A couple of weeks before we had the chance to ask some questions to Gwen Shaffer and lucky enough to get some answers (Thx Gwen!). Gwen is a researcher from Temple University at the Mass Media & Communications Program in Philadelphia. She has recently made a research trip to Europe to interview some key people related to WiFi community networks. Amongst others, she did interview people form guifi.net too. In her own words;

“We’re preparing an in-depth report that examines successful community wireless networks and highlights innovative projects that are helping to revitalize efforts to address the digital divide and promote ubiquitous and affordable broadband. The report we are preparing will be shared with major media outlets, federal government officials and commissioners, congressional staff, and leaders from major metropolitan areas.” (quoted form here)

So here are some of her answers:

(…)

YB: Why did you start researching on wifi? what was your motivation?

GS: I took a graduate school course called “Global telecommunications,” which
piqued my interest in policy issues. I started reading about alternatives to
incumbent Internet Service Providers and their potential to expand broadband
deployment. I appreciated the “disruptive” aspect of these networks and
their potential to close the digital divide.

YB: How would you define what a “successful” wifi initiative is?

GS: Success depends entirely on the goals of the WiFi network. It could mean
fostering community among members, creating technological innovation or
strictly providing Internet connectivity. I think it is impossible to
generalize.

YB: So far, why did you felt the need to reach European wifi initiatives?

GS: Because there is so much innovation happening in these networks. As I’m
sure you know, Freifunk developed a routing protocol that is now used all
over the world. If it were not for Djurslands.net, thousands of people may
have been forced to leave rural Denmark. These are just two examples. By
contrast, the U.S. initiatives are quite small and many use “out-of-the-box”
technology, such as Meraki routers–which are less powerful and don’t
require any technical knowledge. So the European models provide a completely
different perspective. Some of the European networks also have partnerships
with local governments, which interests me as a potential model for U.S.
cities.

YB: What would you say are the main demands of these initiatives to public
institutions (if any)?

GS: Not sure they place “demands” on institutions. I would say they present
opportunities for these institutions to close the digital divide in their
communities.

YB: Many of EU wifi initiatives have encountered some legal  concerns or
prohibitions that inhibited them to foster their projects. For guifi it was
the insecurity of being able to share the Internet broadband connection
amongst their peers connected to guifi.net. They notified the CMT (sort of
FCC) and as a result and to their surprise, under the current legislation,
nothing was done illegally. But Still, there is always the feeling that law
is something to be careful about in order to maintain the achievements
already made. Plus,  no one at guifi is a lawyer. For people at Freifunk, as
far as I know, there was only one ISP in Berlin who allowed the
sharing of broadband. Given this fact, this ISP reached a  sales peak and,
therefore, other ISP modified their initial restrictions to allow users to share their
broadband DSL. The irruption of an actor, freifunk, modified the contract
and licensing models of ISPs in Gremany. These are just two examples of how
the influence of legal / illegal practices are shaping telecom policies.
How would you define the current policies you have had the chance to
review?

GS: I’m uncertain whether you are referring to policies enforced by government
or by the ISPs. In the U.S., there are actually no regulations that directly
address bandwidth sharing. The assumption is basically that only traditional
phone and cable companies will provide internet access. And the the ISP
policies–which are not law, but private “terms of service”–are very
restrictive, as you know. They explicitly bar subscribers from opening their
wireless signals for others to use the bandwidth.

YB: What do you think would be the next trend in telecom policies? This is, a
quick and new set of rules and laws to prevent citizen wifi initiatives
while searching for appropriate state driven wifi models (as could be the case with a review of the telecom packages in the UE), or a more permissive and encompassing policy that will adapt and establish equal opportunities (if not priorizing citizen initiatives by making corporations broadcast on the licensed part of the spectrum and leaving the unlicensed part of it to citizens) to both conventional ISPs and citizen wifi initiatives?

GS: In the U.S., I predict new opportunities for mesh networking because of the
unlicensed spectrum that will be available by the end of the year. There is
also a much greater acceptance of open source initiatives, and WiFi
communities fall into this category. So that could give them a boost.

In addition, telecommunications policies are driven by corporations, as much
as we would like to think they are driven by activists! My understanding is
that lots of companies are already developing products with embedded mesh
technology. So if everyone’s cell phone is a mesh repeater, the concept of
bandwidth sharing will go mainstream.

As for ISP policies–I’ve aso been reading about the trend toward offering
“value-added services.” I’ve been thinking about how ISPs can provide
bandwidth to customers at extremely low prices or even free, and then make
money off other services. (The model is like Nokia practically giving away
its phones, but making money off services you receive over the phone.) That
would enable growth of WiFi communities.

YB: Many times, people at wireless communities, feel that policy makers are
really not aware of what wireless communities are. Little knowledge, if any,
is grasped from all the activities these communities are doing. In deed, the
promotion and understanding of these activities is quite difficult as no, if
any, spaces of encounter between policy makers and ?people messing with
wifi? are planned. People at guifi, for instance, can talk with policy
makers benefiting from public conferences where X and Z will be invited. But
there are no formal spaces for debating policy issues*. Therefore, it is no
surprise to see how controversies emerge. How does one frame of
comprehension (if we may speak of ?frames? here) influence another one? Any
successful cases?

GS: I can only think of a couple examples in the U.S. In the city of Portland,
Oregon, a citywide municipal wireless network shut down because the private
company operating it could not figure out a business model that actually
generated a profit. The city then met with Personal Teleco, a community WiFi
initiative, to explore whether this group could somehow fill the niche. In
the end, the city decided against it. The other example is in San Francisco.
Meraki is giving away its mesh routers and creating a wireless community
known as “Free the Net.” The city is “guiding” this effort to ensure that
low-income communities get the routers and that people get computer training
and computers too. So they are looking at the WiFi community as one tool for
closing the digital divide. I did interview a couple people at the FCC who
say they attend community wireless conferences (like the big international
summit held each year). So some federal policymakers are definitely
interested in the movement.

(…)

That’s it

RAX!

* PS: For the last question, we must say that it is not acurrately true to say that there are no proper spaces of encounter between guifi.net and policy makers as recently some conversations and presentations have been made between several organisms in charge of some “level of policy-making”. Such as the Comisión del Mercado de Telecomunicacions (CMT), Loaclret and the Institut Municipal d’Informática (IMI) of Barcelona. But I am not sure about the content and scope of these meetings so I will need to come back and see if the asumption here holds the line.