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

Sat May 24 09:17:14 UTC 2008

Alex thanks for this good food for thought. I strongly believe we need to keep emphasising the need for REN in this part of the world

Ebi

Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 11:00:42 +0000From: barry at aau.orgTo: afren at afnog.orgSubject: [afren] Fwd: Fw: The real and looming digital divide
Some interesting thoughts from Alex Twino.
B.
---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Alex Twino <atwino at yahoo.com>Date: Fri, May 23, 2008 at 10:50 AMSubject: Fw: The real and looming digital divideTo: 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.orgSent: Friday, May 16, 2008 8:31:12 AMSubject: 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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