria regulator to commit to give a permit on TVWS in the first wave of permits. The first wave of permits for deployment of TVWS should consider CSOs like Fantsuam that are already living and working in such rural communities We want ISOC Nigeria to recognize the SIG. The CNSIF, Nigeria that has just been set up has some members of ISOC, Nigeria and would like to work as a unit under ISOC, Nigeria we were hoping to have another remotely llocated community to have the system up and running, but funding has not been enough. in the communities were we want to set up CNs the occupation is substience farmers. they appreciate the need for communication but don't have disposable income. they have people that can be trained, but we need to be able to get some seed funds. not difficult to set up CNs, cause there is a lot of disposable income in urban centers. there is USF, most of the fund is not utilized. getting access to it would need a lot of energy. and advocacy which a single organization, like Fantsuam Foundation cannot handle ISOC Nigeria could get to the USF. ISOC Nigeria is well known to the USF and the regulators at NBC and NCC. This link can be used for advocacy to promote access to the USF for rural connectivity The USF was set up precisely to reach the uncennoected. Community Networks provide an opportunity to achieve this objective but a case has to be made by ISOC Nigeria because the USF has never been deployed for CN in Nigeria. If Michuki can encourage ISOC Nigeria to explore the USF situation for CNs in Nigeria, it will be most helpful A group of working CNs that can be used a s a prrof on concept is one way of convincing the Nigerian Government of the cost-effectiveness of promoting CNs for the unconnectedJ ==== # Nethood ## What has been happening lately in your Org? There is a networking aspect in the current actions. An effort to transform the place as a digital hub, self defence, emancipation, free software. Nethood was involved in two big projects that finished, Mazi and netcommons? Changed from a contracts, deliverables to an unfunded but free organization. One of the outcomes was the space that they are inhabitting, a space, http://langstrasse200.ch/, where people can meet around technology, discuss about their own infrastructure. They are planning to host a neighbourhood cloud, meet the administrators, learn, have courses... It is a collective space, central in the neighbourhood (which is important), sharing the rent with many organization to have a central space to do what we want. Make the space vibrant. coop housing, ecological projects, food projects. http://langstrasse200.ch/pub/projekte (see also http://langstrasse200.ch/events/ ) Potential of synergy, likeminded human rights advocates, but not necesary sensitive to digital, so planning to collaborate to this initiatives, and to be more visible to the city (zurich). Also running a local network as an ongoing experiment: http://langstrasse200.ch/pub/digital/ Being free now gives posibility to do voluntary work, now part of the board of ISOC Switzerland, reaching out to a wider audience in collaboration with the PEP Foundation: https://pep.foundation/. See also https://www.isoc.ch/commitees-bodies/sac Establish a monthly meeting open to public, permanent appointment where people can come and learn about privacy, cryptoparties, course about alternative software/hardware, CNs potentially, In switzerland people is overconnected. tried to write some experiences of the project, through Mazi. tried to write about the cooptation of the commons from neoliberal projects. the projects in athens are slowed down, because there is no funding he has not been able to go back, the squats some are closed in exarcheia. Translating my work in the previous years into more digestable messages to the general public, creating sinergies/collaborations in commoning infrastructure to different audiences. Collaborated in some complementary projects like elrepo.io for AlterMundi, as a mediator for the project. stepping back from this 3 year funding... Openki is another project they are supporting, that got some funds. Also giving courses on openki on the "organic Internet": https://openki.net/course/uEGBuQRvcGq25w7ep/the-organic-internet-build-your… I would like to find a formula to sustain myself and help projects get resources. ## Where are you going to put your energy in your next 3 months? I was too much networking in international level, and want to take advantage of the unemployment fund to learn german and get more connections locally. Have an income doing that. people ask him how do you live, and it is challenging. Meta work, invest some effort for all the work doing here to conceptualize, to what we do in our space to be turned into a toolbox, a conceptual research project about methodologies, stories, recipes... knowledge sharing... that is difficult to fund still... connect activists of different sorts (digital, environmental, ...), and adjust/replicate experiences and practices. how you can bring in a small room many people so it can pay the rent and also become an interesting space. take a break in the future to sinthesize the idea into a proposal to be funded. focusing in making the space survive. as a second project how this would work in the long term. leadership: i want to dig into how we can create leadership models that are both efficient and empowering/distributing the power. the other challenge is diversity. not to create bubbles in the space, like hackers/activists that understands each other but noone else can join/enter. create neutral zone where different groups can get a glimpse of what happens on the other side. ## What are your challenges in this following period? I come from theory, reading/writing/ thinking, was activie in differnt groups but mainly in theoretical. for me the big challenge is not to loose my previous identity but also get into the practice. theory is googd for deconstractive/analizing/generalizing. don't want to throw away the previous experience, but to produce content that could help others, inspire. bring the need for real spaces, would like to bring the knowledge we generate here and promote the idea of it to be on the ground/street also than the roofs. create real spaces, pasionate about this... this is the biggest challenge, not to become cheap labour to connect people to the current internet. we need to create spaces where this proceses are created, .... without real spaces it is nearly impossible. not in installing antennas or teaching people how to do it, but pushing about democracy, ownership, emancipation... avoid just 'getting the internet to the people'. In greece I will be 100% on this. === # Zenzeleni (I am sharing an update I did for the APC member meeting which is much clearer than the notes below) Here is some of the work Zenzeleni and I have been busy with in the last 9 months: We have seeded a new community owned cooperative ISP, Zenzeleni Zithulele network. This has been possible with funding from the national Department of Science and Technology and a lot of hard work. The seeding process includes working with a self identified group from the community to register the legal vehicle, apply for the license exemptions to operate, support discussions and developing business and network management practices between the original Zenzeleni Mankosi cooperative and the new one. It also requires a lot of creativity and insistence as every element of deployment in the rural context is a challenge (supplies, services, transport, roads, power...). This has required us (the Zenzeleni non for profit) to also re-define ourselves to deal with the complexity of a larger network, and multiple organisations collaborating. We have redefined out Memorandum of Incorporation to hold our objective clearer, have developed internal contracts and are in the necessary process of developing manuals to support coordinated work in this complex set up. We have also (after more than a year's process) developed a network service and costing model where the network data is affordable to those in the community with lowest (or no) income and also offers some incentive for local businesses (which is necessary for the cooperative's sustainability). We are now busy as one of the peer community networks in the APC LOCNET project. We used this opportunity not only to learn from other CN's but also to grow our cross organisation learning within Zenzeleni. I am working with one of the older "mamas' who has been with Zenzeleni longest, Mama Sigcau. Its been absolutely amazing hosting our colleagues from BoscoUganda, CYD Malawi and also Josephine Miliza who is also part of TunapandaNet in Kenya, so enriching for us at this moment of growth. Its been amazing to see accelerated learning all around, and also share the difficulties on CNs in harsh realities. I'm also really enjoyed the women's group in LOCNET - it adds a human element that's been important for me. Also through the LOCNET pathfinder grant we have initiated our backhaul upgrade to cope with this larger version of Zenzeleni. In our communication and advocacy efforts we are holding a few events this month, a high level government round table and site visit to Zenzeleni, and then a grassroots event, where we would like to share our knowledge with the many communities and organisations that request info from us. As Zenzeleni means "do it yourself" we hope this event supports more people connecting themselves! A few more things to mention; - I am busy with the African Summit on Community Networks (organised by ISOC and APC). I am part of the programme committee and we have been hard at work developing a meaningful agenda/ experience. - Also attended DWEB camp a couple of months ago. - We are also busy updating our website. We would like to develop our communication material more, in isiXhosa and English as this has been left somewhat aside. Will share when its ready. - Zenzeleni was featured in Africa BBC earlier this year https://youtu.be/R9u-hfxAeBo - Ive also participated in many supporting roles such as the evaluation of the Catalytic grants for APC, and the African CN summit fellowship programme. On a personal level, I'm trying to balance still being present as a mother to my two kids, and a partner, whilst working in the effort to contribute to a more just society and a people's community network. _______________________________________________ Council mailing list Council(a)lists.cnsig.info https://lists.cnsig.info/mailman/listinfo/council