[afren] Fwd: Fw: The real and looming digital divide

Fri May 23 11:00:42 UTC 2008

Some interesting thoughts from Alex Twino.
B.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alex Twino <atwino at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, May 23, 2008 at 10:50 AM
Subject: Fw: The real and looming digital divide
To: Boubakar Barry <barry at aau.org>

 Hi Barry,
I hope you are doing well. I tried sending this message through to Afren but
it didnt come through for some reason. Did you get it? If not, you might
want to send it out to interested colleagues. If it did come through, you
can just ignore this message.

regards,

Alex

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Alex Twino <atwino at yahoo.com>
To: afren at afnog.org
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 8:31:12 AM
Subject: The real and looming digital divide

 Hello colleagues,

I want to share my thoughts on two issues that could spell doom for the
Internet in developing countries and especially Africa : Geolocation and Net
Neutrality. While these technologies could be beneficial, they also pose
some dangers more so to the less developed world.

Geolocation refers to the identification of a user's geographical location
typically by IP address. While geolocation has some important applications
such as the ability to offer localized content and targeted advertisement,
it also has some privacy issues as well as some limitation of freedom
issues. With geolocation, companies and governments can block access to
content and applications based on the users' geographical location. I am
already a victim of geolocation- I have found that I can not conduct some
transactions online (using my credit card) depending on whether I am
connecting from Africa or from Europe/USA. It seems some companies are
refusing to verify my credit card if the IP address from which I am
accessing the website is not in the same geographical area as my credit card
billing address or the address in the bank's records. While this could
protect my credit card in the event of theft, it is actually stupid when you
think about it. Any crook worth his salt will simply use my credit card from
the "right location". And it is generally a very big inconvenience to me
given that I am constantly on the move. But even this inconvenience is small
potatoes given what the wider implications are. It is not alarmist to
consider that some people (most likely from developing countries) could be
completely cut off from some content and applications on the Internet simply
because they are from the "wrong region". While the digital divide has been
an issue of access or the lack thereof- focused on simply getting a
connection, the issue will soon become one of restricted access to content.

As I write this, I muse about some of the reasons the Internet is glorified-
it makes the world one global virtual village. I don't need a "visa" to
participate in this global village or to visit San Francisco or Peking- I
can do all this virtually. If we are not carefully, we will soon wake up to
a world where we need virtual visas to visit and participate in the global
virtual village just as we need visas to physically visit the some
countries.  Forget the current digital divide- say hello to the real and
looming digital divide. If you think this is fantasy, consider the other
technology that is about to reinforce this digital divide: net neutrality.

Net neutrality refers to the open and free nature of the Internet: that
users once connected to the Internet should be free to choose what content
and applications they view or interact with. At the heart of this debate is
the issue that telecom carriers would like to discriminate against certain
traffic or prioritize certain traffic on their networks. Of course, it is
easy to see that the telecom companies seek to make money from some of the
most successful content companies like Amazon and Google. Why should this be
a big issue for developing countries? Well, it is a big issue because most
of the content and applications on the Internet are hosted in the more
developed world. If certain traffic on the Internet is discriminated, then
it is easy to imagine that part of the discriminated traffic will be that of
people who are not direct customers of the western world telecom companies.
In other words, a US based telecom company would provide priority for
traffic from users and companies who pay it directly.  Suddenly, users in
the developing world would have to pay for physical connection as well as an
extra premium depending on which content/ applications they would wish to
view. Billing might become distance dependant, just like phone calls were in
the bad old days! Even more important, entrepreneurs in developing countries
who create their own content and applications would have a harder time
making this content available to a global audience.

Combine geolocation and a discriminated Internet and you can see who the
real losers i.e. those discriminated against, will be. The developing world
must therefore be attuned to this looming danger. And the academic and
research community will be a real loser if all this comes to pass. It
becomes imperative that the academic and research community takes the lead
in educating their governments about the dangers posed by the issues of net
neutrality and geolocation. Developing countries need to double or triple
their efforts to build their own national and regional networks and to
create their own content. We should reduce our dependence on content and
applications from the more developed world and seek to become an equal
player in the global village. I personally believe that local, national and
regional bandwidth is more important for the advancement of developing
countries than International bandwidth is (a controversial stand that has
generated interesting debate with some of you). International bandwidth is
still important to connect and participate in the global village but
emphasis should not solely lie on international connectivity as, among other
things, this will simply reinforce the current situation where developing
countries are net importers of data (and therefore more prone to
discrimination on the Internet).

It also becomes imperative that the academic and research community in the
developing countries build their research and education networks and connect
these to the other global research and educations networks  and reduce their
dependency on the commercial Internet for education and research.  Indeed
while these new technologies pose a threat to the developing world, they
should also be a trigger for developing countries to take more concrete
action in developing their own infrastructure. And the REN community must
make this case.

I hope that at the next few conferences and workshops (Afrinic and Afnog
come to mind), we can begin to discuss the implications of new technologies
and tools that could potential

Best regards,

Alex
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