About a month ago, I gave a talk [Powerpoint File] to telecommunications network operators from all over the Pacific region. It dealt with the social aspects of Vanuatu’s communications revolution. Many of the themes I touched on will be familiar to readers of this column.

In a nutshell, I talked about Digicel’s approach to so-called marginal markets and how they relied on Network Effects to generate traffic where there had been none before. Once you have more than a certain percentage of the population using a particular means of communication, everyone else is compelled to join them, simply because everybody is using it.

Mobile telephone services significantly enhance one – and only one – important aspect of Vanuatu culture. They enable family members and friends to stay in touch with one another much more easily than they could before. This has the effect of strengthening some of the bonds that keep small groups together. As such, it should be viewed as a positive reinforcement of many of the things that we hold dear.

But in Vanuatu society, there’s more to communication than conversations between family members. We’ve so far succeeded in re-creating the kitchen conversation by electronic means. But we have no nakamal, no nasara. We have no meeting place we can truly call our own.

If you plot the rise of mobile telephone use in Vanuatu since the inception of the service, you’ll note that at first it started very slowly. Phones and SIM cards were expensive, which meant that only the richest could afford to use them. But prices reached a level attainable by the average wage-earner, uptake was huge. In the course of a few short years, GSM services became the single largest source of revenue for TVL, who reportedly had over 20,000 subscribers as of mid-2007.

Digicel’s arrival this year has only accelerated and expanded the process. Neither Digicel nor TVL will release sales figures or call volumes, but since they launched their service, Digicel has so far exceeded its own expectations that it’s currently out of stock on many telephone models.

The appeal of mobile telephony in the islands is immediate and compelling. Recent discussion on the VIGNET mailing list highlighted a few interesting anecdotes. People everywhere can’t bear to be separated from their mobile phones. They take them fishing, to the garden, everywhere they go. At this week’s Independence festivities in Freswota, the fastest selling item in every store I canvassed was phone credit.

So what does this mean in terms of Vanuatu society? There’s been a lot of discussion recently about the potential for negative effects. Many people with a stake in building communications capacity in Vanuatu privately confide that they’re nervous about a vast tidal wave of information spilling into Vanuatu from the outside world. What will happen to language, kastom and culture? Will our youngest generation throw over tradition, trading in string band music for the latest hip-hop ringtones?

To a certain, admittedly limited degree, mobile telephone services are immune to that kind of thing. Their initial value lies, as I mentioned, in one-to-one communication. The very same kind of communication that ni-Vanuatu have so enjoyed, in the kitchen while grating coconut for laplap, on the road to and from the garden, under a shade tree on a long afternoon, over a shell or two of kava in the evening.

This reflects an integral part of everybody’s life: The casual, constant contact that keeps families intact.

But mobile phones don’t easily allow another equally important aspect of communication in Vanuatu society: There is no virtual equivalent of the communal space. There is, in effect, no nasara, nowhere for the village to come together and consider matters of import to them all.

This has one extremely important effect. I’ve written before about the Coconut Wireless, the informal network of gossip and rumour that has historically provided a remarkably effective and versatile means of disseminating news of all kinds:

“[Coconut Wireless] refers to the lively rumours that spread via word of mouth concerning anything – or anyone – of interest to people as they idle away their spare time. In small doses, it’s generally unreliable, but when information is amalgamated from numerous sources, an assiduous listener can gather a good deal of interesting (sometimes deliciously scurrilous) and surprisingly accurate information.”

Mobile telephony has given us part of that. It’s given us better, more convenient access to some sources of our daily dose of hearsay. But it doesn’t give us everything. It limits the number of sources we can readily access. This means that there are fewer opportunities to correlate – and mitigate – much of the information reaching us.

Take for example the furore that arose a few years ago concerning the planned visit to Vanuatu of the reverend Sun Myung Moon. Families were divided over whether he should be allowed in, some supporting him, others threatening that it was their sacred duty to assassinate him, should he arrive, because rumour had it that he was a false prophet, possibly even the Antichrist.

Imagine how SMS and mobile telephone conversations could further exacerbate what was already a tense situation.

Conversely, it also provides the opportunity for individuals to become known to a larger proportion of society than ever before. It’s conceivable that the Coconut Wireless’ newfound spread might give us our very first truly national political figure since Father Walter Lini. Depending on the individual, this might be a very good thing indeed. Or not.

The Coconut Wireless becomes dangerous when it’s not leavened with verifiably correct public information. The Internet can provide this. Its very nature gives us back the many-to-one and one-to-many communications that typified the village nasara, where everyone could gather, offers their views directly to the community as a whole, and listen as well to the guidance offered by their chiefs and elders.

Next-generation mobile technology, including GPRS and WiMax wireless Internet services, will provide some mobile phone owners with access to this resource. Projects like One Laptop per Child and the small satellite stations being tested by the government as part of the Pacific RICS project will also fill in critical parts of the puzzle.

But they do so at a price. The Internet is not Vanuatu’s alone. The nasara we are entering is extends across the globe, even to places that many ni-Vanuatu will find foreign and possibly repulsive. Unless steps are taken to positively reinforce Vanuatu culture online, we run the risk of bringing up a generation who consider kastom to be nothing more than a collection of ramblings told by their bubus around the fire.

Vanuatu has invested wisely in its material infrastructure. But even when the last cable is plugged in, the job is not nearly finished. Vanuatu’s cultural infrastructure needs to be enhanced as well. This requires that young and old alike cooperate to translate the best elements of Vanuatu society into this new medium.

Make no mistake: This worldwide cultural nasara already exists. It is up to us to determine how our children enter it, and what they see and hear when they get there.

I’ve been an interested observer and sometime participant in the development of communications in Vanuatu for coming on five years now. In all that time, probably the most interesting phenomenon that I’ve witnessed has been the effect of openness, both within the IT community and among users of this new technology.

I’ve written about this before, of course. Here is a brief excerpt:

“Those in business and government who have traditionally worn the office of custodian of the public good will find that, while the[ir] role is not diminished, it will be shared among a great many others. To coin a tortured phrase, improved communications means that we’ll have to learn to communicate better.

“Barriers between institutions will need to come down as well. Some of them, such as interconnectivity between competing mobile phone systems, will be legislated away, but others will only fall through our collective willingness to accommodate others, to show some flexibility in the face of change, and most of all from our collective willingness to allow these new channels of communication to flow productively in both directions.”

The last 12 months of rapid change have been accompanied by mixed results in this regard. I was originally tempted to report on progress in the form of a report card, but this is neither the time nor the place for naming and shaming. The purpose here is not to embarrass. On the contrary, it’s to demonstrate how taking advantage of Vanuatu’s status as a small community is more rewarding than conventional wisdom might lead us to believe.

The concept of six degrees of separation posits that information is transmitted between individuals and groups much more quickly and efficiently than might be apparent at first glance. The theory states that, even in a population of billions, on average any individual is only six degrees of association away from anyone else.

It bears noting that Guglielmo Marconi, a pioneer of radio, first put this hypothesis forward. It was precisely because of his knowledge of communications technology that he was among the first to notice that the world would effectively become smaller.

Scientists and researchers are wont to bicker about the details, such as the actual average number of intermediate steps between one person and another. The size of the community and the means of communication affect this outcome. But nobody disputes that, given the chance, information disseminates far more efficiently than we might think.

Another interesting finding to come out of research into ‘small world’ theory is that not all people are created equal where communications are concerned. Most people tend to limit their communications to a small, unchanging group of people. These groups are largely static, not interacting greatly with others. (Island-ism, anyone?)

But a relatively small number of people tend to move fluidly between different groups, and in doing so, they play the role of messenger, carrying the most interesting bits of information between the groups.

This phenomenon is directly observable here in Vanuatu. News often travels like wildfire through the population, but the story itself is told differently, depending on which group is doing the telling. I’ve written before about Vanuatu’s ‘Coconut Wireless’: “In small doses, it’s generally unreliable, but when information is amalgamated from numerous sources, an assiduous listener can gather a good deal of interesting (sometimes deliciously scurrilous) and surprisingly accurate information.”

Vanuatu’s familiarity with small worlds – no world is smaller than the village – has unfortunately resulted in social adjustments that obscure its efficiency:

“Sometimes, it’s convenient to spread information widely; sometimes it’s more politic to keep our own counsel and to repeat nothing at all. The system is therefore incomplete, erratic and occasionally wildly off-base.”

Compound this with how unfamiliar life in a small world is for some newcomers to Vanuatu, and we find ourselves in a situation where engagement, communication and especially cooperation are inconsistent, awkward and occasionally downright counterproductive.

An example: When the government was negotiating with TVL to end the telecommunications monopoly, the people involved did a remarkably good job of ensuring that the transition to competition would leave no room for disputation and foot-dragging. The legal and marketing aspects of the agreement are a shining example of how things should be done.

But significant aspects of modern telecommunications were, deliberately or not, simply left off the table. Radio frequency management, Internet services and management of the .vu domain space are all notably absent from the agreement. Happily, the interim telecoms regulator is busily putting together a plan that encompasses these and other important details.

Digicel and TVL are both committed to their staff. They understand the importance of trusting those who know the turf, so to speak. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of Digicel’s operations elsewhere in the world is the amount of autonomy they give to their various national operations.

And yet, to date they’ve limited themselves to circulating only among select groups. Certainly, much of this is due to the fact that they’re more than a little busy with the logistical aspects of building a national operation from scratch. It should be noted as well the contacts that they do have are well chosen and used effectively.

TVL, alas, has done little to date to leverage their substantial investment in local talent. They’ve passed on a number of opportunities to engage effectively with the community as a whole, relying mostly on improving their traditional marketing and sales efforts, while at the same time trying to make their infrastructure more competitive.

But our telecommunications companies are angels compared to the government itself. While I’m happy to sing the praises of Minister Natapei’s truly historic endeavours in improving the telecoms market as a whole, vast improvements are still possible.

The inter-departmental ICT committee hasn’t yet been given a proper mandate to consolidate government information services and to prepare a national communications strategy. The Ministry of Public Infrastructure and Public Utilities has at least promulgated a simple and sensible telecommunications policy, but there is much more to be done.

The result is that the true innovators, the young turks with big ideas, are left playing a game of wait and see. This slows development, and limits their participation in critical planning stages, the very time when their voices most need to be heard.

The simple truth is that information always finds its way onto the Coconut Wireless, so it’s in everybody’s interest to ensure that this information is valid, complete and most of all, that it flows in all directions.

I’m not suggesting that everyone bare their soul and expose every detail of their plans and intentions to public scrutiny. There are perfectly valid reasons to keep certain cards close to one’s chest. But a process of constant and attentive communication serves everyone’s purposes.

If, for example, the government were to engage more comprehensively with stakeholders as they prepare to roll out a national communications network through their e-government intiative, they would not only benefit from significant technical insight, they’d also give private industry the opportunity to prepare for the opportunities represented by this valuable resource. This would inevitably reduce the burden of maintaining and sustaining services and overheads on the network itself.

Modern communications has shrunk the world immeasurably in the last 50 years. And Vanuatu was a small place to begin with. Let’s quit treating that as a liability and open up a little. Many hands make light work.

Before we go into detail, though, it’s important to establish a bit of context. We’ve already described how people often make the wrong assumptions about the level of privacy they enjoy when using computers and the Internet. But let’s look at this issue in more practical terms.

Everyone in Vanuatu knows what ‘Coconut Wireless’ means. It refers to the lively rumours that spread via word of mouth concerning anything – or anyone – of interest to people as they idle away their spare time. In small doses, it’s generally unreliable, but when information is amalgamated from numerous sources, an assiduous listener can gather a good deal of interesting (sometimes deliciously scurrilous) and surprisingly accurate information.

The ability to benefit from such information requires a degree of skill. It’s important to understand one’s sources and to rank them according to their authority on a particular topic. You also need to know how to play the game. One never takes information without giving as well. Our most trustworthy friends receive the best, most detailed information, while those whom we don’t know – or don’t trust – often receive only vague allusions to the facts.

Sometimes, it’s convenient to spread information widely; sometimes it’s more politic to keep our own counsel and to repeat nothing at all. The system is therefore incomplete, erratic and occasionally wildly off-base. But every newcomer to Vanuatu soon comes to the realisation that it’s an important and remarkably efficient way to pass the news.

To this day, word of mouth remains the most common medium for transmitting the news. People listen to the radio for cyclone warnings and other critical items, but the vast majority of detailed information is transmitted face to face.

Recently, this writer’s employer decided to start offering Internet services through WiFi. The decision to name the service Coconut Wireless represented more than just a cute play on words. It accurately reflects the nature of the technology, its resemblance to age-old patterns of communication, and most importantly, the fact that this medium is a public one.

Computer users often go to great lengths to ensure that nobody can peek over their shoulder and watch what they’re doing. But they seldom think much about what happens when what they’ve typed is no longer on the screen. It’s a reasonable reaction, of course. Out of sight, out of mind.

If only it were that simple. Consider this story: Somebody sees a friend of theirs walking along the other side of the street. They smile and wave, as people here always do, and shout, “So blong yu olsem wanem?” (i.e. “How’s that nasty infection?”) It’s just a joke, of course, and the two of them laugh and continue on their way.

But everyone else has heard this exchange. Those who know the two don’t think anything of it, but what about those who don’t? Suppose someone has heard this exchange, then sees the recipient of the joke talking to a nice girl outside the church after service the next Sunday? Suppose they feel the need to inform this nice girl about her interlocutor’s dark secret?

The Internet is a public place. Any conversation we have there should be considered the same as a conversation in Port Vila market on a Saturday morning. The only difference is that the market only has a few hundred people present, whereas the Internet has millions and millions. There is always someone within earshot. Unless you take steps to hide what you’re doing, everything you do is out in the open, accessible to prying eyes.

Whenever you send information using the Internet, try to imagine that you’re having a conversation in a public place. That email you sent to your lover, detailing the ways in which you would unleash your unbridled passion when you were next reunited? Public. That forum you posted anonymously in, lambasting your employer? Public, and possibly traceable.

Wireless Internet services are even more ‘public’. Anyone with a mind to do so can watch every single byte being transmitted over such a network. You see, the only way to make such networks useable to the average non-geek is to open them up entirely. The moment you start to put protections on them – passwords and the like – they become cumbersome and awkward for someone who just needs to check their mail quickly, confirm a flight departure time, or chat for a few minutes in Skype.

It’s possible to talk quietly in a public place. It’s possible to have a private conversation using the Internet, too. Some effort and care is required, but it’s not so hard to do. All the rules that we apply to our conversations can be applied to computers as well. We can alter how loudly we speak, we can choose where to say certain things, we can choose who we talk to, and more importantly, who we talk near.

Here’s a simple exercise to help you better understand computer privacy: Whenever you write something, imagine you’re dictating it to a friend standing on the other side of the street. If you feel the need to cross the road and say something quietly, you should take measures to ensure that your message is transmitted safely, and only to the right recipients. If you don’t want to say it at all, and would rather whisper it in the privacy of your own home, then use encryption to hide the document from anyone but your most trusted friends and colleagues. We’ll talk more about how to do this in the weeks to come.

Every community has its prying busy-bodies, its gossip-mongers and tattle-tales. There is also the occasional fraudster or con-man who abuses people’s goodwill to his own ends. Most commonly, there are well-meaning but naive people who try their best to be useful to others but who don’t think enough about the consequences of their actions.

All of these exist on the Internet, too, of course. The only difference being that the numbers we meet in real life are dwarfed by the number we’ll encounter online. Spammers take advantage of our propensity to forward emails and sign up for ‘fun’ websites and services. They abuse our desire to build online social networks, and they steal from us when they can.

The governments of the US, China and many other nations are world-class busy-bodies. They record literally every bit of Internet traffic that crosses their borders. They store it, cross-reference it and use it to spot threatening patterns and trends. None of us in tiny, innocent Vanuatu are likely to be under suspicion, but nonetheless, consider that it might be unwise to shout “So blong yu?” too loudly.

In the majority, though, are the websites and services that mean well, but sometimes make mistakes. They gather all kinds of information about us in order that we can more easily find stuff that’s interesting and useful. They help us manage our time, our relationships, even our idle chatter and gossip. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with all of this, but it’s useful to treat sites like this as a well-meaning but slightly stupid friend who doesn’t always know when to shut up. By all means keep talking, but consider that what you say might get misconstrued, or just blurted out without forethought.

The Coconut Wireless is a useful – even essential – tool here in Vanuatu. The Internet is essential to communications now, too. But don’t let the gadgets fool you: We’re still standing on the sidewalk, chatting to our friends, catching up on gossip and making plans to meet.