Session Seven | Sep 27
SESSION TITLE
Understanding the strengths and weakness of various access technologies
About the Mentors
Claire Milne
Claire Milne has had a long and varied career with telecommunications policy as its central theme. Since 1989 she has worked as an independent consultant, providing policy and regulatory advice in dozens of countries on all continents, including recently in The Bahamas, Bhutan, Myanmar, Somalia and Iraq. In parallel she has served on several public bodies in the UK, including the premium rate service regulator Phone-paid Services Authority (then ICSTIS) and the Internet Watch Foundation. In 2015 she was awarded an MBE for services to the telecommunications sector. Her early career was with BT, where her responsibilities included network engineering, marketing strategy and regulation; she has degrees in Mathematics and Statistics. Since 2009 she has taught "policy for ICTs, development and society" to international students in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics.
Jane Coffin
Jane Coffin is the Chief Community Officer at Connect Humanity.
Prior to joining Connect Humanity, Jane was with the Internet Society (ISOC) for seven years, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, Internet Growth. In this role she led the Internet Society’s Internet Growth project teams focused on Community Networks, Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) & interconnection, peering, and community development, and a new critical project on measuring the health of the Internet. Her work also focused on access and development strategy for expanding Internet infrastructure, access, and related capacities in emerging economies with partners.
Prior to joining ISOC, Jane worked on Internet and telecommunications policy issues for the Office of International Affairs at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration – U.S. Department of Commerce.
She was an active participant in Internet discussions in the ITU, OAS-CITEL, and OECD, working closely with the five regional Internet registries (RIRs) and other Internet technical community stakeholders. She was very involved in policy discussions on open Internet standards and issues related to BGP, IPv4, IPv6, and MPLS. While at NTIA, Jane was an advocate for the deployment of Internet exchange points (IXPs) to increase international Internet connectivity (IIC), and was an ITU-T SG-3 IIC co-Rapporteur and an IIC coordinator in CITEL’s PCC.I. She was Vice-Chair of the Federal IPv6 Task Force, and a Vice-Chair of the ITU Council Child Online Protection Working Group.
From 2002-2006, she served as Chief of Party, and Deputy Chief of Party on two separate USAID projects in Moldova and Armenia. Jane worked closely with regulators, policy-makers, senior officials and parliamentarians, Internet service providers, and stakeholders on regulatory strengthening, market access and competition, and liberalization and privatization activities in Moldova and Armenia.
Jane worked for AT&T as a Director of International Affairs/Government Affairs, where she worked on international telecommunications issues, including VOIP, ENUM, and ICAIS, and was a Rapporteur in ITU-D Study Group 1 for universal access/universal service in rural and remote areas.
She holds a BA in Classics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, attended the College Year in Athens program in Athens, Greece, and was an American Field Service (AFS) exchange student in Falun, Sweden (1985-86).
ABOUT THE SESSION
In this session you can expect to leave the room with the below takeaways:
- To understand the different technologies
- To understand tech regulation
- To assess the tech available and what to advocate for
Presentation
Resources
ITU references:
The Last-mile Internet Connectivity Solutions Guide: Sustainable Connectivity Options for Unconnected Sites
2020 (160 pp). Targets agencies, but material on technologies from p 58 to p 84 (partly reflected in presentation!) could be useful
Broadband development and connectivity solutions for rural and remote areas
SG5/1 report 2020 (16 pp) (available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish) - short non-technical summary; supports CNs and could be useful as a reference in advocacy
Guide for procuring last-mile connectivity data networks
2022 (54 pp) – “how to get it” guide (when you know what “it” is); targets agencies but could be useful as a check-list for CNs
See also:
https://altermundi.net/documentation/ librerouter
(mostly in Spanish) free wifi equipment, with instructions, specially designed for CNs
https://policy.communitynetworks.group/start
community wiki with several discussion groups – choose one or start your own
https://wndw.net/book.html
Free ebook: WIRELESS NETWORKING IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD, 3 editions in several languages - First Edition, January 2006, Second Edition, December 2007, Third Edition, February 2013