View Martha Fuentes-Bautista and Alison Powell
Presenters: Martha Fuentes-Bautista and Alison Powell
“How to Infrastructure the Digital Transformation”
Rapporteur: Sarah Copeland
Martha Fuentes-Bautista:
Martha began by phrasing her research as asking how we as activists and scholars use networks, as participants of a networked society. Fostering engagement through expansion of communicative competencies of citizens is key.
Austin is considered a ‘Techno-City’ and is seen to be thriving, and so Martha began by mapping the public Internet access. As the wealth of the digital industry is growing, the poverty is also growing, but at a disproportional rate to the national average. When mapped geographically, Highway 35 acts almost as a barrier between the wealthy areas with digital access, and the poorer communities with less or none.
A cultural mapping project was run over time, with interviews conducted and archived, carried out by activists placed at community centres.
Martha reviewed the chronological history of Public Access TV, who sought to open access, and internet connectivity in the area, charting the failures. In 2003, community WiFi gave citizens access to WiFi hotspots, and 5 years later, an Access TV revival has been seen through the Digital Community Access Centre.
When the Access TV community broadcasting group was initially assessing their distribution, they did not recognise a requirements match with PC technology. They viewed computers as word processors and spreadsheet tools, and not as a platform for empowering speech; they were not aligned with their TV mission.
Public Access computers were never placed in public access points, instead they were only available in Public Libraries. Libraries are not seen as open or inviting places to many citizens.
Numbers of Public Access centres started dropping dramatically when state funding for community network projects under the Bush administration was shut down.
There are different ways of engaging through networks. Partnerships are one such example. Resources are required to help look for future funding projects, and engagement with the Academy is important.
Anecdotally, the best success was encapsulated in a Jamaican community centre, where one unobtrusive open access PC had more use than the official open access machines available in the library.
The balance altered in 2003 when the public WiFi spots were opened with the “Keep WiFi Free” campaign, 74% access opened in the city.
The city was convinced WiFi was a viable option, but the growth largely happened to the West of the highway around the commercial zones.
After analysis, it emerged that data sets and usage increased in the city, but predominantly in the white areas of the city. Access TV also made a comeback, as the popularity of video-sharing technology grew. It became clear that there were more new producers coming from the economically challenged areas of the city, with more ethnic diversity seen as well.
Some community groups were using technologies such as YouTube, but unhappy with the copyright issues. A focus group investigating mix of technologies concluded to use a blend of open and public access platforms to distribute material. The digital divide is at the centre of a desire to encourage a network to impart the emerging technologies, but it is felt that the gaps are not currently being closed.
Martha concluded that the continuing strategy must be to use the network in meaningful ways.
Alison Powell:
Alison was interested in researching the future of the internet, from the bottom-up. She was particularly interested in autonomous infrastructures, and was approached by Ile Sans Fe, a community WiFi advocate, which gave her a case study to investigate.
This group intended to create WiFi access to the citizens of Montreal that could be accessed in places of their own choice, rather than through top-down policies. And even though the project started with desired access levels, soon more people were required to be bought into the team.
Over 6 years, the initially autonomous community organisation gathered energy and grew. In 2007 the City asked for a municipal wireless network. The volunteer network with over 200 access points was noticed and a Public Community Partnership was formed. The City allowed the volunteers to continue with their mission to add software, check up on and create new hotspots. In exchange, the network size tripled on municipal property. Nothing has happened since.
The second case study that Alison introduced was the town of Frederickton in New Brunswick, Fred eZone.
The city installed a fibre loop underneath in 2004 in a drive to re-brand themselves as a digital regional hub. They offered a free WiFi network and framed it as a public service.
The third case study discussed was Freifunk in Berlin. This is a mesh network, where every node can receive and transmit data. This is considered more radical, but has clear benefits of coverage.
No connectivity was extended to East Berlin after reunification, so hackers built a dynamic mesh network for subscription. The more subscribers, the faster and more reliable the network is.
This intranet was a valuable resource to subscribers. It ran open applications and was highly innovative. As subscriptions grew, Deutsche Telecom realised the commercial benefit and dropped their own subscription costs, this of course led to a reduction in Freifunk subscribers.
Alison went on to mention several European case studies with their own successes.
A similar project was created in the Djursland area of Denmark. This network has become the main ISP, and members voted to retain their independent co-operative status when a larger ISP attempted to buy them.
In Catalonia, a neutral mesh network extends through a string of villages. Businesses can now operate locally where before it would not have been possible. More bandwidth is available to this network and is better than Barcelona, Barcelona is responding by emulating Catalonia’s model.
In Athens, an ultra high speed parallel network is available stretching out to the surrounding islands. Satellite dishes are located on mountains and tall buildings. The network users were soon observed setting up movie-sharing sites and trading porn, as examples of the variety of services that arise from bottom-up innovation.
Alison reintroduced the questions of access, public interest and autonomy and explained that there will always be gains and losses from hybrid organisations using the internet. Alison then asked us to consider if there is a bottom to the cloud. She questioned if a lack of visibility of an independent infrastructure adds to the success, perhaps due to a cult status.
WiFi is still comparatively new, and has not yet fallen into the background. Code is now law.
Alison talked about the fallacy of autonomous infrastructure. Organisations cannot remain completely autonomous once they grow, as success requires management. However, she concluded with one successful example of the world’s first volunteer network. A coin operated network was founded in Berkeley in 1972 and lasted for 20 years.
If anyone is interested in learning more about community network case studies in developing countries, please see the Journal of Community Informatics found at http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej