Challenges for rural communications development

The legacy of the Maitland report

Yasuhiko Kawasumi, General Manager

JAPAN TELECOM CO., LTD

Nearly twenty years ago, the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (Nairobi, 1982) adopted a resolution that led to the establishment in May 1983 of the renowned Independent Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development chaired by Sir Donald Maitland. The Nairobi Conference took this momentous decision convinced that the United Nations General Assembly had proclaimed 1983 as “World Communications Year” to provide the opportunity for all countries to undertake a comprehensive review and analysis of their policies on communications development.

In a nutshell, the Independent Commission’s mandate was to identify the obstacles hindering communications infrastructure development and to recommend ways in which the expansion of telecommunications across the world could be stimulated. In January 1985, the Commission submitted its report known as The Missing Link to Richard Butler, then Secretary-General of ITU. “We are grateful to you for inviting us to join the Commission”, Sir Donald said in a letter transmitting The Missing Link report to Mr Butler. “The challenge was formidable. But we found the task rewarding.”

Leaders from the developing world have been implementing the recommendations given in what soon became known as “the Maitland report”. Today, seventeen years later, the legacy of the Maitland report lives on and remains a benchmark for policy-makers and telecommunication administrations in developing countries. The target set in The Missing Link was that by the early part of the 21st century virtually the whole of [humankind should be brought] within easy reach of a telephone and of all the benefits this can bring”. Pekka Tarjanne, who served as ITU Secretary-General from November 1989 to January 1999, took this goal to heart and appealed to the United Nations “to recognize the right to communicate as a basic human right”. Since then, higher investment in telecommunication development, coupled with the implementation of new technologies and innovative strategies, as well as the general understanding of the socio-economic effect of communications infrastructure, have led to a remarkable degree of telecommunication development observed in most of the developing countries throughout the 1990s.

Whereas the goal set in the Maitland report is deemed to be a realistic and achievable target, the progress of digital technologies and the proliferation of Internet-related services and applications have brought us new challenges. At ITU TELECOM 99, ITU Secretary-General Yoshio

 Utsumi set a new goal in his opening speech, namely: to bring Internet-style services to all humankind within the first decade of the new millennium, and apply all the new technologies and impulses so that the gap in connectivity to the Internet can be reduced.

This digital era, which emerged during the mid-1990s, has brought with it corollary questions that are being addressed in both the developing and the developed world under the catchword: “the digital divide”. In June 2000, a meeting of the G8 countries discussed the growing digital divide and came up with the Okinawa Charter on the Global Information Society. One year later in July 2001, the G8 countries focused again on the digital divide at their Genoa Summit. Besides these events, the United Nations and many of its agencies are actively looking for workable solutions to the digital divide. ITU is the most relevant UN agency in this search for viable solutions; particularly as regards basic information infrastructure.

ITU action since Valletta

The second World Telecommunication Development Conference, held in Valletta (Malta) in March 1998, called for the development of new technologies designed to meet the needs of developing countries. For many years, developing countries voiced concern over ITU’s allocation of resources for standardization activities with primary applicability to developed countries. There was a feeling that developing countries were forced to purchase unnecessarily expensive telecommunication equipment made for developed countries. A proposal for ITU to tackle this problem was adopted at WTDC–98 as Topic 7* in an annex to the “Valletta Action Plan Programmes”.

Focus Group 7 (named after Topic 7) was set up in April 1999 at a meeting of the Telecommunication Development Advisory Group (TDAG) to “study various mechanisms by which to promote the development of new telecommunication technologies for rural applications”. With the assistance of contributions, particularly from Japan, a website to track developments in rural telecommunications has been created and can be found at www.itu.int/ITU–D/fg7.

The final report of Focus Group 7 entitled “New Technologies for Rural Applications”, was released in February 2001 and has been published in three languages in print and CD-ROM versions. The report highlights emerging technologies suitable for use in rural and remote areas, and their applications for distance education, telemedicine, small business development, emergency support, disaster relief and environmental monitoring. It concludes that wireless access technologies, combined with packet-based Internet protocol (IP) networks, can be used in the rural and remote areas of developing countries because of their cost effectiveness, fast roll-out time and capability for affordable and sustainable multimedia services.

The report makes six recommendations to the Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), which underscore the need to promote the development of rural communications as one way of bridging the digital divide. In essence, they call on BDT to:

• Promote the development of low-cost information appliances for rural use.

• Create a renewable energy handbook on small-scale power systems for rural information and communication technologies.

• Increase collaboration with micro-finance organizations to help develop communication-based rural businesses and applications.

• Conduct pilot projects of packet-based wireless access infrastructure for multimedia applications.

• Maintain and expand the ITU website related to the work on new technologies for rural applications.

• Hold a symposium on new technologies for rural applications.

Planned pilot projects

A Task Force, made up of volunteers from among Focus Group 7 members, was set up during the fourth TDAG meeting in October 2000 to advise and assist BDT in implementing the six recommendations. The Task Force met three times in the twelve months leading up to October 2001, and drafted the selection criteria needed for the location of pilot projects, along with the Request for Proposals document to encourage developing countries to submit their project proposals to BDT. Phase 1 of this planned pilot project programme foresees the selection of five countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Arab States and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on the basis of their proposals. Modest financial and in-kind resources from ITU, the private sector, funding organizations and recipient countries will be mobilized with a view to implementing selected pilot projects. Hamadoun I. Touré, BDT Director, has called for partnerships with administrations and Sector Members in order to implement the recommendations on new technologies for rural applications. He is also seeking collaboration with other UN agencies, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and interested organizations or institutes in the information technology (IT) sector.

To reduce the cost of implementation, pilot projects will most likely be conducted within a shared-facility, such as a university extension centre, a hospital, a post office, or a telecentre in a rural community. In-kind contributions, such as local personnel, transportation, basic facility for equipment storage, are encouraged from recipient countries. At present, three proposals have been submitted to BDT, and project refinement is under way. Initial evaluation of proposals will include a review of geographical site surveys, cost estimates and to verify the reference information provided to ensure that it complies fully with the selection criteria. A number of key elements will be considered in the selection process and include: a favourable regulatory environment, an identified demand (existing or potential) for telephone services, as well as for multimedia applications such as tele-education, telemedicine, small business development, environmental monitoring, governance and poverty reduction. The level of commitment from the government and local authority is important as well.

The future

More than 2.5 billion people, 40 per cent of the planet’s population, live in rural and remote areas of developing countries. Of the small fraction that has access to telecommunications, radio broadcasting and voice telephony have traditionally been the main services provided. Today, a wide variety of new telecommunication applications such as e-mail, e-commerce, telehealth and telemedicine, among others, have made access to interactive multimedia services as important for rural and remote communities as voice connectivity alone. Since each rural district or community requires a different mix of voice, text, image, video and audio communications to best meet its needs, today’s telecommunication network operators must be able to support a wide range of services, applications and bandwidth levels at a reasonable cost.

The proposed pilot projects for providing multimedia services such as voice, facsimile, data over the wireless IP-based platform for rural and remote areas is a challenge for ITU, yet it represents a workable option to help bridge the digital divide. Internet-type services will be implemented cost effectively, with fast roll-out time in the rural and remote areas of developing countries. Islands of local communities with wireless IP-based platforms will be interconnected by the satellite or inter-urban backbone system to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) of the country for connectivity beyond its borders.

One of the key issues for ITU in the promotion of telecommunication development for rural and remote applications on a large scale is how to mobilize the necessary financial resources. In this regard, ITU’s initiative to hold the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in two phases — with the first in Geneva in 2003 and the second in Tunis in 2005 — will surely increase collaboration with other United Nations agencies in mobilizing the much-needed resources to connect rural and remote communities to the rest of the globe. Providing connectivity for rural and remote communities remains a critical challenge and responsibility of the ITU and its partners.