Community-based Networks and Innovative Technologies: New ...

New models to serve and empower the poores to development, may thus hold a solution for many poor rural communities. The ‘lastmile’could become the ‘first-mile’ as the focus of expansion is no longer on inducing telecomgiants to find their way into every remote village; but rather for such towns and villagesto build their own networks and design their own services and connect these into regionaland national backbones.The efforts of local communities alone, however, cannot make this happen. The regulatoryand legal environment, the investment and financing modalities, and government andinternational policymakers have thus far been slow or reluctant to recognise their potential.If the opportunity is not to be lost, positive action will be required.1.3 Report ContentThis report outlines the possibilities and limitations of community owned and managednetworks, services and applications.Section 2 considers the history and background of community ownership, in particularthe cooperative movement, acknowledged as a potential contributor to the MillenniumDevelopment Goals, as well as more broadly for development activities. It describes a numberof successful cases of community ownership of ICT networks in rural areas, in severalcontinents, both in relatively ‘pure’ forms and in terms of hybrids including both privateand public actors.Section 3 outlines the new wave of technologies having bearing on these initiatives. Theseinclude wireless networks over licensed and non-licensed spectrum drawing on the considerableliterature that has sprung up in recent years. After exploring their potential forcost savings and implementation in developing countries, it extracts the specific characteristicsthat make them so interesting right now, using concrete examples of where theyhave been deployed primarily in development contexts.Section 4 covers in depth a number of important and comparative aspects of communityownership. It compares the community ownership and private investor approaches, notingdifferences as well as considerable overlap and complementarity. The section discussessome possible explanations for why the cooperative model, given its evident benefits,has not already been more widely taken up, and concludes by considering the circumstancein which it works best.The final section concludes by highlighting the mutual benefits and significant potentialof community ownership and the emerging technologies. It proposes actions to realise theirpotential, across different areas including regulatory and legal terrain, investment issues,and resources and capacity building.Six case studies completed as part of the research, and a FAQ (Frequently AskedQuestions), are contained in the Annexes.18