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Registered Charity No. 611
Public Owned Universal Access will bridge Digital Divide In preparation for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the UWI and the Commonwealth Secretariat convened the Caribbean Seminar/Workshop on the Information Society in Antigua , May 11 th - 14 th . BANGO was particularly pleased to have attended this seminar which helped to forge deeper relations between stakeholders at the user-end of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Sector. Evident was the critical role which Civil Society must play to support positions and initiatives for practical application. ICTs are not just about technology but about people. Without mass participation ICTs are a playground for the rich. While we would not deny the rich a playground, we must examine the importance of ICTs for national and regional development and ask why should ICTs remain a playground for the rich when it has greater utility in the wider society? One can argue that we were always an information society. Indeed businesses start up by gathering information. What is in demand? How can it be supplied? Who can supply the raw materials? People reposition their lives based on information. Consumers depend on information to take advantage of the best options. There are many more applications for the use of information such as: the delivery of health care; disaster planning, mitigation and relief; e-government, e-business and even managing domestic affairs. It would therefore be ideal if every person had a cell phone, a landline and access to the internet but even with the liberalisation process this is not happening? The first problem is that the providers of universal access are really digging in, leaving very little room for other providers using this access without making it expensive. The second factor is that too many services are being allowed to operate. For example, you can use your universal access to dial-up the internet and speak to people overseas. Yet you are blocked because a service provider is providing this service differently and in a less efficient way; affecting the rest of the providers? A Civil Society position is that there must be a paradigm shift. It is question of deploying workers and resources and reorganizing the industry to satisfy the need for the region to be competitive. If private ownership and operation of universal access is resulting in a high base rate then regional leaders should consider public ownership of universal access. A good parallel is postal services. It is more expensive to make a five minute overseas call than to write a ten page letter, pass it through the post office which then puts it on a plane and another postal service in another country picks it up and delivers it to the same party. Why should any Barbadian have to pay BDS$113.00 for a twenty-five minute call to the Bahamas ? In comparison to the USA , we pay ridiculous rates for roaming and long distance. Their top service providers offer packages with no extra charges for roaming and long distance throughout most of that country; which spans at least twice the distance as obtains between the two most distant CARICOM States? Where there are extra charges for long distance and roaming in the USA , it is more to do with ownership and lack of agreements between providers than distance. Furthermore, why can a person in the USA call the Caribbean so cheaply and we pay so much just to call next door? Bridging the digital divide is about making telecommunications rates more affordable. The question is what positions and recommendations can we take to WSIS and the CHOGM to deal with the problem of affordability? Based on the deliberations of the meeting in Antigua , a Civil Society position is that it is not the cost of the technology but the arrangements for the provision of the service is causing the divide. The liberalisation process may have worked in the USA but it is failing us and as small vulnerable states our interests are better protected through public or cooperative ownership of universal access. Roosevelt O. King
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