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>>> As for the development of commercial alternatives for Internet
>>> connectivity, I agree with you about the advantages that present,
>>> however, I am also convinced that could be a threaten for the vitality of
>>> research and NGO networking if they do not get organized soon
>>> enough to be a valid partner. (wrote Daniel Pimienta)
>> Do others share this fear? (asked Larry Press)

Randy Bush answers:
>NGOs running networks are as critical to the development of society as NGOs
>running telephone companies, elcecto power, ... I.e. not.
>This is a discussion I have had with Steve Fram for many years. What NGOs
>have to offer the world is social content, not wires. Spend to much energy
>on wires and an NGO will forget content and become socially irrelevant.
>Stick to content, hammer it home, and let whoever wants to run the wires,
>and you can effect social change.

1) I agree with you in principle that the real objective is content, providing that the price level is affordable by the "social oriented" users. Now, there are a lot of obstacles or barreers between the potential users and the plugs (price, awareness, easyness to use...) which in turn convert into opportunities to help these users into the net (negociation skill, funding, sensitizing, training, federating, organizing...). This is why I insist that the measurement of the success is rather the number of users made active that any other technical performance (ports, channels speed, subscribed users or whatever...).

2) However, and my unperfect english could be the cause, by

>Modulo that, if there are no wires, an NGO may be appropriate to start them.
>Similarly, you may have to run your printing press on self-generated
>electricity; but one hopes not for long. But deciding to make it a
>principal part of their mission is analogous to needing shoes so running a
>footware company.
Years ago we have been telling our colleagues creating or administrating research networks that in the long term, if and when the price will drop and the service level arise, they should forget about physical connectivity and concentrate in "user connectivity" (diseminating, training, content).

The case of REDID is a demostration of that principle: there have been so far no tecnical infrastructure belonging to the members of the net. Only an agreement started in 1992 and still lasting which allow them to get free use of the commercial facility of a telecom operator (at that time in was a must that the gatewaying into the Internet would be via an homologous research net, nowaday that would not even be necessary). The goal if the NGO or research net IS NOT TO RUN A NET, it is to allow an affordable access to the new information technologies, and across that to get organized to perform social change.

I may have shared your point about APC 2 years ago, my impression now is that they are doing a good job in switching their priority into content since connectivity is less and less the main obstacle.

To come back to the "fear": if the NGO or research community is not organized it will not be in a situation to negociate affordable tariff with the commercial providers. You could answer: "and so what, if the general price is affordable?" Even though, there is something more at stake: the keeping of the community which originated the net as a coherent and driving force so to maintain the net culture and impact. If there were a unique objective now for these community, it would be to create local information bases, and if the Web/Gopher/Wais/whatever is run in a commercial node, this is not the point, if and only if this is "accesible" to them (in terms of price, knowhow, organisation, institution).

I get very upset when I listen or read the "official history" of the Internet almost everywhere, based uniquely on the history of the TCP-IP protocole. No! More than the protocole, the network is the result of the history of men and women who create a new culture where free information exchange is the key. This trend to tell the story by only the technical side is amplifying the fear since it tends to erase the social and human movement which have driven the evolution (in that sense, the BITNET chart -the chart not the protocole!- is far more important than TCP-IP).

Back to the Caribbean, what is the situation? In the Dominican Rep. we have managed so far to convince the telecom operators that our market segment is not for profit. They understand that there is an opportunity of mutual benefit if they treat us with free access. I am listening echoes from other islands of expensive prices and unwillingness to cooperate. In that perpective, you can understand what we mean by organizing the users. In terms of social weight, an old rotten bus full of people singing together is better than few guys in a sport car cruising. This is why I consider that the Cuban experience, with all its drawbacks, is probably the most powerful in the region and that REDID has definitively something to share with its brother networks.

Daniel Pimienta
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