The Fragility of Telecom Infrastructure in Brazil and What it Teaches us about Sustainability

Playing off of the class discussion on Tuesday that examined the appropriateness of telecom centers in developing countries, I decided too look into telecom centers in Latin America, and came across interesting discussion about the fragile state of Telecom Infrastructure in Brazil. In  “More Investment Needed to Boost Brazil’s Fragile Telecom Infrastructure” by Filipe Pacheco (http://bit.ly/118KWnc) from Nearshores America (, the Latin American Out Sourcing Authority, the author discusses the rise of the “C class” in Brazil. This term has been used lately to categorize the growing lower middle-income socioeconomic class, the group that is most largely responsible for the increasing economic growth in Brazil throughout the last decade. The article begins by interviewing Ana Maria Cruz de Souza as she hunts for a laptop for her daughter and tablet for her son. She says, “I don’t know how to use the laptop or what the tablet is all about. But the prices are good…” Ana Maria, among many other of her class, is the reason technology products are seeing such a huge rise in demand. I find the most interesting element of this shift in the socioeconomic paradigm to be the growing gap between generations and their understanding and dependence on communication technologies. Cable TV, pre-paid cell phones, and the internet are the three major services rising most rapidly in demand, and while today prices may remain low, allowing women like Ana Maria to continue to buy gifts for her family, a continued increase in demand, with out major growth in the supply of these technologies will result in inflation of prices and lead to a failure of the technology sectors.

Unfortunately, poor telecom infrastructure still hinders Brazil. Major improvement is needed in the sectors of broadband, mobile devices and mobile broadband. However as organization such as Brasscom, The Brazilian Association of Information Technology and Communication Companies, urge the government to offer incentives to telecom companies willing to invest in the development of broadband services, the already poor infrastructure is preventing the government from incentivizing more R&D in the field.

The lack of incentive to expand the telecom industry is what creates the fragility in the market, and without more attention can lead to severe economic back tracking. In ICT4D most emphasis is put on helping developing countries gain access to the technology, but I feel the situation reminds us that when implementing ICT development issues and questions of sustainability need to be at the forefront of planning.

 

Video on the Role of Mobile Technology in Achieving MDGs

Click Here for a Youtube Video on the Role of Mobile Technology in Achieving MDGs

Through our reading of Heeks we saw a critique of the role that ITs were playing in being able to achieve the Millenium Development Goals.  Konstantinos Tzingakis, working in development, makes many similar points to Heeks on what is occurring through the development world over the use of ITs. For instance, Heeks often mentioned the marginalization of ITs, and Tzingakis agrees, stating “The role of technologies is often underestimated.  The reality is technology is not necessarily a separate tool, as we’ve often referred to it as, but rather a means to achieve what we need to do.”

Also, Tzingakis answers some direct criticisms of the use of ITs in the MDGs, such as the question of whether the infrastructure and bureaucracy will allow for these ITs to make any meaningful contribution.  In my opinion, he does not adequately answer this question, and his view is very optimistic, claiming that broadband is spreading rapidly, and this should not be a big problem.  Rather, I believe a more reasonable argument is made in the Heeks reading, regarding the idea that we should not push ITs that there is no infrastructure for, but to use that technologies already adapted by the countries, and expand on them.

The Digital Divide in Our Backyard

The Google Fiber project came into Kansas City, Missouri with the hopes of implementing 1-gigabit broadband hookups for ultra-high-speed Internet into a major American city. This service, however, could only be set up if neighborhoods pre-registered a certain percentage of households. The service had an installation fee of $300, and after paying that amount, Kansas City residents received a guaranteed seven years of free broadband Internet service.

However, Google Fiber also brought a large controversy to Kansas City. The issue of the digital divide came into play; the first and most enthusiastic buyers of the service came from the most affluent neighborhoods, where residents could afford the installation fee. This brought back past attitudes, clearly displaying the city’s historical socioeconomic and racial dividing line. Residents of Kansas City argued that Google Fiber would actually increase the digital divide.

The clear digital divide between the affluent neighborhoods in Kansas City that pre-registered to gain Google Fiber and the less affluent neighborhoods with little to no internet access.

The Google Fiber YouTube video, “Together, we’re making Kansas City stronger,” states that with communication efforts such as radio, advertisements, and simply talking to neighbors all over the city, Google Fiber rallied 180 “fiberhoods.” They gathered a field team of 60 employees and advertised the service to face the problem head on. It turns out that Kansas City’s digital divide was worse than anyone had thought; there were no dial-up or broadband access in many areas. A substantial part of the community actually did not have any Internet access whatsoever. Google even set out to establish digital literacy programs in Kansas City.

Kansas City after Google Fiber stepped in to fix the divide.

While in our class discussions we talk more about the digital divide internationally, affecting more developing countries, the digital divide can even be seen in the United States. Now one of the major cities in the United States is now going a step farther to have better and wider Internet access and to hopefully bridge the gap. Can the digital divide in the United States be ameliorated?

Song, Connections, and the New Age of Cable Technologies

This week I decided to research the ICT developer to whom I was briefly introduced in the Raftree article and upon further discussion in class, Steve Song. From his bio it was apparent that he’s very active in the ICT world, like the rest of the developers we talked about. But I was curious to know exactly how, and considering his negative perspective of ICT development in Africa-the risks of depending on mobile phone usage and one producer that is working at the time, halting competition and thus new developments, cheaper price options, and newer companies-I was fascinated to read more about the projects in which he does believe and what he has to say about them in posts (of course he has a blog and a twitter), especially regarding Africa where he currently resides.

His latest post, written on March 5 and entitled Race for the South Atlantic: Which cable will be first to connect Africa with Brazil?, revealed interesting strides in the world of communication technologies with the introduction of three cable projects that I had never heard of before but are making a significant impact in the ICT world. The first of the three projects is called Express (SAEx) “which proposes to join Melkbosstrand, South Africa to Fortaleza, Brazil” with the use of an “undersea cable” subsidized by “Oi, the largest telecom company in Brazil” (Song).

The second is WASACE.  According to the blog, “WASACE is a massive project to connect the Americas with Africa and Europe…proposed to connect Melkbosstrand with Fortaleza but via Luanda and Lagos” (Song).

The last, Telebras, a Brazilian state-owned monopoly telco that was broken up in 1998, “has recently been resuscitated by the Brazilian government as the chief implementer of their National Broadband Plan” announcing the “signing of an with Angola Cables, a joint venture between the Angolan government through Angola Telecoms and a number of private operators” competing with the other two cable programs for the opportunity. (Song)

Each have their pros and cons, but what’s important to recognize is how far international development has come in that sense that instead of working in one country for development, with the use of ICTs, developers have been able to shift their focus to connect 2+ countries and continents and providing opportunities in this way. And Song has done an excellent job bringing not only the technology but these ideas to light.

Access to this post can be found here! Along with many previous posts.

World Bank has a 70% Failure Rate

This article discusses how developing nations  have rapidly been growing in terms of information and communication technologies, they are still seeing great problems in relation to high-speed internet access and broadband connectivity. In result, the World Bank has seen a 70% failure rate when it comes to ICT projects. Some of the ways that the World Bank has tried to recently promote ICT initiatives to better communication technologies in underdeveloped nations are through ICT sector reform, access to information infrastructure, ICT skills development, and ICT applications. Through such initiatives, the World Bank was shown to be one of the largest financiers in telecommunications within poor underdeveloped nations. Nevertheless, in “regarding efforts to promote universal access, targeted World Bank ICT projects with the objective to directly promote target access for the underserved and the poor had limited success; only 30 percent have achieved their objectives of implementing universal access policies or increasing ICT access for the poor or underserved areas. Bank operations to promote universal access often were slow to get off the ground and were superseded by the rollout of mobile phone networks by the private sector, in some cases supported by Bank sector reform” (www.ictworks.org). Although the World Bank has seen failure, it is important to remember how they have also achieved great parts of their initiatives to better information and communication technologies, in hopes that they will continue to improve in order to increase development within developing nations.

ICT and Rural Development in Nigeria

Originally posted on BlackBoard by Hannah Smalley.

Nigeria is a country that is lost in many aspects of its government and society, lost enough that Chris Uwaje, the President of Institute of Software PRactitioners of Nigeria, stated that ICT is the last hope of boosting the Nigerian economy. The country is currently coming up with software that can hopefully allow Nigeria to keep up with the rest of the world by assisting the government to come up with sustainable policies that will help development in every sector of the country, including specifically, rural development, by providing extensive broadband services.

Connect Africa

Originally Posted: September 20, 2011 1:33:21 PM CDT
By: Hannah Smalley

I found this video really interesting. It focuses on Africa, but compares its development and broadband connectivity to that in other developing countries. It talks about how although the Internet is reaching all corners of the planet, broadband connections have only reached about 1% of Africa. The video explores the idea that more advanced technology will help to develop Africa in every sense, but a basis of initial connectivity needs to be in place first. In addition, people need to be taught how to use these technologies. The mobile phone has been very successfully introduced to Africa. People at the UN predict that the Internet and mobile phone will be inseparable to the developing world.

 

ICT as a means to achieve the MDG’s in Rwanda

Originally Posted: September 20, 2011 11:22:30 AM CDT
By: Jessica Schofield

This article (Rwanda: More Local Youth Are Take On ICT), pertains both to our class discussions of the MDG’s and to development work in Rwanda. Rwanda is using ICTs to achieve the millennium development goals which is innovative because neither ICTs nor the economic development of the nation as a whole are specifically stated as MDG’s. However, Rwanda is investing so much in this strategy because they believe that, “broadband is the single most powerful tool available to accelerate progress towards achieving the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and a drive to social and economic development.” As we all know, it’s hard to target progress of one MDG without affecting another in some way because they are so interrelated. Rwanda so highly regards ICT4D that they are hoping the economic progress it makes will eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and increase primary education as a byproduct. This thought process seems very reasonable to me. In Rwanda the population structure reveals that 42% of citizens are under the age of 15. We have all experienced the phenomenon of younger people being able to accept and apply technological skills better than older generations, so if Rwanda can get this young generation highly involved in ICT, they may be able to leapfrog their way into a spot as a technology hub in sub-Saharan Africa.