[Chapter-delegates] [MemberPubPol] ISOC at the IGF in Athens

Fri Oct 27 23:33:03 PDT 2006

Hi,

Please excuse my elongated experiences sharing from my end-users project in
Kenya.

   1. Threatening the realization of "Information Society" at the
   discussions in Athens, is  the common practice by Kenyan inernet users
   calling email senders requesting them to stop sharing information (attaching
   files) to their emails because of the high cost of (very narrow) bandwidths.

   2. Developing nations' economic prosperity depends on Internet and
   democracy- Kenya now has a comfortable democracy in place but lacks an
   equitable, if not any cost-benefitial, Internet access.
   3. The international community has the duty to support developing
   nations in drafting data protection policies and legislations for global
   prosperity to become a reality. Kenyan parliamentarians are eager to be
   educated on internet matters and so supportive frameworks should be sought
   by the internet community to benefit of all developing countries and the
   outsourcing, developed countries' data privacy assurance.
   4. CCK-our regulator has agreed to fund the construction of "open
   access" national fibre backbone where anyone can plug in at regulator's cost
   recovery tariffs. I owe this to this project's constructive interaction with
   the regulator and a further byproduct of policy makers' involvement in IGF
   in Tunis. If more regulators borrowed from Kenya, it would help the world's
   internet users the US "network neutrality" setbacks. After all, the new
   global trend is to "empower" with more choice and more control not to
   "protect" consumers because that failed.
   5. Granted the information society cannot materialize unless business
   invests in infrastructure. But there may be a need to re-look at ICT
   corporate governance policies, CSR programs and "educating" them to realize
   the potential profits from the currently mass unconnected markets.
   Governments could also offer deliberate incentives to spur and support small
   local investors to also participate in ICT benefits.
   6. On education, perhaps the meetings could consider international
   program aimed at demystifying fibre cables. It was not until I took a short
   length of fibre to our media that they knew how fibre looked like. They
   confessed that they thought "the much famed fibre optic cable was a thick
   cable only heavy trucks could carry".
   7. Last week, visiting Italians visitors to this project café shared
   their home connectivity situation. They told me that in Italy companies
   normally have 100MB links while home users have "slow" 2 MB connections
   while the highest peak for KIXP is 14 MB- (Michuki Mwangi could arrange for
   the actual graph).
   8. Besides IXPs  traffic growing , there  is a need to analse the use
   pattern to mitigate the emerging corporate-only internet. Kenya has a
   history of vertical as opposed to horizontal  internet growth. The same
   conencted  companies, wealthy, or well-funded entities migrate to better
   connectivity (copper-wireless and now fibre) while the unconnected masses
   are shut out.
   9. It would be important for the IGF to addresses these issues, to
   avoid the risks of discussing a wonderful world of technology, which users
   simply just cannot have or they have to pay an arm and leg for it.
   10. I hope the meetings conclusions will be posted online soon after
   to enable us share them at the launch of comprehensive multi-stakeholder
   Kenya internet users study on 01 Nov 2006 at KCCT Mbagathi, Kenya.

Kind regards,

Alex

On 10/27/06, Rishi Chawla <rishi at isoc.org.in> wrote:
>
> Dear Mathews,
>
> That's Great. Unfortunately I will not be able to participate in the
> Athens
> meeting, but would be interested to participate remotely. Is there
> arrangement for webcasting or podcasting of the Athens meeting.
>
> Wish you all the best
>
> Thanks and regards
>
> Rishi Chawla
> ISOC, New Delhi India
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: memberpubpol-bounces at elists.isoc.org
> [mailto:memberpubpol-bounces at elists.isoc.org]On Behalf Of Matthew Shears
> Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 9:27 PM
> To: memberpubpol at elists.isoc.org; Chapter-Delegates at Elists.Isoc.Org
> Subject: [MemberPubPol] ISOC at the IGF in Athens
>
>
> Dear members,
>
>
>
> As you know ISOC and many members of the ISOC community will be
> participating in the IGF Athens meeting.
>
>
>
> We have had quite an extensive role in this event - and I certainly hope
> that it will be a success.  We have supported the IGF secretariat,
> participated in the Advisory group and, for Athens, sponsored a range of
> speakers, workshop panelists and participants.
>
>
>
> A number of ISOC members are speakers and Lynn will be speaking in the
> "Setting the Scene" session on Monday 30th.
>
>
>
> ISOC has also organized, with key partners, two workshops on the 31st and
> for those of you in Athens we would be delighted to see you there:
>
>
>
> The first is on "building local access" and can be found here:
>
>
>
> http://www.isoc.org/pubpolpillar/docs/IGFworkshop061030.pdf
>
>
>
> The second is on participation and capacity building as they relate to
> Internet organizations and can be found here:
>
>
>
> http://www.isoc.org/pubpolpillar/docs/IGFworkshop061031.pdf
>
>
>
> A number of ISOC members have also organized or are contributors to
> workshops and I encourage you to post them to our lists.
>
>
>
> I am also trying to arrange for an ISOC meeting on-site for the evening of
> the 31st, but this is proving a little more challenging than anticipated.
> More news on this over the weekend I hope.
>
>
>
> See you in Athens!
>
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Matthew
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Memberpubpol mailing list
> Memberpubpol at elists.isoc.org
> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/memberpubpol
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Memberpubpol mailing list
> Memberpubpol at elists.isoc.org
> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/memberpubpol
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20061028/10c3cf5a/attachment.htm>