Re: [gaia] An Internet Draft about Community Networks. A first question

[Leandro Navarro <[e-mail]>]

Dear Arjuna and all, this discussion is really great.

On 21 Jun 2014, at 08:34, Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Jose, All,
> 
> So from the different replies and also from what I envision - this is
> what I get -
> 
> 1/Community networks are formed because the traditional network
> operator has failed to provide coverage through equipment deployment
> and/or failed to provide affordable services to a community.f
> 
> 2/The community now takes matter into its own hands - joins together
> to form an entity "or" there could be another entity that is keen to
> support the community stepping into help and support - so this is not
> the traditional NO - but someone like the local govt, charitable
> organisation or a local business. The latter entity may have some
> benefit: social, economical, environmental et al.
> 
> So my question here is would the latter be classified as a community
> network or something else.
> 
>> From what I see from Paul's reply, the latter will not be classified
> as a community network since the local community do have any form of
> control there.
> 
> BUT - I also see from Steve and Rohan's reply and Paul also agrees
> that we should not discount "for-profit" initiatives which means the
> local community may not have any control in such an entity.
> 
> So from all this the way I decipher the message that we need to be
> more inclusive:
> 


As it’s been said, this is around a discussion to define community networks, being around for so many years, but there are many other models in GAIA. No need to overload the term. But definitely it will be great to report on other examples, and also about promising new ideas, to have a board basis on how to fulfil the aims expressed in GAIA.

> Community networks are networks that are
> 
> 1/decentralised and formed because the traditional network operator
> has failed to provide coverage through equipment deployment and/or
> failed to provide affordable services to a community.

Failure is not a prerequisite, diversity can be nice, less risky and more sustainable / resilient. 
Sometimes CN emerge because people like to have alternatives for many reasons. Decentralisation is the result of being participatory and have defined rules.

> 2/locally owned within the community with community members directly
> contributing to active network infrastructure to extend then network
> and having some form of organisational control
Local ownership can be a form of openness for participation (for profit or not). In my opinion that is key for local development, sustainability, resilience.

> 3/Or owned by an entity that is not the traditional network operator
> that has specific interests in supporting the community either for
> profit or non-profit
Not sure what ownership means here. If I am free to extend the network from my home and I buy the devices, I feel I own my network segment, as part of the community :-)

> 4/Can be both wired and/or wireless.
Sure, affordable technology and open regulations: + open spectrum in wireless, and "open trenches” or pipes in wired, lower the barrier of participation and growth.

> 
> Does that sound right? I am not sure what Leandro thinks of point (3) :).
My conclusions about the discussion is that the most relevant aspect of the community networks that I know is their effectiveness in enhancing and extending digital Internet rights following a participatory model.

a) are local network/communications infrastructures (can expand to new locations, can create alternatives in places already served).

b) follow an open participatory model that define the rules of the community for extension, operation (like net neutrality define the common/public carrier model, community licences define rules for expanding the network and peering) and decision making in general. In an equivalent context: the rules of a democracy with citizens, compared to a closed business with consumers. This does not impose or exclude profit or business (think about Libre software, also participatory and with licenses).

c) as network infrastructure can provide services: can interconnect to the Internet (IP everywhere), and provide other services, such as Web, VOIP (voice everywhere), storage, (local) content distribution, sensors, etc.


For me (a) differentiates community networks (anyone can start creating digital infrastructures expanding the geographic coverage, with the potential of reaching anywhere) from community-provided Internet access (from the personal perspective of sharing access, e.g. via open WiFi, to existing infrastructure to find more open Internet service opportunities for people around) (local network construction, vs sharing wireless Internet access).

a) and b) lead to the model of commons infrastructure and its rules or community license (tacit or explicit) that defines an open participation model (anyone, including commercial entities, can start or join under rules defined by the community itself. This can be called a market, as profit and fees are not excluded). That’s why they're also called "bottom-up networks".

Services in c) show the difference between Internet access (a service) and the local network infrastructure (a pre-requisite, that can be satisfied in many ways), although could also come together.


Therefore community networks are about cooperative/participatory developments of network infrastructure (can be a good business opportunity too). Comparably with FOSS (Libre sw), anyone can start one, the model does not exclude participation from any person or business as long as it follows the community license. As with FOSS, CN are complementary to other development and usage models.

As Dirk said, the separation may seem odd when you just use the service, but the real fun is in the participation on the construction, operation, governance :-)
As Rohan said, there is more to GAIA than community networks :-)

One difficulty in this discussion (as several participants point out) is that we are combining:

- technologies relevant to GAIA (wireless, fibre, mesh, balloons, satellites, pigeons, uav), 

- regulation models relevant to GAIA (e.g. open spectrum, ISP regs), (As Steve mentioned)

- organisational or governance models (open communities, hierarchies, markets) 

All this can be combined in many ways to achieve sustainable socio-economic profit, and ensure everyone has a chance/right to be part of the digital world.The resulting specific instances have their own names and can be grouped under terms such as community networks, open wifi services, user-extensible services, traditional local ISP, new global ISP. This discussion and the GAIA work will definitely help to clarify this much better. 

Thanks Arjuna and everyone in GAIA for this effort.

Leandro.
> 
> 
> Arjuna
> 
> On 18 June 2014 15:25, Jose Saldana <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> We have a first question. We had some doubts about this: should we include in the draft Networks in which Wi-Fi is shared by individuals, but they are in fact managed by a company (e.g. FON)?
>> 
>>>>   There exist other networks, also based on sharing wireless resources
>>>>   of the users, but not built upon the initiative of the users
>>>>   themselves, nor owned by them.  The characterization of these
>>>>   networks is not the objective of this document.
>> 
>> As you may see, in the current version they are not included, but we have some doubts...
>> 
>> Jose
>> 
>>> -----Mensaje original-----
>>> De: gaia [mailto:[e-mail]] En nombre de Jose Saldana
>>> Enviado el: miércoles, 18 de junio de 2014 16:21
>>> Para: [e-mail]
>>> Asunto: [gaia] An Internet Draft about Community Networks
>>> 
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> After some weeks, we have been able to build an Internet Draft about Community
>>> Networks. At this stage we would like to hear the feedback from people in the list.
>>> 
>>> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-manyfolks-gaia-community-networks/
>>> 
>>> Best regards,
>>> 
>>> Jose
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> -----Mensaje original-----
>>>> De: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] Enviado
>>>> el: miércoles, 18 de junio de 2014 16:18
>>>> Para: Carlos Rey-Moreno; Leandro Navarro; Carlos Rey-Moreno; Andres
>>>> Arcia- Moret; Marco Zennaro; Arjuna Sathiaseelan; Arjuna Sathiaseelan;
>>>> Bart Braem; Leandro Navarro; Bart Braem; Jose Saldana; Ermanno
>>>> Pietrosemoli; Ermanno Pietrosemoli; Jose Saldana; Marco Zennaro;
>>>> Andres Arcia-Moret
>>>> Asunto: New Version Notification for
>>>> draft-manyfolks-gaia-community-networks-
>>>> 00.txt
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> A new version of I-D, draft-manyfolks-gaia-community-networks-00.txt
>>>> has been successfully submitted by Jose Saldana and posted to the IETF
>>>> repository.
>>>> 
>>>> Name:               draft-manyfolks-gaia-community-networks
>>>> Revision:   00
>>>> Title:              Community Networks. Definition and taxonomy
>>>> Document date:      2014-06-18
>>>> Group:              Individual Submission
>>>> Pages:              23
>>>> URL:            http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-manyfolks-gaia-community-
>>>> networks-00.txt
>>>> Status:         https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-manyfolks-gaia-community-
>>>> networks/
>>>> Htmlized:       http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-manyfolks-gaia-community-networks-
>>> 00
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Abstract:
>>>>   Several communities have developed initiatives to build large scale,
>>>>   self-organized and decentralized community wireless networks that use
>>>>   wireless technologies (including long distance) due to the reduced
>>>>   cost of using the unlicensed spectrum.  This can be motivated by
>>>>   different causes: Sometimes the reluctance, or the impossibility, of
>>>>   network operators to provide wired and cellular infrastructures to
>>>>   rural/remote areas has motivated the rise of these networks.  Some
>>>>   other times, they are built as a complement and an alternative to
>>>>   wired Internet access.
>>>> 
>>>>   These community wireless networks have self sustainable business
>>>>   models that provide more localised communication services as well as
>>>>   providing Internet backhaul support through peering agreements with
>>>>   traditional network operators who see such community led networks as
>>>>   a way to extend their reach to rural/remote areas at lower cost.
>>>> 
>>>>   This document defines these networks, summarizes their technological
>>>>   characteristics and classifies them, also talking about their socio-
>>>>   economic sustainability models.
>>>> 
>>>>   There exist other networks, also based on sharing wireless resources
>>>>   of the users, but not built upon the initiative of the users
>>>>   themselves, nor owned by them.  The characterization of these
>>>>   networks is not the objective of this document.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Please note that it may take a couple of minutes from the time of
>>>> submission until the htmlized version and diff are available at tools.ietf.org.
>>>> 
>>>> The IETF Secretariat
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> gaia mailing list
>>> [e-mail]
>>> https://irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/gaia
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> gaia mailing list
>> [e-mail]
>> https://irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/gaia
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Arjuna Sathiaseelan | http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gaia mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/gaia

--
Leandro Navarro
http://people.ac.upc.edu/leandro	 http://dsg.ac.upc.edu