>Subject: Re: Fw: Llamada No. ISP001-Broadband as a Local Issue
>From: Martin.HILBERT@cepal.org
>Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 11:51:56 -0400
>
>Estimado investigador:
>
>El Programa Sociedad de la Información, de la División de Desarrollo
>Productivo y Empresarial de la CEPAL (Comisión Económica para América
>Latina y el Caribe, Naciones Unidas) le invita a presentarse para realizar
>el siguiente estudio:
>
>Broadband as a Local Issue: Guidelines - Assessment of Policy and
>Instruments and Recommendations
>
>Sírvanse encontrar los Términos de Referencia adjuntos.
>
>En caso que sea de su interés, por favor enviar:
>
>1) Curriculum Vitae a: socinfo@cepal.org hasta el 24 de marzo de 2006.
>Agradeceremos asegurarse que su CV incluya datos de su producción
>intelectual sobre el tema, suficiente para la evaluación.
>2) Agregar 1 o 2 trabajos realizados anteriormente por usted, de su
>autoría, directa o indirectamente relacionados al tema.
>
>Sírvase poner como Asunto (Subject), al enviar el correo, el nombre del
>estudio al cual está postulando. De otra forma, lamentablemente no
>podremos considerar su postulación:
>"Postulación No. ISP001- - Broadband as a Local Issue"
>
>Agradecemos circular esta llamada entre sus redes de contactos y otras
>personas que consideren podrían desarrollar este estudio.
>
>Atentamente,
>
>Programa Sociedad de la Información, CEPAL, Naciones Unidas
>
>ToR
>
>Broadband as a Local Issue: Guidelines - Assessment of Policy and
>Instruments and Recommendations
>
>Objectives: To prepare a two-part document, which investigates Broadband
>as a local issue. Incorporate an assessment of policy and instruments as
>well as recommendations.
>
>Part 1: Research on local Broadband experiences outside Latin America
>(developed countries like USA and European countries and maybe some Asian
>references)
>
>Part 2: Research on local Broadband experiences in Latin America by
>selected countries/ municipalities
>
>General Justification
>
>The Broadband revolution and the convergence among telecom and multimedia
>services are renewing the space of public policies particularly the local
>ones. The term local polices refers to all policies arising from the
>sub-national powers (regions and states included).
>
>The window of opportunity for interventions by municipalities is a recent
>phenomenon. Until the end of the nineties, the dial up prevailed as a mean
>of access to the Internet (narrow band access). In fact, this kind of
>access was a mere follow-up of the telephony service. As a consequence,
>national authorities established related policies and regulations. During
>the nineties, examples of those national policies in Latin America were
>the privatization of the state operators, the establishment of the New
>Regulatory Authority and the opening up to the competition of the telecom
>market. In that context, in fact, a space for local governments actions
>was practically absent. When actions were taken whatsoever, they appeared
>to be supplements of usual local urban policies, like the setting up of
>rights of ways (ROW) and the appropriate location for the cellular antennas.
>
>With the Broadband revolution and its growing impact on economic growth
>and productivity, an important local dimension (opportunity window) for
>the promotion of Broadband services was opened. However in many local
>communities, there are a lot of market failures and Broadband technology
>is not offered by telecom or cable operators. This is due to the low rate
>of return of the investment and non-profitable markets. Where Broadband is
>offered in low-income or small communities a lot of times there is a low
>quality of the service or little diversity of it.
>
>In brief local governments, mainly in the developed countries, have become
>increasingly involved in broadband, because there is the perception that
>access to advanced communication services, including broadband services,
>constitutes essential infrastructure. The deployment of this
>infrastructure, involves more the local context than narrowband (dialup).
>As the issue of broadband Internet access to local economic development
>and quality of life becomes increasingly evident to communities we expect
>their involvement in the development of broadband infrastructure to
>continue growing. In spite of some regulatory reactions, some
>Municipalities are very pro-active in Broadband deployment, particularly
>in the US, like the Salt Lake Experience and Philadelphia Initiative.
>
>In Latin America, however, the vast majority of municipalities have
>neither capabilities nor financial resources to develop all necessary
>steps to deploy a local broadband infrastructure. Some degree of technical
>assistance can become necessary.
>
>However, in the developed countries ­ like USA ­ where the local
>authorities have much more power on the one hand, and the basics needs of
>the population regarding others infrastructure like water, sewage and
>housing are satisfied on the other hand, one can see a lot of local BB
>initiatives.
>
>Using the framework proposed by Gillett et alli (2003), it is possible to
>provide a good taxonomy of local government broadband initiatives,
>highlighting al least four roles of government vis a vis broadband:
>
>1. As user (as buyer or other stimulator of demand)
>2. Rule-maker
>3. Source of funds
>4. Developer of infrastructure (or part of it).
>
>1. Government as broadband user. Government indirectly attracts commercial
>broadband deployment through demand-side policies. In particular,
>government uses its local leadership role and/or its role as a major
>telecommunications customer to assess, stimulate or aggregate demand.
>Using government power purchase, the government can buy better and cheaper
>services or even network pieces from telecom operators.
>
>2. Government as neutral rule-maker. Government adopts or reforms local
>ordinances that affect the ease of commercial deployment, such as
>rights-of-way, utility pole attachments, road and building construction
>codes, zoning policies affecting wireless antenna placement, and cable
>franchise agreements.
>
>3. Government as financier. Government provides subsidies for broadband
>users or providers, which may be direct or indirect in the form of
>planning or equipment grants, tax credits, or other incentives.
>
>4. Government as infrastructure developer. Government adopts supply-side
>policies in which a division of local or regional government is ultimately
>responsible for the provision of one or more component of network
>infrastructure.
>
>These roles need not be mutually exclusive; an open avenue for further
>research is to identify the complementarities among strategies and the
>systemic mixes of factors that are associated with effective initiatives.
>
>Nor do these roles have to be unique to local government. Partnerships
>with the private sector, with higher levels of government, and with other
>local governments are common across all four roles. In fact, actions of
>the first four types appear to be more commonly initiated at higher layers
>of government, with locals exercising the option to join in. Public
>infrastructure provision, on the other hand, appears to be much more
>commonly initiated and executed by local governments, perhaps because key
>components of the infrastructure ­ such as wires connecting to homes and
>businesses ­ are purely a local issue. In spite of the increasing
>importance of local governments in the evolution of “last-mile”
>infrastructure, little systematic research is available with which to
>quantify or evaluate the extent of such activity and its impact.
>
>Part 1 ­ Research on local Broadband experiences outside Latin America
>(developed countries like USA and European countries and maybe some Asian
>references).
>
>Taking the international context as a reference the set of questions to be
>addressed are the following:
>
>Ø Overview of the main experiences. Literature review.
>Ø What are the success factors of the local Governments and
>communities involving in Broadband deployment?
>Ø Which international cases of good practice could be presented to
>Latin America? For example, could the Wireless Philadelphia model
>(Philadelphia, 2005) be applied?
>Ø What municipal rules were created or applied to achieve proposed
>goals in Broadband deployment?
>Ø What kind of relationship one could observe between national
>regulation and municipality interventions? Are there complementaries,
>substitutes or alternatives?
>Ø Are the main experiences associated with e-gov policy? In which way?
>Ø What are the adequate combinations of public and private efforts
>to foster local Broadband technology?
>
>Part 2 - Research on local Broadband experiences in Latin America selected
>countries/ municipalities
>
>This part in someway is similar to the first one, but it relates just to
>Latin American municipalities. We want to understand the opportunities for
>the same phenomenon, but in Latin America. The main objective is to make
>some sort of a SOWT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)
>analysis regarding a sample of municipalities. All the relevant economic,
>social, legal and political dimensions should be integrated in the analysis.
>
>Just to make a quick mention; is important to stress that some relevant
>experiences can be selected for the main countries and cities
>representative for Latin America. For example, São Paulo City is
>developing a large-scaleprogram in the periphery of the city
>(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3250876.stm and
>http://www2.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/cidadania/coordenadoria_governo_eletronico/pid/0001);

>Piraí, a small-sized stand-alone community developed an awarded project
>with a positive impact on the development of the city
>(http://www.piraidigital.com.br/)
>
>Do to the strong differences between Latina America and other regions in
>the world; at first it is necessary to prepare a questionnaire to be
>applied to the sample of municipalities. Taking into account the
>questionnaire’s results, the phenomenon should than be described and
>policies should also be prescribed. The questionnaire should take into
>account the main findings of the Part 1.
>
>The sample should incorporate the municipalities that have applied for
>AHCIET (Asociación Hispanoamericana de Centros de Investigación y Empresas
>de Telecomunicaciones) Digital Cities award. CEPAL will provide an easy
>access to that data base.
>
>The sample can be segregated in certain kinds of typical groups of cities
>or communities that will be mentioned later.
>
>The set of issues to be analyzed in this Part 2 (through a questionnaire
>and its assessment) are very similar to the first part and they address
>the following questions:
>
>Ø What are the emerging trends in Latin American municipalities in
>the telecom and Internet area?
>Ø For the selected countries and municipalities, what would be the
>success factors of the local Government and communities involvedin
>Broadband deployment?
>Ø What are the push-and-pull factors for successful cases of Latin
>American local Government involvement in Broadband deployment like Pirai
>City Hall (in the State of Rio de Janeiro) and Sud Menucci City Hall (in
>the State of São Paulo) and others cities?
>Ø What kinds of roles, like the four dimensions approach early
>quoted, are better suited to Latin American local Municipalities?
>Ø Are the main experiences associated with e-gov policy? In which way?
>Ø What are the access technologies best suited for the typical
>cases (like Wi-fi, WiMax, cable, wireline etc)?
>Ø In which ways is it possible to go beyond just building some
>Infocenters (PIAC ­ Public Internet Access Point)?
>Ø What are the main difficulties? Not enough budget combined with
>others local priorities? Low scale, no staff training, legal issues,
>problems how to coordinate with federal authorities, technological
>difficulties and so on?
>Ø In some reference countries or regions of Latin America, what
>kind of relationship one could observe between national regulation and
>municipality interventions? Are they complementary, substitutes or
>alternatives? From a normative point of view, what kind of relationship is
>necessary?
>Ø In some reference countries or regions of Latin America, what are
>the adequate combinations of public and private efforts to foster local
>Broadband technology?
>Ø Taking into account the low level of the economies of scale of
>the majority of municipalities, what kind of alliances should be build?
>With others municipalities (consortium)? With others kinds of
>administrative branches (like Education, Health and Finance Ministries)?
>What are the best scenarios to build these alliances?
>Ø In witch way should the municipality’s BB policy be associated
>with local development policies?
>Ø Based on the existing experiences and local characteristics,
>which are the main general guidelines that can be given to Latin America
>municipalities in order to deploy and manage a local infrastructure?
>Ø Which areas should receive priority in investments:local
>administration, health care, education? Which services (e-gov or others)
>can be offered in each one? What are the advantages for the citizens?
>Ø Guidelines, policy and instruments assessment and
>recommendations. Cost and benefits.
>
>With the questionnaires fulfilled and correctly answered, the researcher
>can make his assessment and analysis in two possible ways:
>
>1st) Making direct and personal interviews (case studies) with a sub
>sample with 6 to 10 municipalities (with a balanced representation of the
>region’s countries).
>
>2nd) Making a deep analysis of at least 20% of the municipality’s sample,
>complementing with the phone calls interviews and others forms of getting
>more profund information (with a balanced representation of the region’s
>countries).
>
>The researcher should inform CEPAL which way was chosen.
>
>Due to the great diversity of cities, areas and regions it should be
>interesting to categorize the cities or communities at least into four
>typical groups, like:
>
>(i) Periphery of Metropolitan Areas, where a large concentration of
>poor people does not have enough income to access communication services
>even though there is network near them;
>(ii) Urban Industrial or Services Areas of Medium Size, where the
>cities are mostly close to a Long Distance (LD) backbone, requiring a
>short distance backhaul (wireline or wireless). This group can also be
>divided in cities with different productive specializations (clusters of
>shoes or textiles, winery, tourism and so one)
>(iii) Stand-alone Communities, where the cities along with rural
>communities are mostly far from a LD backbone, requiring a terrestrial
>transmission link (wireline or wireless) and;
>(iv) Rural Isolated Communities, like in Amazon forest and Andes
>Mountains, where transmission is accomplished with satellite systems.
>
>All the reports must be written in Spanish.
>
>Time schedule:
>
>17 March ­ 24 March: Public announcement
>
>24 March ­ 28 March: Selection of consultant
>Day 0
>CEPAL inform to the consultant to start the research
>Day 30
>Last day to CEPAL to facilitate the access to
AHCIET Digital Cities Data Base.
>Day 45
>Researcher sends to CEPAL the 1st version of Part 1 and the 1st version of
>the questionnaire
>Day 50
>CEPAL sends to the researcher its comments on 1st version of Part 1 and on
>the questionnaire
>Day 60
>Researcher sends to CEPAL the final version of Part 1 (ready to be
>published). All the questionnaires should be already sent
>Day 90
>The evaluation of the questionnaires and/or or the writing of the case
>studies should be running
>Day 125
>Researcher sends to CEPAL the 1st version of Part 2
>Day 135
>CEPAL sends to the researcher its comments on 1st version of Part 2
>Day 150
>Researcher sends to CEPAL the final version of Part 2 (ready to be published)
>
>Payment:
>
>The total amount of remuneration is US$ 12,000. First 50 % will be paid
>with the delivery of the final report of the Part 1 and last 50 % will be
>paid for the delivery final report of the Part 2.
>
>The required product will be provided in electronic version with exception
>of any original document of endorsement.
>
>If there are unexpected circumstances and/or further adequate reasons
>decided by CEPAL, the counterpart can ask for changes in the program
>whenever it becomes necessary by means of written notification, with an
>advance of at least 15 days, and subject to written approval of
>CEPAL. All products will require the final approval of CEPAL in order to
>be considered in the program of payments.
>
>Bibliography
>
>Sharon E. Gillett, William H. Lehr and Carlos Osorio. Local Government
>Broadband Initiatives, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program on
>Internet and Telecoms Convergence (ITC). December 3, 2003.
>
>The Wireless Philadelphia Executive Committee. Wireless Philadelphia
>Business Plan. City of Philadelphia. February 2005.
Nearby Fri Mar 17 12:55:44 2006