'The Internet of Elsewhere' works for countries - how about communities?

After I heard an interview with Cyrus Farivar on CBC radio, I read his book "Internet of Elsewhere" to better understand how the Internet has developed in four countries besides Canada. Farivar’s book describes how the Internet has emerged in four different countries and settings: South Korea, Senegal, Estonia and Iran.This book was an interesting and informative read and did a great job of illustrating how geography, culture, economy and politics all impact the development of Internet in a given location. The main points I took away from this book are that the development  and more importantly the application of the Internet is shaped by its locale and context. Different Countries = Different Internet Profiles

Farivar demonstrates that the Internet has developed and been applied in very distinct ways in each of the four countries he examines, and it stands to reason that the same is true for other locations as well. These conclusions provide some interesting and important findings for Internet development in rural Manitoba and rural Canada. Within, the development field, participant input and context is essential for development work and will result in unique projects specific to a community or group. It should be as no surprise that the development of the Internet within a community exhibits similar traits.

Farivar describes more than 15 years of Internet development in South Korea, Senegal, Estonia and Iran; and the levels that have been achieved in each of these countries varies dramatically. While the differences in Internet infrastructure and adoption between the more and less developed countries in Farivar’s writings are eye opening, perhaps most informative is the different paths taken between South Korea and Estonia, two developed countries that have successfully reinvented themselves with the use of Internet and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Ranked 2nd and 33rd for ICT in the world respectively by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), South Korea and Estonia are espoused as leaders in ICT infrastructure and adoption. While the ITU identifies strong ICT access, skill and use in both countries, Farivar illustrates that the Internet is being used very differently in each country.

South Korea is a world leader in mobile phone connectivity and has the world’s premiere professional online gaming league. Estonia on the other hand is a pioneer in e-governance and electronic citizenship along with being a leader in offering free wifi to residents and tourists alike.

These countries are amongst the world leaders in ICT and Internet, but they have arrived there via different roads and their citizens have adopted the technology in different ways, creating unique Internet profiles or footprints.

Different Communities = Different Internet Reality
Applying Farivar’s conclusions, to develop effective connectivity and adaptation of the Internet in rural communities, it is necessary to understand the the community and its users. Understanding community characteristics and working with community residents to determine how they might use the Internet helps to increase the effectiveness of Internet infrastructure, skills and applications.   

When I worked at Function Four Ltd., I helped to develop an ICT assessment tool called the E-Index that measured infrastructure, affordability, skills, and utilization which I also describe here. When initially applied in 2004 to rural Manitoba communities, it revealed that levels of ICT varied significantly. Amongst the differences, some were not surprising, as in the case of ICT infrastructure - the number of computers, mobile phones and level of connectivity in southern communities near Winnipeg were higher than their more remote counterparts in northern Manitoba.

However, the E-Index also revealed that many northern communities had higher usage rates than their better connected neighbours to the south. Highlighted in both E-Index reports and in my Master’s thesis,  follow up discussions in the community of Misipawistick Cree Nation (MCN), revealed that households with computers in northern communities often had a lineup of people waiting to use computers. In 2004, this created the surprising reality where a community in which less than a ⅓ of households had computers, more than ⅔ of residents were using computers regularly.

MCN’s E-Index profile in 2004 is one of my favourite examples of how the Internet can be adopted so differently in communities. On one hand the E-Index revealed that this northern community had lower infrastructure and poorer affordability than its southern neighbours but in spite of this challenge, the residents of MCN still had had higher usage rates than many of the southern communities.

The purpose of this example is to demonstrate that differences in ICT exist at a community level as well as at a national level. In some cases, the differences might be as large and as surprising as they were for MCN in 2004. In other cases, it might be a situation where community A offers free wifi throughout the community while community B doesn’t have free wifi but offers free computer training. Each of these unique characteristics of community infrastructure, skills and applications impact the reality of Internet in those communities and differentiate them from their neighbours.

While communities side by side may appear to have similar Internet histories and characteristics, the realities of Internet in each community is different. Communities have different strategic plans and visions, how about digital strategies?

Unfortunately digital planning in many rural communities stops with achieving general connectivity, while communities should be developing specific digital plans that meets their infrastructure, skill and application goals. Do you know of any examples of rural communities having tailored digital strategies or plans?


Sources:
http://internetofelsewhere.com/
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/index.html
http://functionfour.com/about/
Kelly (2008). Knowledge Planning, Community Development in the Knowledge-Based Economy. Thesis, Brandon University, Brandon.

Want a good return on your money? Try investing in Highspeed Rural Internet

Photo courtesy of mikeleeorg (flikr)

Why invest in rural broadband? What is the benefit of hooking up small rural communities? These are common questions when working in the field of rural Internet. While there are a wide range of important benefits from the Internet for rural communities, its the economic benefits and perceived lack thereof for rural broadband that drives most conversations. 

Ingredients for e-ready communities

How do you describe the importance of the Internet? How about its potential for communities? That is a question I continue to try and answer after more than 10 years of working in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and rural development. Studies are beginning to calculate its impact with some results indicating that the Internet is responsible for 21% of economic growth in developed nations. Additionally, a study from the World Bank determines that every10% point increase in penetration of ICTs can impact economic growth by up to 1.4% for developing countries.

Unfortunately, in attempts to explain the Internet and its importance, it often comes across as a magic bullet that is going to solve all of the community’s problems (something I'm guilty of on occasion). The natural reaction to this is a “Build it and they will come” approach by community decision makers and governments. Many groups work hard to set up Internet infrastructure and access in a community and then hope for change.

Regrettably, the Internet is not a magic bullet and to fully realize its benefits, communities need to do more than just build ICT infrastructure. While building ICT infrastructure is a critical first step, successful adoption also requires building digital skills, and most importantly, it requires people actively using the Internet.

In 2001, I travelled to a northern community in Canada to help update the software on their community access site only to discover the computer for the access site was still in the original boxes. The local organization that had agreed to host the access site was very appreciative of the computer, but explained matter of fact that they had no idea how to set up the computer, and so it had remained in the box for six months until I arrived.

More than 10 years later, the lesson learned from this experience still holds true, setting communities up with computers and Internet is not the only or final step in unleashing the potential of the Internet for our rural communities. E-Ready communities are those communities that are able to take full advantage of the information society. In my master’s thesis on knowledge planning, I defined an e-ready community as “a community that provides its residents, businesses and organizations with the necessary tools and environment to be successful in the new knowledge-based world” (Kelly, pg 14).

 As the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) describes, it is the combination of ICT skills and ICT access which enables the use of ICT and the Internet. In turn, it is using technology that results in communities taking full advantage of the information society. Another ICT assessment is built on this model, but Function Four Ltd.’s E-Index focuses on community level rather than national level measurements of infrastructure, skills and use.  

Communities that want to effectively participate in the information society, to become e-communities need to address each of these steps of infrastructure, skills and use to fully realize the benefits of ICT. The ITU and the E-Index provide some examples of how to determine progress towards effective engagement in the information society with the ITU focusing on country measurements while the E-Index concentrates at a community level.

Figure 1 ITU Measuring the Information Society 2011

Infrastructure and access

The ITU describes ICT infrastructure and access as the presence and availability of computers, cell phones, fixed phone lines and Internet within a community. While the ITU measures fixed phone lines, it acknowledges that they are becoming less and less important for accessing the Internet and may be removed from infrastructure measurements in the future. The E-Index, a community ICT Index that builds locally on the ITU’s efforts, factors in the presence of more traditional ICTs such as radios and televisions to create an overall measure of ICT infrastructure and access.

Infrastructure and access are often measured by ratios of ICT per 100 people to provide a comparable benchmark between ICTs and between geographies. This type of measurement also provides helpful context for understanding the importance and role of ICTs; for example the country of Taiwan has the highest rate of mobile phones per capita in the world with more than 100 mobile phones per 100 people meaning that many people have multiple phones.

Communities wanting to participate more in the information society need to determine which ICTs are the most beneficial for them and focus on measuring the level of those ICTs. Access becomes an issue when certain groups or parts of the community have unequal access to those ICTs due to issues of cost, control or availability. Recent data shows that in the US, only 46% of the poorest households have broadband access in the home – that figure jumps to 80% in houses with more than $50,000 in household income and to 96% for the wealthiest households.

Skills

ICT skills are also referred to as digital literacy or capacity, typically referring to the ability to use computers and the Internet. While ideally measured through surveys or even testing, the ITU and other agencies often use education enrollments as proxies for ICT skills, measuring capacity through enrollment rates in secondary and tertiary education. The E-Index uses a tiered skill tree for each ICT grouping skills into level of difficulty and measuring survey participant

Communities are better situated to use surveys and even training requests as indicators of ICT skills. Determining the level of comfort and expertise with ICTs locally is an important step in helping to increase and encourage ICT use.

Use

Using ICTs is the only way for a community to benefit from them and to move towards becoming e-communities. Computers, cell phones and the Internet provide the main opportunities for community use. As a result, the ITU focuses its measurements on these technologies, tallying broadband and cellphone subscriptions as their main indicators of use. The E-Index on the other hand focuses on individual time use of technology to help determine a community’s ICT use profile.

Its important for communities to understand current use patterns in their community before trying to focus efforts on a specific ICT or outcome. Is the community strongly engaged in social media or are the majority of residents focused on productivity uses such as word processors and spreadsheets. Once communities know where they are currently in terms of ICT use, it’s much easier to determine and plan for new goals.

The first step in any recipe is to make sure you have the all the ingredients, and both the ITU and E-Index have identified that the necessary ingredients for engagement in the information society are ICT infrastructure, skills and use. Providing Computers and broadband alone will not create e-ready communities, but it is an important step, and the first step in the recipe for creating communities engaged in the information society. 

Sources:

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/index.html

http://functionfour.com/about/

http://mashable.com/2012/02/05/digital-divide-infographic/

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTINFORMATIONANDCOMMUNICATIONANDTECHNOLOGIES/Resources/282822-1208273252769/Building_broadband.pdf

Kelly (2008). Knowledge Planning, Community Development in the Knowledge-Based Economy. Thesis, Brandon University, Brandon. 

Playing catch-up: putting rural ICT in perspective

The more I explore and practice rural development, the more I am convinced that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a core pillar of development for rural areas, not only creating new opportunities for rural communities but necessary in able to keep pace and participate in the increasingly Internet and knowledge-based economy. As I research ICT in rural Manitoba, I’m always trying to data sources that help put the quality of Internet access in perspective for rural areas. Recently, I came across a fantastic resource for benchmarking and comparing rural Internet access and speeds, Ookla’s Net Index.

The Net Index is a real time, comprehensive assessment of broadband speed and value. Populated by the popular Speedtest.net and Pingtest.net Internet testing sites, Net Index provides results for download speeds, upload speeds, broadband costs and even explores the difference between promised speeds and actual speeds. Understanding the different aspects and speed levels of Internet access creates a much more informed discussion around rural Internet

In addition to its detailed measures for Internet speed, Net Index also creates a comprehensive geographical profile as well with results available and comparable between city and province, and from national to international. While it does not let rural Manitobans identify their specific towns, villages or locations, it does provide detailed results for the province as a whole as well as the urban centres, allowing more specific and localized comparisons than most broadband metrics and repots. While it does not capture use or capacity and does not yet provide results for small, rural areas, Net Index establishes an important benchmarking and comparison tool for Internet speed and value.

Using Net Index then, we are able to create a detailed overview of Internet access in Manitoba and Canada. For a rural context, it is worth remembering that Canada has not established a new target for rural Internet access and that it currently sits at 1.5Mbps, well below global averages and comparable to many developing countries. The results below provide Winnipeg, Manitoba and Canada Internet levels along with comparisons to global averages and leaders, creating clear targets and comparisons for rural communities and residents.

The results illustrate that Canada has average Internet access overall, but is well behind global leaders, especially in upload speeds. Additionally Manitoba is slightly below the Canadian average in every category. Finally, Winnipeg is above the provincial average in every category and above the national average in all but one category. 

Internet Download Speed

• Global average = 9.88 Mbps (Global Leader: Estonia = 55.61 Mbps
• Canada average = 12.29 Mbps (Global ranking = 33^rd)
• Manitoba average = 11.27 Mbps
• Winnipeg average = 13.61 Mbps 

Internet Upload Speed

• Global Average = 3.71 Mbps (Global Leader: South Korea = 27.65 Mbps)
• Canada Average = 1.82 Mbps (Global ranking = 65^th)
• Manitoba Average = 1.60 Mbps
• Winnipeg Average = 1.81 Mbps

Internet Cost/Mbps

• Global average = $9.74 USD/Mbps (Global Leader: Bulgaria = $.64 USD/Mbps)
• Canada average = $5.86 USD per Mbps (Global ranking = 33^rd)
• Manitoba average = $5.66 USD per Mbps
• Winnipeg average = $4.39 USD per Mbps

Internet Promise Index – comparison between the promised Internet speeds and the actual results (100% would meant that actual speeds are equal to promised speeds)

• Global average = 86.28% (Global Leader: Slovakia = 100.76%)
• Canada average = 88.32% (Global ranking = 33^rd)
• Manitoba = 87.71%
• Winnipeg average = 87.85%

All data was provided by www.netindex.com on January 1, 2012 and covered a data range from July 2, 2009 to December 31, 2011.