Welcome to the 14th monthly round-up of developments impacting your local access networks.
1. Get involved
All World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) stakeholders are invited to submit inputs on the Thematic Aspects and Innovations on the Format of the WSIS Forum 2019. The deadline is 10 February 2019. Read more.
2. Community networks in news and blogs
- Observing community networks in the Philippines through a gendered lens: Interview with Claire, Thessa and Clarisse. Read more.
- Developing Community Networks in Northern Brazil. Read more.
- Minnesota Counties Help Fund Cooperative Broadband Projects for Economic Development. Read more.
- Starting a Broadband Project Right: Good feasibility studies help communities move forward with their broadband projects. Read more.
- The community network as a connectivity strategy for rural and remote Myanmar. Read more.
- [In Russian] Activists from the Kyrgyz branch of the ISOC Internet community are laying high-speed Internet cables to remote mountain villages. Read more.
- Towns And Cities Keep Ditching Comcast To Build Their Own Broadband Networks. Read more.
- [En español]: Telefonía celular comunitaria revoluciona zonas indígenas de Oaxaca. Leer más.
- Sudan, Bangladesh, DRC, Gabon start 2019 with major digital rights violations. Read more.
- Electricity and Internet: Pieces of the Same Puzzle (Episode 63). Podcast interview with community broadband pioneer Billy Ray, a longtime advocate for both municipally owned electricity and broadband. Listen here.
- [En español]: Con mucho gusto compartimos la nominación que Techio Comunitario y Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias A.C. han obtenido para los premios de la Cumbre Mundial de la Sociedad de la Información (WSIS) 2019. Leer más.
- Broadband in the Villages | Chris Conder | TEDxKazimierz. Watch here.
- Community Networks: In Tanzania, Helping to Close the Connectivity Gap. Read more.
- The guifi.net Foundation has proposed a universal deployment model for municipalities, allowing new deployments by a private requester as long they provide paths that simultaneously allow for three uses: self-service for the city council, private use for the requester, and shared or common use for everyone else. Read more.
- Women and Community Networks in Africa. Read more.
- South Africa Gauteng Community Outreach: Why Community Networks Matter. Read more.
3. Relevant articles on technologies related to local access networks
- LibreRouter: A Multi-Radio Wireless Router for Community Networks. Read more.
- [En español]: LibreRouter: Un enrutador inalámbrico multiradio para redes comunitarias. Leer más.
- Google’s balloon internet is coming to Kenya in 2019. Read more here and here.
- ITU Touts Low Cost Fibre Optic Cable for Rural DIY Broadband Builds. Read more.
- Hyperlocal radio and do-it-yourself networks bring information closer to home. Read more.
4. News on policy and regulation
- Enabling the Telecommons: Guidelines for Policymakers. Read more here and here.
- Advancing rural connectivity in South Africa: A case for community-owned networks. Read more.
5. Reports and publications
- Internet Governance Forum Best Practice Forum on Gender and Access: Impact of supplementary models of connectivity in enabling meaningful internet access for women and gender non-binary persons. Read Section 2, starting page 19, on community networks here.
- Innovative business models for expanding fibre-optic networks and closing the access gaps. Read page 34 and 107 for details on community networks here.
- APC’s contribution to the UN High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Read more.
- African Telecommunications Infrastructure in 2018: 5th annual review. Read more.
6. Previous editions
- Previous editions of this newsletter are available here.
This newsletter is part of the project titled, “Local Access Networks: Can the unconnected connect themselves?” carried out by APC in partnership with Internet Society and Rhizomática, with support from Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in 2017/2018 and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) in 2019.
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One more thing! If you have comments about the newsletter or information relevant to the topic that you would like us to include in the next edition, please share it with us at localaccess.newsletter@apc.org.
January 2019. Association for Progressive Communications (APC)