Dear all,
I have been invited to participate to the meeting of the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) that will take place next week in Washington, DC. The A4AI aims at fostering affordable internet access but, over the past weeks, has been criticised for being excessively business-oriented.
I believe that those who have worked within the A4AI, so far, have missed the importance of concrete alternatives to "traditional" approaches, such as community networks that DC3 advocates for. My understanding is that A4AI is open to consider alternatives and I will participate to the A4AI meeting with the goal of stressing the importance of promoting a variety of different approaches rather than focusing only on the strategies that have been analysed/encouraged so far.
I am open to any suggestions from list-members with regard to relevant points to stress during the A4AI meeting.
There are already a number of examples of successful CN experiences (e.g. DEF India, guifi.net, Altermundi, etc.) showing that it is possible to empower individuals allowing them to make connectivity more ubiquitous and sustainable, rather than merely trying to make it more affordable via "conventional" strategies. And many other possibilities are available, including exploiting untapped resources such as abandoned copper infrastructure or unexploited spectrum, as stressed by Bob.
I would be more than happy to convey any other example, opinion or suggestion you have as regards alternative approaches that should be considered to foster connectivity.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions and comments.
Best
Luca
[FGV Direito Rio]
Luca Belli, PhD
Pesquisador | Researcher
Lead of Internet Governance @ FGV<http://internet-governance.fgv.br/> luca.belli(a)fgv.br
+55 21 3799 5763
[http://www.fgv.br/mailing/Direito_Rio/assinatura_email/Ondas.png]
Hola tod@s,
Maybe some of you are already aware of this initiative, but I wanted to
share it for with you all that we (AlterMundi in association with other
groups) are planning to create our own community network friendly
routers in the near future.
We will be sending this project for the next FRIDA call, which closes on
may 13th:
https://pad.codigosur.org/FRIDA_Escalamientos2016
... the pad is still work in progress.
As you can read there, this is mainly a reaction to the trend that
TP-Link has initiated as a result of some very bad decisions/ruling by
the FCC in the near past.
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/way-go-fcc-now-manufacturers-locking-routers/
To those of you interested in participating in the discussion of this
initiative, feel free to subscribe to the mailing list here:
https://listas.altermundi.net/mailman/listinfo/fcc-free
I'd also like to propose that we discuss what could be the role of the
DC3 in such a project.
Cheers,
Nico
I'm having a discussion in the APC mailing list regarding this information:
https://www.apc.org/en/news/government-and-association-internet-providers-b…https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/leaked-documents-confirm-ecuadors-int…
To my eyes this is a full fledged operation to discredit Correa's administration, in continuation with the current trend against left-wing governments in Latin America. These are the kind of operation that build up to situations like what happened in Paraguay with Lugo, in Honduras with Zelaya and now in Brazil with Dilma.
Correa and Morales are current targets.
Why I say this information is not credible:
1) the problem reported is from march 2014, but it's being used to undermine the new Telecommunications Law in Ecuador which was passed in 2015.
2) the origin of this information is Telefónica, which as every big telco, are always in the business of interfering with sovereign legislation in Telecommunications. They are the ones who profit more from a completely de-regulated market.
3) the traffic blocking described by the alleged leaked memo from Movistar/Telefónica had a duration of 33min. It's hard to believe that the whole incident could actually take 33 min. Consider the Whatsapp block in Brasil a while ago. It took long hours for the ISPs to comply with the justice system order, and then to revert it and it was of public knowledge that the order was in place.
4) the AEPROVI (the association in charge of the Internet Exchange nap.ec), explains in a press release why this information cannot be true: http://aeprovi.org.ec/es/
... and their arguments are completely reasonable for anyone who knows how IXPs opperate.
5) the organization that leaked this information has very little background to check: https://ecuadortransparente.org/
I just wanted to share this with you because I think it's important to defuse this operations. Good legislation is the only way to effectively and sustainably defend the people from corporate abuse; these operations prepare the field for attacks on these laws, not with the people's interest in mind.
Cheers,
Nico
