What Lies Ahead?

14 November 2008 Dan McGarry

Available evidence seems to point to an upcoming spike in activity among new and existing Internet service providers as they attempt to establish a sustainable long-term position in the nascent ISP market. All eyes are going to be on the numbers, and the numbers will be in the household market. I expect to see a rather boisterous, slightly confused, slightly messy marketing and advertising blitz as a few new faces join our now-familiar cast of communications characters in a bid to be first in the hearts of Vanuatu consumers.

[This week’s Communications column for the Vanuatu Independent.]

Recently we’ve seen a bit of a lull in activity (or at least excitement) in the Vanuatu telecommunications sector. Customers are becoming a little blasé about choice in the mobile market. The mobile telephone incumbents have more or less established their positions, with TVL making real efforts to smoothe its complexion and Digicel allowing the first small warts to peep through its make-up.

The post-election transition of power slowed the policy process down some, and movements at the executive level meant that some of the local businesses needed a bit of a breather as well.

So let’s take this opportunity to do a little crystal ball gazing. What can businesses and Internet users generally expect in the coming months?

License to Bill

14 September 2008 Dan McGarry

Hidden inside the legalese contained in the government of Vanuatu’s draft telecommunications licensign policy are important questions concerning Internet access in the islands and the need to ensure that the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and access to information are protected.

[This week’s Communications column for the Vanuatu Independent.]

The next phase of the government’s telecommunications strategy is under way.

A little over a week ago, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Utilities began a public consultation process designed to gather feedback on the next set of telecommunications licenses, which should be available in the coming months.

Copies of the draft licensing policy are available at the Ministry offices, or you can get them courtesy of the Vanuatu IT Users Society at vitus.org.vu.

This kind of thing is tedious, detailed and boring for virtually everyone concerned. It’s also a critical step in Vanuatu’s development. Hidden inside the legalese are important questions concerning Internet access in the islands and the need to ensure that the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and access to information are protected.

Then and Now

28 August 2008 Dan McGarry

Nobody seems to have anticipated just how widespread and immediate the effects of telecoms liberalisation would be. Some of the expectations outlined in the World Bank report titled ‘Infrastructure Regulatory Review’ appear now to be quite conservative, in some cases landing nearly outside the ballpark.

[This week’s Communications column for the Vanuatu Independent.]

In July 2004, the World Bank presented a report on the state of Vanuatu’s public utilities to the public.

This was a watershed moment. From that moment, the government of Vanuatu formally committed itself to a process that ultimately led to the break-up of the telecommunications monopoly and the creation of the Utilities Regulatory Authority.

The transformation since then has been nothing short of remarkable. Nobody seems to have anticipated just how widespread and immediate the effects of telecoms liberalisation would be. Some of the expectations outlined in the Infrastructure Regulatory Review appear now to be quite conservative, in some cases landing nearly outside the ballpark.

Perhaps most telling is the report’s contention that ‘low income, low population base, low urbanization and low literacy rate are characteristics which suggest that demand for telecommunications services in Vanuatu is likely to be constrained.’

Experience seems to indicate quite the opposite.
Read more “Then and Now”

Rural Internet Comes to Vanuatu

24 July 2008 Dan McGarry3 Comments

Pacific RICS, which stands for Rural Internet Connectivity System, is the result of the Pacific Islands Forum’s Digital Strategy, itself part of the Pacific Plan. The AusAID-funded project offers Pacific Island nations access to dedicated satellite communication services using simple, easy to install and inexpensive equipment. This project is designed to dovetail with the Oceania One Laptop Per Child initiative, which aims to ensure that all children in the region get their own low-cost, durable laptop.

[This week’s Communications column for the Vanuatu Independent.]

This week, Ian Thomson, project coordinator for the SPC’s Pacific RICS project, came to town with some eye-catching gifts in hand.

During a public presentation on Tuesday, attended by Ministers Edward Nipake Natapei and Joe Natuman, Santo MP Sela Molisa and many others, Thomson outlined how combining affordable Internet access and invaluable learning tools like the OLPC’s XO laptop could revolutionise life in rural areas of Vanuatu.

A sample satellite system was set up in a single afternoon at Club Vanuatu, and Minister Natapei demonstrated how easy it was to use it to connect to the Internet.

Expressing his excitement about the projects, Thomson said, ‘I feel like Father Christmas! I get to give out laptops to children – who could say no to a job like that? Not only will it help them learn, but it will also help all community members to engage with Internet technology and get connected to the global network.’

Aversion

18 July 2008 Dan McGarry1 Comment

Let me be frank: Vanuatu is, in most ways, a backwater when it comes to technology. There’s no point sugar-coating it. We’re limited by numerous factors, some of them environmental and institutional, but the biggest problem we face is one of perception and imagination.

[This week’s Communications column for the Vanuatu Independent.]

One of the most difficult aspects of high tech is that it’s intangible and therefore difficult to visualise. It’s everywhere around us, but when you ask the average person to explain what it does or how it works, they’d just give you a perplexed look and move on. We see the icons on the screen, and we know that with the proper incantation they can be made to do certain tasks, but we never really see it working.

A car motor may be incomprehensible to most, but at least it’s visible. We can watch the fan belt spinning and the drive train turning, we can hear if the engine coughs or sputters, we can see the exhaust and tell at a glance if something’s wrong.

Things aren’t quite so clear in high tech. Sure, it’s easy to see when the computer slows down, or when a sheet of paper gets stuck halfway through the printer. But consider this: most of us aren’t even aware that we’re interacting with high technology almost all of the time. We don’t think about the radio, the cash register, the DVD player, the bank machine or the mobile phone as different heads on a ratchet set. But that’s effectively what they are: interchangeable cogs in the same notional machine.

PACNOG Talk

30 June 2008 Dan McGarry1 Comment

One of the items in yesterday’s brain dump was a talk I presented to the Pacific Network Operators Group (PACNOG) at the Sebel Hotel. It’s titled ‘Network Effects: Social Significance of Mobile Communications in Vanuatu‘. It explains Network Effects and how they manifest themselves in village life, then looks at some obvious and not-so-obvious implications for network providers in the Pacific. Briefly, my point is that village life features very tight communication loops from which no one is exempt. The one-to-one (but not the one-to-many and many-to-one!) aspects of village communications will be enhanced by mobile comms, and smart network operators should do what they can to enhance this effect. The result will be that our island geography (and gestalt) creates more value per user than traditional business analysis might lead us to believe.

One of the questions that came up regularly when I asked for feedback on my talk was how people would be able to afford mobile services. Given that 5000 vatu (about USD 50) per month is not an unusual family income in the village, even topping up with 200 vatu credit (currently the smallest increment available) would be a burden, would it not? The answer is yes and no.

There’s an interesting relationship between commodity prices and agricultural production here in Vanuatu. When the price of commodities like coffee, copra and cacao rises, production actually decreases rather than increasing. The reason for this is that the need for cash in rural areas is quite limited. Once a villager earns enough to pay school fees, clothing and a few staples, there’s no more need to sell their crop. So when they can earn the same amount of money for less effort, they do so.

This is one of the factors leading to a kind of economic insulation for the average ni-Vanuatu. I wrote a bit more about other aspects of this phenomenon in this article for the Daily Post.The bottom line is that the cash economy remains small in rural Vanuatu because the cash economy is only a small part of the whole picture.

When mobile communications are introduced, the perceived need for cash increases. In the short term, this puts stress on the pocket book, but things can probably work themselves out through a nominal increase in the amount of cash being generated (e.g. through cash crops). Add to this the increased efficiencies that come hand in hand with better communications, and we’ll likely see more prosperity and economic activity – in cash terms – than less.

In other words, this is not a zero sum game.

That detail is still lost in many traditional planning processes. In fact, ignorance of this dynamic is a bigger inhibitor to growth than many other external factors. If people can’t forecast capacity properly, their estimates come out consistently low, and because products and services don’t meet the need, they don’t have the effect they’re intended to, so people don’t invest in them.

Very often, taking the last few years’ numbers and extrapolating linear growth creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which growth remains linear only because that’s as much as it can grow. Unfortunately, it allows analysts to sit back and say, ‘See? I told you so.’

Update: Looking a little further down this continuum: Once the inherent economic elasticity in this system is used up, however, poverty sets in. An example would be people planting cash crops in places once reserved for food crops. It’s a fine line between building the cash economy and building dependence on the cash economy in such as way that a person’s outputs can’t meet their costs.

Uncommon Sense

10 April 2008 Dan McGarry1 Comment

Throughout history, the distance between technology and society has been a defining characteristic of nations, empires and peoples. While it’s tempting to say that the most technologically sophisticated societies represent the pinnacle of human achievement, that’s not necessarily true. Some would argue that keeping social values paramount and learning how to adapt technology to human needs is a more effective means to ensure the health of a society.

Unfortunately, health, happiness and social justice can’t always be judged using objective economic measures. How does one measure crimes that don’t happen, meals that don’t get missed, sick days not taken?

Economic indicators do serve a number of useful purposes, of course. The Pacific Economic Survey – I wrote about it here – includes some extremely useful and instructive data concerning the effects of market liberalisation on communications. It also pointed out some inherent weaknesses in Vanuatu and elsewhere in the region, particularly with regards to technical know-how.

People in Vanuatu could teach many an economist a thing or two about what makes for a meaningful and contented life. But isolation is part of what has made life in Vanuatu simpler and more relaxed, and as that isolation erodes, we find ourselves facing significant technical challenges, some of which have a steep learning curve.

The small group of individuals who have taken leadership in opening the telecommunications market in Vanuatu have been remarkably successful thus far. People close to the process agree that the settlement agreement and the new licenses are extremely well framed. They have learned by the example of those countries who went before, and have created a comprehensive and detailed framework with very little ambiguity. This allows Digicel, Telecom Vanuatu and future entrants to focus on doing business rather than bogging themselves down in legalese, negotiation and other distractions.

But there remains much to be decided, and much to be done: