🛖 Documentation
Nov 8 | SESSION 11 — Keys for Sustainability (1): Backhaul, CN models, cooperatives, SMEEs
In this session, moderated by Josephine, Michuki Mwangi and Penelope Partida Martinez lead the session in taking the participants through understanding what backhaul is and what models are being implemented especially in the contexts of CN. At the end of the session, it was hoped that they are able to understand why backhaul is key to sustainability and why it is an important area of advocacy.
Key highlights:
- Backhaul is the infrastructure as well as the capacity of a network to connect a small group of networks to the rest of the larger portion of the network. It is also called a gateway because it is a gate that can help us have the possibility to interconnect with the rest of one another.
- Point to point radio links — the most affordable infra as you only need the basic infra where one transmit and the other receives. It uses airways as the cable and to send out information. Often set out at CN because it saves cost. However, the disadvantage — weather dependent. Any time there is weather change, it is going to cause disruptions and reduction of the capacity to send signals. Another disadvantage — those two points need to have visibility to each other to be able to communicate and have a clear line of sight.
- In point to point links, the higher the frequency the more information can be sent, the lower the frequency less information. But the lower the frequency, the more resistant to weather conditions, the more robust it is. With higher frequency, we need to worry if there are weather conditions that could disrupt the signals.
- The case of spectrum varies by country. In some countries where there are many interferences you need to get permits, pay, or compete for grants. Bands are regulated, so they can only be used by those who have permits, so this guarantees no interference.
- Satellite is costly — needs larger companies for the installation. For CN, we can install antennas at the same frequency in which the satellite is operating. The installation is extremely quick, but you should consider all the travel time for the traffic and signal to get to the satellite to bounce back to reach the tower to connect to the networks. In many cases when isolated communities are far from the cities where connectivity is abundant, satellite is the only option they have.
- For fibre optics cable, the cables itself are inexpensive, but the installation is.
- Two types of services to get the infra mentioned above to function — IP transit and IP transport.
- IP transit — made of physical components (fibre, point to point, or wireless), helps you connect to the internet. Cons — no way of controlling the traffic and not being able to do anything else other than accept or send out traffic that's leaving or coming into your network. Pros — no need to be an expert on Internet routing protocols.
- The function ‘buying’ internet transit is called so because you're buying from a provider that will give you transit through their networks to get to an endpoint. They are called ISPs too.
- 95th percentile — when an upstream provider is able to graph your usage using a five minute average, able to graph and see where your 95% of the traffic was, and they will charge based on that.
- There is the advantage of being able to buy capacity with commitments. It is good because you are able to buy large capacities and get discounts. But you need to generate large revenue to pay, and most of the time you are locked in a contract.
- Internet peering is a business relationship where two companies or two networks agree to exchange that access to each other's customers. E.g. two large ISPs in your country can choose to interconnect and exchange the traffic from their customers without charging each other.
- Before making backhaul strategies for CNs, it is important to think from CN perspectives. Useful Qs to think of: Where is your community network located? Which service providers are available? What is the market pricing for bandwidth in the area that you're in? What technologies are they using — is it fibre, is it wireless, etc.? If none exist, do you have to do satellite? What are the terms and standards? What are the standard terms that they're offering? About service providers — what technology they are using? Who has fibre, who has wireless, what type of wireless is available? Is it the licenced or unlicensed spectrum? What is the pricing that they have in that area? Which service provider? What costs the offering? And are they really flexible? etc.
- Useful Qs to save cost: If the closest and most flexible transit provider is about 100 kilometres away, what options does that present you? Do you have your own transport? Are they flexible enough to be able to do it? Is it reasonable? Should you be building in that direction or in a completely different direction? Can you lease capacity from other operators in terms of transport — so you might find an operator who is near you very expensive on IP transit, but they're cheaper to transport and they're happy to drop you off at a place of your convenience? etc.
Links to network monitoring tools:
Memorable quotes:
“A low-frequency band (of point to point) is like one of those flashlights. When you turn the flashlight to the distance you see that it covers a broader area. If I have several lights, they will illuminate the same overlapped path. For a high level band, think of laser beams. They're very focused and even though you could have several ones pointing in the same directions, their beam of light is not causing interference.” — Penelope
Nov 11 | SESSION 12 — The role of women, gender inclusive modalities and other diverse community members in network and community sustainability
Sol and Debora led this sharing session on the role of women and gender diverse people in community networks, and how the different modalities contributed to the sustainability of community networks. The session started with the participants sharing about themselves, their roles, and their locations in a Padlet, followed by Sol and Debora sharing two case examples on how policy had transformed communities, and concluded with a breakout and sharing session on navigating policy spaces.
Key highlights:
- Communities, with their traditional ways of living, have their own ideas on ecology, local economy, and sustainability in ways that could contribute to CN and in ways that disrupt neoliberal status quo. It is more than just technical network connectivity, it is about fostering alternative ways that could give us different kinds of a future.
- Many women have different roles in the places and CN they run and inhabit — they are self-taught technicians, they can run training, they also learned how to apply for license — due to the fact that there used to be a few people who could do distinct roles before the funding rolled in.
- Sol shared her story on situating her two different roles and how her voice is heard differently in two spaces and t. In the first space where she was with Zenzeleni cooperatives, she had meetings in the community in a mud hut where farm animals are around and she required interpretations. Her voice was heard loud, with her position of power, skills and knowledge. However in the policy space — in the podium in fancy hotels, her voice is barely heard and always had to ask academics to back her up. But by sustaining and telling the stories of a community network through advocacy, the community now has the right to inhabit the space of big telecom companies. Locating herself in both places between places, lived experiences, and priorities is necessary work to sustain community networks.
- Debora shared her story where she worked with a community in Vale do Ribeira, Brazil. The community has over 20 people working within different roles and spaces. They erected a bamboo pole tower together — a process that requires a lot of collaboration and coordinated work together. This is reflected in the work of CN — the process could not be possible without the links between bodies, background, social diversity, and knowledge crossing through many historical and structural inequalities. At the same time, this is the place of resistance and imagination, possible for other ways of living.
- The operations of CN required relationship between multiplicity of individuals and social groups and diff lived relations and equality affected by socio technical system and power relations.
- Some other reflections from Debora’s case example — what are the degrees to seek the collective care effort that we aim for the project? Were these encounters between different people crossing alliance that recognises differences? To the people involved, do they feel the ownership in the CN? Does the quality attend to the people’s interests and needs and how they're related to other rights in the community? Etc.
- There are also policy-related reflections, especially in Brazil where there’s political instability — could this CN be addressed? Is there a risk of criminalisation, where there is a history of criminalisation in community networks? Do you have public policy in the country that could guarantee access to the Internet or backhaul? Are there laws that could protect women and quilombos in Brazil? This diversity of people – researchers, women, community members etc. — are they present or influence the decisions making spaces where this regulation and policy spaces are being decided?
- It is important to work with communities in order to understand and participate in policy building processes that will not exclude them. This is especially so when there is a lot of gender disparity and inequality in decision making spaces.
- There is a need to bridge the gaps in roles and language in policy spaces, and to have more diversity as policy spaces are more often dominated by governments and big corporations who have more financial stake in the area, excluding the needs of the communities they actually need to serve. When politicians engage with the issue, it is mostly for the theatre, and not actually to help the communities.
- The importance of representation — the voice of community members and leaders are more needed in the policy spaces, and less of big corps, academia and businesses.
- There is a need to bridge the telecomm issues with the daily issues of the people in the community e.g. access to water, sanitation, food security, etc. Is there a space to discuss these issues within a holistic approach?
- There is also a need to bridge the gap between technical engineers and social engineers – tech people need to understand technology is more than just tools, they need to understand its relation to the people and community who will use them.
- When we say we want to serve the realities of the people, ask ourselves: whose reality are we talking about? Even within ourselves and the work that we do, in most cases it was not initiated by the community. How do we define which realities we need to serve?
Memorable quotes:
“We are good for all types of construction.” — Brunz
“Sustainability is an open question that could depend on a lot of factors, and how these encounters and multiple roles are being pulled at the same time.” — Debora, reflecting on her case example.
“Let’s try to integrate all of these worlds and be kind, as the bridging space is a complex universe and dynamics that we have to hold.” — Sol