Now, in 2010, we’ve spent the better part of a decade helping people get online, getting people in front of computers and teaching them to make the most of the learning and social opportunities that the Internet provides.

The recent release of Ookla’s Household Download Index allows us to measure how far we, as a nation, have come.

Uptake on Internet is still limited to a tiny minority. The pool of Internet users has risen substantially in real numbers, but as a percentage of population, the numbers are still so small that, in a recent national telecoms survey, the researchers declined even to ask about Internet. The data set was too small to be relevant.

Prices today have effectively risen, megabit for megabit, relative to developed markets. Oh, they’ve dropped from the stratospheric levels they used to inhabit (US $1000/month for 128 Kbps and a 100 MB download limit). But you still pay over US $500/month for a single megabit which, occasionally, actually delivers a megabit of bandwidth. When it works.

Most depressing of all, the total amount of bandwidth available for the entire country is only slightly more than the average bandwidth capacity of a single household in Seoul, Korea.

Let me say that again: There are people in Seoul – and countless other cities in the world – who have more bandwidth at their personal disposal than a quarter of a million people here in the Pacific.

Pent-up demand for Internet is easily on the same scale as we’ve witnessed for mobile telephony services these last two years. Informal markers (like the average number of facebook friends among ni-Vanuatu Internet users) show that people love the potential of the Internet and will go to lengths to access it.

But nobody is willing to actually invest in it.

Even Digicel Vanuatu, who over a year ago imported a new CTO with extensive wireless Internet experience, have yet to provide an offering viable for day-to-day use even for the average expat customer.

Frankly, I find it depressing that, in spite of years of advocacy, lobbying and awareness-raising, the movers and shakers here in Vanuatu don’t appear to have learned a thing about the importance of either communications or technology.

April 1, 2010 - Port Vila

In a move that stunned the telecommunications industry, Digicel Pacific and Telecom Vanuatu Ltd. have announced a merger, simultaneously unveiling a massive Internet project that could revolutionise communications across the entire Pacific ‘Ring of Fire.’

Jacky Audebeau, CTO of the new joint venture, to be named TeleDigiVanuaCel Ltd., announced the plan at a press conference at the Forari Mine site this morning.

“We’re confident that this joint venture will provide us with the resources necessary to utterly change the way people communicate throughout the Pacific region,” he said.

The plan uses the strong magnetic resonance found in magma chambers buried deep under the Earth’s surface. By inserting large antennas deep underground, the project aims to create signals by generating massive radio waves and transmitting them through these subterranean chambers at
nearly light speed.

Asked whether early work on this technology had anything to do with the recent increase in activity in all of Vanuatu’s volcanoes, Audebeau looked sheepish and muttered only that sometimes to have to break a few omelettes to lay an egg.

The joint venture came about under unusual circumstances, said Audebeau. Apparently, he ran into new Digicel Pacific owner Denis O’Brien at Port Vila’s Anchor Inn last weekend, and a dispute arose over the relative merits of French wine and Irish Whiskey. After 3 hours of bitter dispute and extensive sampling, the two realised they should no longer fight.

“I couldn’t figure out which one of him to hit,” said Audebeau. “So I thought, ‘what the hey? If you can’t beat them, join them.’ Now somebody get me a glass of water and some panadol. I feel like I have fur on my brain.”

A spin-off company named Forari Online Operations Ltd (FOOL) will handle the funding and development of the Ameliorated Projection of Radio Into Lava (APRIL) technology.

Marshall McLuhan’s rise to prominence as a cultural icon parallels that of television. Today, just like television, he is as widely lionised as he is misunderstood. Like credulous children, we toss around the terms he minted without a moment’s reflection. ‘The media’ has become a shibboleth for corporate commentary on the events of the day, filtered arbitrarily through a lens that sees no further than the next ratings cycle.

McLuhan saw this trend and feared it. Contrary to popular belief, his famous image of a global village was a pessimistic, almost despairing vision. A flickering television screen replaced the campfire at the centre of the human experience, but those huddled around it, seeking meaning in its seductive gaze, were as brutish and unreflective as he imagined early man to be.

It’s a shame he wasn’t around to see the how the rise of personal communications has subverted this dark vision. A new PiPP report, “Social and economic impact of introducing telecommunications throughout Vanuatu”, demonstrates unambiguously that access to personal communications has the power to change lives.

McLuhan’s dark metaphor was wrong in one critical regard: The people sitting around the village campfire are not nearly the simpletons he imagined them to be. Dozens of case studies in the PiPP report demonstrate that even in a world with only the most rudimentary technology, people show ingenuity, perspicacity and intelligence. Given access to mobile telecommunications, they grasp the initiative, improving their lives in almost every way.

The personal stories appearing in ‘Social Impacts…‘ provide striking contrasts between a world bereft of the amenities taken for granted in the developed world and the immediacy of electronic communications. Before the advent of mobile telephony, a process as simple as ordering goods for a village shop involved days of effort and weeks of waiting. Just making a phone call often required long treks over difficult terrain and prohibitively high costs.

The report offers numerous examples of the inordinate lengths that rural merchants go to just to keep stock on their shelves, putting paid (one hopes) to the stereotype of the indolent islander waiting patiently for the cargo to come. If it serves no other purpose, it is invaluable for this insight alone.

But there is a great deal more to it than that. The image it conjures up is not so much of new entrants to the Global Village as of residents of Digital Islands: While communication has improved –and social and economic well-being along with it– the distance from one island to the next has diminished only slightly.

Mobile telephony in and of itself is a boon in most regards, but without complementary infrastructure and services, it is of limited value.

It’s not even clear how our new telecoms infrastructure can be further leveraged to bootstrap access to the Internet. Digicel’s Mobile Internet fees put the service out of reach of the overwhelming majority of its customers, and TVL is simply absent from the field.

Furthermore, lack of access to electricity forces rural residents to spend as much charging their mobile phones’ battery as they do on credit. If they can’t keep even a mobile phone running cheaply, what hope have they of running a computer?

The PiPP report recounts the story of Simon, a lobster salesman based in Ipota on Erromango island. Before Digicel’s appearance on the island, he was forced to rely on the teleradio at the local airport, making delivery of his highly perishable stock extremely difficult. He now relies almost exclusively on his mobile phone to conduct his business. But limited coverage in his area means that he has to ride 9 km on horseback to get reliable service.

The image of a man riding his horse across Erromango’s rugged jungle trails to place a call on his mobile phone says it all. The telecoms market liberalisation strategy represents an historic policy win for the Government of Vanuatu, but unless it’s treated as a first step of a much more comprehensive development strategy, its value will be significantly diluted.

Dozens of stories like Simon’s are peppered throughout ‘Social Impacts…‘, each as illuminating as his. Their lesson is consistently the same: Improvements in transport, access to credit and secondary infrastructure are all necessary if we want to see further improvement in household outcomes in next year’s report.

Another concern raised by the report is the impact on kastom and culture as the immediacy of personal communication provides new channels for information, insight and guidance. While some of them are undeniably positive –women, for example, are making extensive use of mobile telephony to sustain and strengthen their social networks, improving their safety and access to information– these changes present new and largely unacknowledged sources of conflict with kastom’s inherent conservatism.

This year’s survey was nearly an order of magnitude larger than the inaugural report, which was conducted only weeks after Digicel’s initial roll-out. A total of over 900 participants were interviewed this year. The resulting dataset is a goldmine of demographic and economic intelligence whose import extends well beyond the primary focus of the report.

‘Social Impacts…’ should be read by more than just researchers and policy wonks. Anyone with even a passing interest in development, Vanuatu culture and its leap from a largely unchanged 3000-year-old agrarian culture into the Information Age will find it a fascinating document. Its 140-odd pages are replete with fascinating insights into social phenomena affecting the entire Pacific, indeed much of the developing world.

Comprehensive research reports into the dynamics of Vanuatu society are few and far between. Rarely are they presented in such a concise and approachable format. The report is available from www.pacificpolicy.org.

In times of crisis, communication and coordination enable us to survive and to recover quickly.

When an earthquake occured between Samoa and Tonga early in the morning of September 29th, it created a tsunami that struck the inhabitants on the eastern and southeastern parts of the island within minutes. Sirens sounded and church bells rang all over side of the island, sending people fleeing to higher ground.

The latest reports from Samoa indicate that in addition to at least 149 dead, 640 families comprising roughly 3200 people have lost their homes and possessions. Most have yet to to return to their villages, and are without proper access to power, water and other basic amenities.

Food, water, clothing and shelter are all critical elements of the relief effort.

Equally important is the ability to communicate.

As I write this, many Port Vila residents are still feeling shaken following another tsunami warning caused by an 8.0 magnitude earthquake Thursday morning at the far northern tip of the Vanuatu archipelago. Happily, it was a dud. Boaters in Port Vila harbour reported a minor swell, nothing more. Two more tremblors measuring above 7.0 were felt that day, further raising anxieties.

Within 15 minutes of the tremor, the first official warning was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. A few minutes after that, warnings began to be issued via email, web and broadcast media. Shortly before the wave was due to arrive, downtown Port Vila was a ghost town. Shops, schools and businesses were closed in Santo as well.

It was encouraging to see the speed with which the information was disseminated, and how care was taken to ensure that the news was accurate and timely.

Following the cancellation of the alert, there was much discussion about how things could have been done better. Among the problems mentioned were traffic jams caused by parents attempting to collect their children from schools, closed although most were situated on safe high ground and never in danger.

Others suggested that TVL and Digicel should collaborate to send broadcast SMS messages to their client base. While a commendable idea, we cannot rely entirely on such media. SMS operates on a best-effort basis, but voice traffic always takes precedence. So if everyone starts phoning family and loved ones – as happened this morning – their calls will take precedence. The busier the network, the slower the rate at which SMS messages can be sent.

Also, it’s impossible to send messages to people based on their location. From the perspective of the equipment used to send these messages, you’re either on the network or you’re not. Exactly where you are is impossible to determine.

While useful, SMS can only be a part of the solution. Broadcast media and good old-fashioned warning sirens are still the most direct and effective way to get the message out.

Tellingly, none of the the warnings that I saw originated from the government unit designated to deal with these situations. While the Geohazards unit and the Meteo office were quick to disseminate details via radio, TV, web and email, the National Disaster Management Office was nowhere to be seen.

Government resources are limited, it’s true. While every effort is made to provide accurate, detailed and up-to-date information, resources are always stretched. Esline Araebiti, Geohazards Manager, described her efforts to keep tabs on recent volcanic activity on Gaua’s volcano. Dormant since 1982, it recently began to show signs of life, and has since been upgraded from level 0 (dormant) to 1 (increased activity, danger near crater only).

The first people to notice this renewed activity were the people of West Gaua. With neither mobile nor landline service available, they used a teleradio to contact provincial authorities in Sola on nearby Vanua Lava, where the message was relayed to the Geohazards Unit.

(It’s hoped that the Government’s Universal Access Policy Fund will improve communications capacity in this extremely vulnerable area.)

Luckily, portable sensing equipment was available, and members of the unit embarked immediately for Gaua. The equipment uses satellite technology to send monitoring data back to Vila and onward to the US Geological Survey’s international network.

Thursday’s earthquake was centred about 150 kilometres from Gaua. There is some concern that the disturbance might cause increased activity in the volcano. Much like a can of soda when it’s shaken, an earthquake can cause the explosive release of gases from magma chambers deep below the earth’s surface. Gaua’s lava chamber lies immediately below a lake, so there’s significant concern that if it’s breached it could cause a catastrophic explosion. Authorities are therefore watching carefully to see if the volcano’s status should be upgraded yet again.

The kind of sensing equipment deployed in Gaua is costly to purchase and maintain. NZAID and the Pacific Fund have been assisting the unit in establishing a permanent monitoring station on Ambrym to track activity on Marum and Benbow volcanoes. These stations use Digicel’s GPRS service to provide lower-cost communications. Results so far are quite positive, though there have been technical issues with Digicel’s tower located in nearby Ulei village.

Sylvain Todman, a consultant working with the Geohazards unit, stated that there is a critical need for additional equipment. Currently only two volcanoes are monitored on a full-time basis. There is an immediate need for six such stations, located on Tanna, Epi, Ambrym, Ambae and Gaua. Each station costs between $12-17,000, plus regular service and maintenance – not too expensive, considering the lives that might be saved.

The September 29 tsunami took between 5-8 minutes to reach the coast of Samoa, and only a few minutes more to strike Tonga and American Samoa. Thursday’s false alarm provides an object lesson on the importance of timely, accurate and systematic information sharing, both in acquisition and dissemination of geohazard data.

Communications is, after all what makes us human. And what keeps us safe and alive.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” – Leo Tolstoy

On Wednesday this week at a quiet ceremony in Chantilly’s Resort, Minister Rialuth Serge Vohor presented six organisations with telecommunications operator licenses. His action marked the beginning of a new chapter in Vanuatu’s integration into the wider technological world.

The Minister’s speech touched on many aspects of the technical and social challenge ahead of us, but its illuminating principle was his lifelong conviction that Vanuatu should control its own destiny. Acknowledging and applauding the invaluable assistance provided by numerous donor and commercial partners from overseas, he nonetheless displayed great satisfaction at seeing local operations moving into the spotlight.

There was an air of quiet excitement in the room as, after patient months of waiting, representatives from the six groups, along with Digicel Vanuatu CEO Tanya Menzies, strode to the front of the room to accept the newly signed documents.

At the risk of sounding like a giddy shoolchild, I wonder if everyone realises just how fundamentally this moment is going to affect our generation and the next.

We’ve had Internet services in Vanuatu for some time now and TVL has consistently worked to improve it. When I arrived here in 2003, an unlimited dial-up account cost 25,000 vatu per month. Today, a dedicated broadband line with roughly 3 times the capacity is available at about 20% of the price.

In 2003, it was possible – in theory at least – to connect from any telephone line. But that did mean being near a telephone line, and contending with all the other voice traffic coming and going. In practice, using the Internet regularly for anything but the most basic purposes in the islands was a challenge, to say the least. Today, we have broadband service in Vila and Santo (and soon in Tanna). And even if you’re not near a phone line, you can use TVL’s WiMax or Digicel’s GPRS service.

The pattern we’re seeing in Internet closely echoes what we saw in the months before Digicel rolled out its mobile telephone service, with a few critical differences. Prices have dropped, coverage and capacity have improved. If anything, TVL’s been even more aggressive this time in improving its core infrastructure, expanding its coverage area and reducing prices. It has clearly become a much more agile organisation than it once was. Consumers nationwide can only benefit from the result.

This time around, it’s Digicel that runs the risk (albeit a slight one) of being the one caught on the hop. On the same day the six new licenses were awarded, Digicel also received an amended license – essentially giving it the right to compete in all segments of the telecoms market.

I spoke with CEO Tanya Menzies about what Digicel’s plans regarding Internet services. When asked about becoming a full-service ISP, She said they were in the process of developing their business plan and didn’t want to make any firm pronouncements at that moment. She did, however, draw my attention to a recent contract between Digicel and Huawei to provide roaming wireless broadband in 5 Caribbean nations.

It’s no accident that Digicel’s new CTO is a wireless Internet veteran with a long list of large-scale network roll-outs to his credit. “That’s why we brought him here,” said Menzies, smiling.

I suspect, though, that most people’s first contact with the Internet here will be through smaller local commercial and community-based operations. Telsat Pacific has ambitious plans to push Internet service as widely as they can using a mix of small satellite dishes and wireless technology. Yumi Konek, an NGO-driven project designed to provide access to email to Vanuatu’s remotest areas, is already providing services in Aneityum and the Banks islands. The Pentecost community of Pangi and Malekula’s Southwest Bay are next.

No matter how you slice it, Internet will remain relatively expensive for some years to come. In addition to that, taking full advantage of the Internet involves a good deal more capital – both intellectual and technical – than using a mobile phone. So, for the majority in Vanuatu, the face of technology will be the neighbourhood geek who keeps the equipment chugging along.

My guess is that the biggest winners among our current heavy hitters will be those who push the support role closer to the customer by offering wholesale services to ‘Mom and Pop’ businesses operating in neighbourhoods throughout Vanuatu.

Pent-up demand for learning, for a glimpse of the outside world, is far greater than many people realise. If people in a remote village in South Malekula will clear a mountain hillside just to speak with their families, what lengths won’t others go to in order to explore the world? More importantly, what would parents not give to allow their children to do so?

The expansion of Internet use is not likely to follow the rocket-like trajectory of mobile services, but it will hit quickly and run deep. Too deep for some, I fear. Having lived on the bleeding and the trailing edge of technology (sometimes both at once), I find the contrast between the two is enough to cause a kind of cognitive whiplash.

Heaven alone knows what will happen when it reaches the village.

Most people fear the obvious: pornography, graphic violence and other morally dubious fare. I think they’re missing the point. The really disruptive influences are the social ones.

What will happen to society when we chat more with people on other continents than the ones sitting right beside us?

What will happen to families when their members start to see what else they could belong to?

The societies where Internet runs deepest bear the least resemblance to the country we live in today.

The Vanuatu we know is about to change utterly. The only question now is: What do we want Vanuatu to become, and what are we willing to do – now, today – to achieve that?

With the recent passage of a new telecommunications Act (awkwardly titled the TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND RADIOCOMMUNICATION REGULATION ACT), Vanuatu has taken another important step in ensuring continued success in building openness and fairness into the business of communications.

Parts of the Act, currently awaiting the President’s signature, validate and give force of law to terms and conditions already included in the licenses issued to our two incumbent telcos. It also provides an overall framework for continued growth, expansion and innovation. Most importantly, it makes permanent the office of the Telecommunications Regulator.

(Before I go on, I should make it clear that the text of the Bill was under discussion until shortly before it was voted on. The version I was able to view was not the official text. That will only become available once the Clerk of Parliament receives the signed Act from the President. That said, I’m pretty confident that those parts of the Act discussed here are unchanged.)

Perhaps the most notable aspect of this new legislation is the delegation of the right to issue telecoms licenses to the Regulator. Until the Act takes effect, this power is retained by the Minister.

John Crook, the Interim Telecommunications Regulator, has made it clear that he wants to see the process of obtaining what’s termed a Telecommunications Operator License to be as simple and direct as possible. All that should be required to start a new Internet Service Provider is to demonstrate that you have the right to operate such a business in Vanuatu, that you have the means to do so and that you’re willing to play by the rules.

We’ll likely see some reasonable limits put on this process. Contractual obligations limit the mobile telephone market to Digicel and TVL for a more years, and it’s likely that any large-scale enterprise (someone wanting to build out another national communications network, for example) would require approval by the Council of Ministers.

But, for those local businesses who’ve been waiting patiently for their ISP licenses to be approved, these are glad tidings. Approval could conceivably come within days or weeks.

Rod Smith, owner of Telsat Pacific, is excited at the prospect. One of six applicants, he’s been champing at the bit for months now, waiting for his application to be approved. Telsat intends to provide Internet services throughout Vanuatu, using a mix of satellite and wireless technologies. As the long-time provider of satellite television services, Smith feels comfortable that he can reach most anywhere with his service.

Smith described an ambitous plan to provide residential, business and roaming Internet services. His business model includes a single-sign-on service. Pay once for your Internet, and you can log in anywhere Telsat service is offered at no additional charge. Entry-level packages will start at bandwidths similar to those currently offered by TVL.

Asked how long it would take for him to be ready once his license is approved, Smith half-quipped, “I’ll have everything turned on by afternoon the next day.”

Others are just as sanguine, planning to offer wireless and other services throughout the municipal areas. It’s not clear how much price movement we’ll see in the short term. Satellite Internet is inherently expensive. While we might see more affordable packages than are currently available, they will likely be fairly modest in terms of what you can do with them.

When I discussed their mobile Internet service with Crevan Murphy, CTO at Digicel Vanuatu, he denied any interest in using GPRS to provide traditional ISP-style services. That said, an amended license agreement is currently awaiting approval. Time will tell what it contains.

TVL did not respond to recent questions concerning their future plans, beyond noting the wholesale improvements they’ve been undertaking across their entire infrastructure. Earlier briefings on their plan to extend broadband DSL service further into Port Vila’s neighbourhoods and to Tanna and elsewhere indicate that they intend to compete just as aggressively in the ISP market as they have in mobile services.

Local scuttlebutt has it that they’re currently upgrading their telephone switching equipment to support Internet protocols, too. So we might be seeing new services announced sooner than later.

With all this growth and excitement in the air, it’s comforting to know that the process will be overseen by a seasoned and able Regulator. Interim Regulator John Crook presided over some of the more contentious moments during the lead-up to the opening of the mobile market, and it’s understood that he will stay on for at least another year.

Equally important, he can finally start building out a permanent staff. Regulating telecommunications is a difficult game – there’s no small amount of geekery involved, but it’s intermixed with business, social and political considerations as well.

The new Telecoms Act takes solid steps to ensure that the office doesn’t become another VCMB, de-politicising the Regulator’s role and putting measures in place to ensure its neutrality.

Donors have suggested that in order to keep apace with technological issues, it might be desirable to create a regional ‘pool’ of technical expertise, shared between Pacific Island nations. That’s all well and good, but Vanuatu needs to invest in its own people as well.

While a solid grasp of technology is critical to managing this important national resource, it’s not sufficient in and of itself. If we want to do this right, we’ll need more than a few experienced and savvy ni-Vanuatu in the Regulator’s office and in other critical areas when these new communications services begin to make their impact felt on Vanuatu society.

When this Act becomes law, we can expect to see the same kind of radical transformation in the Internet market as we witnessed a little over a year ago with mobile services.

For most people in Vanuatu, this will be their first encounter with the Internet, a resource whose impact, potentially, will be even greater than mobile telephone revolution we’ve just been through.

Last weekend’s announcement by Minister Rialuth Serge Vohor of an agreement to participate in the SPIN fibre-optic project had been met with cautious optimism from observers. While nobody doubts the desirability of having an undersea cable linking Vanuatu to the rest of the world, some questions remain.

The devil, as always, is in the details.

Not a great deal is known about the particulars of Vanuatu’s partnership in the project, which proposes to join several Pacific Island nations to a trans-oceanic fibre-optic cable stretching from New Caledonia to French Polynesia. The project, called the South Pacific Information Network, or SPIN, was originally envisioned as a way to join France’s Pacific territories, but it quickly expanded in scope.

A 2008 presentation by CEO Rémi Galasso states that SPIN is a limited company registered in Wallis and Futuna with private investment from the API Group and an unnamed French hedge fund. Its public investors include the French Territories of the Pacific Region. The project has the support of the SPC, the Forum Secretariat and the French Government, according to Galasso.

Before Vanuatu’s participation was announced, SPIN estimated the cost of joining New Caledonia, Wallis, American Samoa, Niue and French Polynesia at about 150 million euros. The cable would terminate in Sydney to the West and Hawaii to the East.

The Daily Post reported a price of 230 million vatu for connections to both Port Vila and Santo. That number represents the cost of the end points alone – that is, the structures and equipment required to connect to the cable itself. A recent World Bank report that looked at numerous scenarios for linking Pacific Island nations with fibre-optic cable estimated the cost of the cable itself at between about 1.8 and 2.9 billion vatu. At least one private venture has suggested that costs could drop as far as about 1.4 billion, but that would involve significantly lower bandwidth capacity.

According to the Daily Post report, the funds for the project will be provided by the European Investment Bank and Agence Francais de Développement. Vanuatu’s stake in the project will be established via the establishment of a joint venture with SPIN SA.

An integral part of the agreement is a 30 year concession – effectively a guarantee that the terms we establish today will remain in effect for a generation and a half.

There are many perfectly valid reasons to offer some degree of certainty for the investors. Nobody would willingly venture millions of dollars without some confidence that they’ll be able at least to have the opportunity to recoup their initial investment. That said, 30 years is a very long time. A lot can change.

The nature and structure of the organisation that will own Vanuatu’s fibre connections is due to be negotiated under fairly tight time constraints. Government spokesman George Tarimanu reportedly stated that it was their expectation to have a contract negotiated and ready for signing by August. That’s not a lot of time.

At a recent Pacific Ministers’ meeting in Tonga, where the World Bank report on regional connectivity options was first issued, the Ministers’ communiqué emphasised affordable access and an enabling environment as the most critical elements to ensuring access to information and communications for their respective citizens.

The World Bank report investigated the impact of several different approaches to ownership and management of international fibre-optic links. Among their recommendations was the creation of an ‘Open Access’ environment. Put simply, Open Access helps ensure that the worst effects of consortium-based management of the fibre-optic cable are not imposed on the national market.

Among the principles espoused by an Open Access environment are that “access to facilities is unconstrained and at a fair price” and that fair competition practices are enforced. The draft Telecommunications and Radiocommunications Regulation Act of 2009 currently contains language describing what are known as ‘bottleneck resources’ – that is, elements of the infrastructure where duplication is wasteful or too expensive. If it eventuates, the SPIN link would qualify as such. Because of the immense capacity of a single fibre-optic link, there’s little likelihood that anyone could justify a second any time soon.

Were SPIN designated as a bottleneck resource, the Telecoms Regulator would be in a position to insist that the operators of the link played fair with all national telcos and Internet Service Providers. In short, they would not be allowed to deny access to any party that could afford the price of a connection. The Regulator would also have some discretion with regards to stopping punitive or predatory pricing or any other anti-competitive practice.

Relative to the rest of the region, Vanuatu is fairly well placed in terms of establishing an Open Access environment. While the SPIN contract is under negotiation, the Government should ensure that this position is not eroded. Nobody wants to go back to the bad old days of communications monopoly.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Internet is that it’s a supply-driven economy. Time and again, as our ability to transfer progressively larger amounts of data, consumers have proven that demand increases to fit supply. It wasn’t so long ago when Internet users in Vanuatu considered themselves fortunate to have a full-time dial-up at a mere 25,000 vatu per month. These days, we chafe at having more than twice that bandwidth at less than a quarter of the price. We won’t ever be able to get our Internet as cheaply as we might in Sydney or Auckland, but if we play our cards right, we could see Internet services improving quite literally by orders of magnitude following the arrival of an undersea cable.

The potential benefits for business can’t be understated. For real-time financial processing operations to offshore call centres, Vanuatu’s tax-free environment, relatively reliable infrastructure and well-educated populace offer a number of boutique possibilities that could have a significant positive impact on our tiny economy. It would only take a few to make a real difference.

Couple that with the learning opportunities that are created if we have access to cheap and accessible Internet and one can begin to imagine the arrival of a fibre-optic link as a truly transformative moment in Vanuatu’s development.

But…

All of this is contingent on the project being structured and implemented successfully. All it takes is one naïve mistake at the outset and we’ll be stuck for years wishing we had acted differently. The World Bank’s support was instrumental in ensuring that our transition to a liberalised telecoms market became a shining example to the rest of the region. It’s doubtful we could have done it at all without them.

We would be well served to turn to them again for advice and assistance as the negotiations proceed. They’re familiar with our market, with the problems and opportunities created by large-scale projects such as this, and they can bring no small amount of expertise to bear on the issue.

A fibre connection to the rest of the world is essential to Vanuatu’s development. But not at any price. A lot can go wrong in undertakings like this. We need to proceed carefully. If we don’t, we’ll be living with our mistakes for a generation or more.

We’ve seen a lot of griping and moaning recently about – and by – our two telcos. The former is not really news in and of itself. The fact of the matter is that anyone relying on technology in Vanuatu will have ample cause to complain before very long. Human, logistical and environmental factors in Vanuatu conspire against even the best-intentioned, making high-tech businesses here a pale echo indeed of what one might see in Sydney or Auckland.

To see our two telcos descend to a juvenile level of petty and rather vindictive name-calling and insinuation, however, was surprising and not at all welcome.

On top of the all-too-familiar litany of complaints concerning mobile telephone costs and service levels, readers of the Daily Post this week witnessed a public dust-up of playground proportions between TVL and Digicel. If we’re to believe the two providers, a mobile user’s choice of providers is between an incompetent dinosaur and a dishonest fast dealer.

Neither depiction is accurate, useful or informative for people in Vanuatu. It leads one to wonder whether either of them really understands where they live. This undignified public display is an object lesson in how NOT to win friends and influence people in Vanuatu.

One thing is for certain: As far as the public is concerned, the post-liberalisation honeymoon is definitely over.

For Digicel especially, the bloom is decidedly off the rose. While people remain appreciative of the range and stability of their mobile service, complaints have become increasingly frequent – and strident – concerning what is widely viewed as a courteous but utterly ineffective customer service department.

Their first birthday celebration stands in rather stark contrast to the glitz and glamour of their kick-off a year ago. Their widely touted credit promotions didn’t go smoothly, with numerous people reporting that they never received the extra credit promised them. Others found that their ‘free after 3’ extra talk time wasn’t free after all. Efforts to redress this via Digicel’s customer care service were ineffective in numerous cases.

One particularly indignant person recounted how, when they phoned Customer Care and informed them that their 1000 vatu credit hadn’t been multiplied as promised, they were politely told to ‘try again.’ Not very useful for someone who had to pinch pennies to get that money together in the first place.

If reports on the VIGNET mailing list are any indication, it appears that the anniversary promotions experienced numerous failures of this ilk.

Despite several attempts to schedule a time to sit down and discuss this with Digicel management, they had yet to respond by the time this column went to press.

Digicel seems to be swamped by its own success. Scarcely more than half a year after their launch, they reported that they had over 70,000 active accounts to TVL’s 30,000. Anecdotal evidence has that number is closer to 100,000 now.

As TVL has learned from bitter experience, maintaining a communications network in the conditions which Vanuatu imposes on its inhabitants is decidedly non-trivial. In spite of years of experience in similar circumstances in the Caribbean and Central America, Digicel seems to be learning the lesson anew.

To what purpose, then, did the decidedly soot-stained pot decide to begin denouncing the kettle’s tarnished nature? Surely it must have occurred to someone that their time might be better spent actually cleaning up their own act than pointing out the other’s mess?

For Digicel to make accusations about TVL’s poor service history shows a distinct lack of sensitivity to the challenges faced by both TVL’s and Digicel’s technicians alike, operating as they do under difficult and sometimes extremely dangerous workplace conditions.

TVL was quick to denounce Digicel’s recent price changes, trumpeting especially what they characterised as a 35% increase in off-peak calls between Digicel customers. Their advertisements neglected to mention that back when they similarly flattened their fee structure to a 30 vatu across the board, people placing short calls benefited, but people placing longer calls ended up paying more.

There are, alas, no rules against juvenile behaviour. As unsavoury as their actions might have been of late, neither telco has broken any law or regulation. For alterations in pricing structures within a certain range, they are only required to notify the Regulator. Digicel did so in advance. TVL was not so prompt about things after a recent price change, sending notification only after the fact.

Common decency and respect are not codified in our telcos’ license agreements. It is nonetheless a welcome sight to see that the Interim Telecoms Regulator has been able to bring a little moral suasion to bear. Both his willingness to engage and the telcos’ willingness to adjust their behaviour without being beaten about the ears are positive signs.

The distrust between the two telcos is understandable and in many respects quite healthy. As much as we might decry the public tantrums we’ve seen of late, they’re vastly preferable to having the two telcos cosy up together and start cooperating more than they should.

Conspiracy theorists, pointing to the fact that both telcos changed their rates within days of one another, have suggested that if TVL and Digicel really were colluding on price, the best way to distract from any agreement would be a public tiff. In my opinion, that hypothesis stretches credulity. When I raised the possibility of collusion with an industry expert who had detailed knowledge of the Caribbean market, he scoffed and remarked acerbically that “if Digicel are cooperating with anyone, it would be a first.”

We can take a couple of lessons away from this week’s soap opera. The first is the welcome observation that the Regulator – if not his wards – has a good understanding of public values and expectations. With any luck, Digicel and TVL will learn a little from him. Second, it’s nice to see TVL and Digicel allowing themselves to be led by common sense rather than the overt exercise of regulatory clout.

One hopes most of all, though, that TVL and Digicel have learned a lesson too. Of all the public criticisms that emerged over the last week or so, one thing is clear: Both telecoms companies should spend more time looking to their own affairs than minding their neighbour’s. If they spent as much time and effort improving network quality and customer service as they devoted to talking about it, people might not avert their eyes every time they pass one of their wall-sized posters.

For their own sake, both Digicel and TVL had better hope that their respective leopards can change their spots. If not, they’ll both have a lot of explaining to do to their customers.

The key to all this is his failure to distinguish between the network and the protocol. Manjoo says that the Internet helps Iran’s repressive efforts. That’s not true, at least not nearly to the extent he thinks. The network – the physical infrastructure of cables, switching and routing equipment, is what’s trapping people right now. If it weren’t for the end-to-end nature of the software protocols that make up what we conveniently call the Internet, little if any news at all would have emerged from Iran.

Manjoo points out the structural weakness in Iran’s communications systems well enough – they all have to pass through the single point of control. One of the first actions the government took following the announcement of the presidential vote results (widely considered to be false) was to severely limit access all but one of its international data connections.

Interestingly, this disruption was short-lived. Data is flowing across all official (and a few unofficial) paths to the outside world. Traffic volumes, however, are drastically reduced. James Cowie of Renesys Corp. asks the burning question: Why did the regime not cut access completely? He suggests three possible reasons:

1. The cynics. Perhaps the government has left the Internet intact so that they can use it to surveil and round up dissidents. Perhaps they even put bandwidth constraints in place to make it easier to cope with the volumes of traffic that need to be captured and filtered.
2. The optimists. Perhaps the government has realized that a modern economy relies on the Internet to such an extent that it cannot be turned off, for fear of disrupting financial transactions and business communications. Iran’s Internet ecosystem is relatively rich, and the impact on their economy of a sustained Internet shutdown would be significant. Why make it harder for companies to do business in Iran at a time when oil revenues are cratering and foreign investment is looking for reasons to take a walk?
3. The realists. Perhaps the government is too busy with other things to worry about the Internet. Governments aren’t well-suited to run the Internet, and they don’t completely understand how it works. The Internet has never been “turned off” before, and it would take creativity and thoughtful action to figure out who to ask in order to get it done. So it simply hasn’t happened, and probably won’t. Good thing, too, because they might not be able to turn it on again.

[emphasis mine]

I’m inclined to agree with Cowie in his suspicion that 3 is the most likely, although I’d guess that there are likely at least one or two more pragmatic (possibly enlightened or even passively subversive) technical managers who know the importance of keeping the trains running, even if they’re not all on time.

But as long as it continues to function, the Internet will allow private data to flow. Adhering to Mitch Kapor’s famous assertion that the Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it, it’s reasonable to conclude that Iran’s Internet is terribly damaged, but continues to function.

So Manjoo’s conclusion is wrong. The Revolution may not be digitised, but it’s not because of the Internet; it’s in spite of it. The most effective anti-information measures taken to date by the ruling junta have been the arrest and arbitrary detention of citizen journalists and attacks by Basiji on anyone seen carrying electronic recording gear, even mobile phones.

The repression being experienced there is brutal and it’s being carried out largely by human beings.

That said, technological dangers do exist. The physical communications network in Iran is centralised by design and controlled by the state. Quelle surprise. If I were a well-funded and resourceful opposition member in Iran today, I’d be investing no small resources in the acquisition of state of the art VSAT and mesh-enabled equipment. Such technologies are much more difficult to control because their interconnection points are decentralised and distributed.

One example: It would be trivially easy to write firmware for the Apple iPhone that allowed mesh networking capabilities. Mesh network protocols are opportunistic, agnostic processes that appropriate and share Internet connectivity on an ad hoc basis. In layman’s terms, anyone with access to the Internet (say, via 3G or a wireless hotspot) can share it with anyone within a reasonable distance. The next person in line can also share that link, effectively extending the range and usefulness of even a nominal Internet connection.

In order to disrupt such a network, you’d have to hunt down innumerable satellite dishes and easily concealed wireless access points.

That’s not at all impossible. In fact, there are already reports of Basiji entering homes in search of satellite dishes. But here’s the thing: given a sufficiently large number of end-points, the measures required to remove them all could prove toxic to the regime. In the best case scenario, private communications remain possible (if not entirely convenient); in the worst case scenario, the crackdown is so widespread that the Khamene’i regime loses the last shreds of its legitimacy in the eyes of the people, possibly leading to actual insurrection instead of protest.

There’s a general lesson to be taken from this: All of our communications networks are susceptible to the very same suppression and censorship as Iran’s. Networks the world over are centralised and designed with control points similar to Iran’s built in. The Wall Street Journal observes:

Countries with repressive governments aren’t the only ones interested in such technology. Britain has a list of blocked sites, and the German government is considering similar measures. In the U.S., the National Security Agency has such capability, which was employed as part of the Bush administration’s “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” A White House official wouldn’t comment on if or how this is being used under the Obama administration.

The US surveillance of domestic and international traffic is equally intrusive, though not nearly so obstructive as that experienced by Iranians today. It is made easier by exactly the same design vulnerabilities.

But more important than this observation is its corollary: Decentralised networks are critical to the protection of the fundamentally democratic right to communicate. Without communications technologies that reflect this fundamental value, the right to free speech is limited. In the worst cases, it becomes a liability.

Nokia-Siemens, defending its role in the creation of a centralised mobile telecommuncations network, stated recently that:

In most countries around the world, including all EU member states and the U.S., telecommunications networks are legally required to have the capability for Lawful Intercept and this is also the case in Iran. Lawful Intercept is specified in standards defined by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).

Yes, decentralised communications come at a cost. They make surveillance efforts of all kinds more difficult. The two competing questions we need to ask ourselves are:

1. How far are we willing to compromise ourselves in the pursuit of state security?
2. How much are we willing to compromise state surveillance capability in order to protect our own freedom to communicate?

These are knotty issues with complex and often subtle ramifications on society. They demand a level of public engagement on the principle – and more importantly, the practice – of free speech that we haven’t seen since the Red Scare of the 1950s.

Technology feels like magic to most of us. We don’t – and don’t want to – know how our communications come about. We just want them to happen.

But in order for them to happen, we must inform – and arm – ourselves with the knowledge, understanding, law and policies that make it possible. Facile observations like Manjoo’s do little if anything to support such an effort.

The Revolution will indeed be digitised, but only if we want it enough.