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

[Carlos Rey-Moreno <[e-mail]>]

Hi all, this conversation is very interesting indeed.

As Rohan, I disagree with the community members having to actively
contribute to the infrastructure. In the community network I am assisting
to build up in rural South Africa
<http://villagetelco.org/deployments/nyandeni-south-africa/>, the
"community" has been there way long before the network was conceived.
However, its members due to the lack of electricity and economic resources,
among other social constraints, can not easily contribute to the
infrastructure. In this scenario, we expect these members to contribute
highly to the financial sustainability of the network by using it via
public access set-ups, hotspots or public phones, etc. Furthermore, these
users are actively involved in the decision making of the network
(organized as non-profit cooperative, for the sake of being able to do this
legally as Steve pointed out, where all users are cooperative members).

Roger's definition of ownership might also be a point of dissent. Being an
externally initiated initiative, those hosting the APs that build the
infrastructure do not own them, they were just selected by the community to
do so. In the event of using other external grants (public of private, as
it is been the case of all documented community networks in rural areas of
developing countries) the ownership model in these scenarios might be
different than in most places where community networks have thrilled.
However, different licences can accommodate different scenarios and
ownership models. As in guifi.net, the licence (in our case not written
anywhere due to the oral tradition here) has been key for the social
consolidation of this initiative, as it keeps everyone on the same level of
understanding.

Although I agree with the comment about "Internet access is a service and
not every community network necessarily includes Internet access.", then
other alternatives as community cellular networks should be mentioned here
(I didn't include them initially because of the internet service
requirement). However, although I see two OpenBTS being connected to each
other to increase service coverage and meet the requirement of network
extensibility, this is very unlikely to be done by a single user alone due
to the cost requirements, and so reinforcing my points above about
community ownership and usage, rather than based on the individuals.

I also wanted to clarify what I meant by non-profit, which is a concept
that is sometimes misunderstood. A non-profit can generate profit to keep
the services operational, the difference is that the surplus must be
reinvested in the goals of the non-profit instead of going to generate
profit for the investors. That way we have articulated our initiative, so
people working on providing and maintaining the services can be paid, but
if there is surplus on top of it, its reinvested in community development
projects (being extending the network and its services a potential one).
Although this is a WiP, I tend to see this type of entity having more
developmental return into the community and their social structures, in
terms of resilience, for instance, than the local entrepreneurship model.
But again, this is not and either or, and different models should be used
in different contexts depending on what the community members decide.

Hope it helps showing a different perspective to the discussion.

carlos


On 21 June 2014 14:05, Leandro Navarro <[e-mail]> wrote:

> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> gaia mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/gaia
>



-- 
Carlos Rey-Moreno
Research Assistant
Office 1.28
Department of Computer Science
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17 - Bellville, 7535
Cape Town - South Africa
Tel: [phone] Cel: [phone]
Skype: carlos.reymoreno Twitter: Creym