Appendix A: Policy options identified from the Phase I document
http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/documents/policy-options/654-igf-policy-options-for-connecting-the-next-billion-compilation/file
1. Deploying infrastructure
a. Physical, interconnection layers and enabling technologies
- Promote broadband infrastructure (Africa IGF)
- Promote power grid capacity (Africa IGF)
- Explore creation of continental common toll-free Internet platform to preserve the identity and cultural heritage of Africa (Africa IGF)
- Stabilize pricing for internet access service (Ministry of Comm. Brazil)
- Improve transcontinental submarine cabling (Ministry of Comm. Brazil)
- Groups with major market power are obliged to connect to traffic exchanges, offer full peering, paid peering and traffic (Ministry of Comm. Brazil)
- Stimulate investments for broadband roll-out (EuroDig)
- Provide public funds where private investment is not enough (EuroDig)
- Development of public-private partnerships (EuroDig)
- Open access and spectrum for Wi-Fi development (APrIGF)
- Spectrum is a common good, policy should be inspired by criteria of public and general interest (EBU)
- Pro-competitive broadband policy (ICC Basis)
- Policy initiative targeted at specific socio-demographic groups (Annenberg School for Communication)
b. Mobile
- Half of the world’s population has a mobile subscription – mobile helps to provide underserved regions with the opportunity to overcome socio-economic challenges (GSMA)
- Making prepaid mobile services available to non-elites, increasing mobile competition to reduce prices (ICT Africa)
- Stimulate 3G networks in Niger – mobile credited for nearly all progress on connectivity (IGF Niger)
- Promote wireless in areas with reduced electricity coverage (Movimento de Espectro Livre)
- Spectrum is finite, ITU estimates 1340-1960 Mhz of spectrum required for 2020 demand (GSMA)
c. Funding sources: Universal service funds, Public Private partnerships
- Universal Service Provision Funds should be used to engender infrastructure into underserved areas and enable affordability (African Regional IGF)
- USAF should address institutional environment: oper. Independence, legal clarity, internal capacity + support broadband supply. Successful funds are targeted to address affordability and gaps (Alliance for Affordable Internet)
- Investments are currently typically redirected to urban and semi-urban areas (Universal Access Fund and ICT Infrastructure Investment Africa)
d. Deployment
- Development of IXPs and IPv6/IDN deployment play a crucial role (EuroDig)
2. Increasing usability
a. Applications
- Causal relationship between low usage of mobile media tools and internet literacy – even when people have access to the internet, they lack the understanding of it (World Bank)
b. Services
- Citizens need to have information on what governments and private sector are doing to increase access and connectivity, especially in rural areas. Geography and culture must be taken into account (civil society)
- Digital content and services are important to drive internet adoption and usage (World Economic Forum)
c. Local Content, Multilingualism
- Content in local languages is important – accessible, cheap and interesting are content requirements (EuroDig)
- Representation and participation are uneven, many people are left out of the debate (IGF local content 2014)
- Encourage locally relevant content, including protections for freedom of expression, press, privacy and intellectual property, e-commerce infrastructure, consumer protection, trusted online payment systems. Policies must be market driven and based on voluntary commercial arrangements (ICC Basis)
- Promote local content (Iberoamerican federation of IT associations)
- Local content promotion in Spanish and native American languages (Paraguay IGF)
d. Media
- Most traffic is driven by professionally produced quality content. Local content promoters are now in competition with global content industry (EBU)
e. Accessibility
- Legislative framework on accessibility exists, but awareness raising, education and training of specialists is needed. (Swiss IGF)
- Items paid for by the public must be accessible for the public – open access to publicly funded research (Swiss IGF)
3. Enabling users
a. Human Rights
- States and private sector must commit to developing clear standards, procedures for protection and transparency to strengthen human rights on the internet in the region (Asia Pacific Regional IGF)
- African IGF session on Human Rights on the Internet:
1. Establish mechanisms to promote, monitor and popularize African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms and UNESCO’s concept of internet universality
2. Self regulatory, independent objective oversight and sanctioning mechanisms
3. Meaningful access to ICT includes control over ICTs as a key resource towards advancing status of women and girls and their human rights
4. Address emerging issue of violence against women
b. Inclusiveness (Gender, Youth)
- Issues: unequal access to internet infrastructure, affordability, gender disparity in education, digital literacy, uneven capacity to use internet for needs and priorities, specific gender-based challenges and barriers (relevant content, gender-based harassment and violence) (2015 IGF BPF on Countering Abuse against Women online)
c. User literacy
- Support open data models, local content development, eLearning initiatives (African Regional IGF)
- Principles on Public Access in Libraries (IGF DCPAL)
d. Digital Citizenship
- Fostering public access points in public libraries and community centers, and promoting content creation and digital literacy activities in those places (LAC IGF)
- Accessible voting machines, supporting school for blind students, working with low income populations. Promoting access to information. (Microsoft)
e. Entrepreneurship
- Those formerly excluded from economic opportunity can use the internet for all phases of starting their own companies (WEF 2015)
4. Ensuring affordability
a. Digital divide
- Improve investment in R&D to allow Brazil to compete with foreign-produced goods. Otherwise the country does not fully benefit from the internet economy (Movimento de Espectro Livre – Brazil)
- Focus on increasing supply and lowering cost of access (Internet Society)
- Address spectrum availability for 3G and 4G (Arab IGF)
- Increase IXPs at national and regional levels (Arab IGF)
- Educate on computer literacy and reduce device cost, which will drive internet use and support establishment of local content (Arab IGF)
b. Costs of Access per Capita
- Infrastructure sharing (e.g. independent tower companies) lowers industry costs (Alliance for Affordable Internet)
- Identify appropriate balance between taxation revenue and long-term socio-economic growth. Develop evidence based policies (Alliance for Affordable Internet)
- Develop firmware for devices already on the market, so existing devices can be re-used (e.g. OpenWRT) (Movimento de Espectro Livre – Brazil)
5. Creating an enabling environment
a. Government, Regulatory Authorities and IGO frameworks, laws and regulations
- Connecting the next billions should be driven as a project (African Regional IGF)
- Ministries of Communications should review plans through multistakeholder cooperation (African Regional IGF)
- Governments should demonstrate ability to implement viable policies already in place (do not replace previous govt projects) (African Regional IGF)
- Deploy government services using open data model (African Regional IGF)
- Effective monitoring of projects and online reporting (African Regional IGF)
- Regional multistakeholder approach at the AU-level (African Regional IGF)
- Infrastructure sharing at the backbone level and open access to cut costs (Mozambique IGF)
- Fiscal policy and taxation (Mozambique IGF)
- Research and Data Collection (Mozambique IGF)
- National broadband strategies require extensive public consultation with all stakeholder groups (APC)
- Eliminate market protections for incumbent operators (APC)
- Increase government investment in public access facilities and awareness raising, focused on disenfranchised groups (APC)
- Allow innovative uses of spectrum and new spectrum sharing techniques (APC)
- Promote local ownership of small-scale communications infrastructure (APC)
- Using public funds and utility infrastructure to ensure national fibre networks move into sparsely populated areas (APC)
- Adopt effective infrastructure sharing (APC)
- Reduce taxes on ICT goods and services (APC)
- Established broadband targets in Digital Agenda for Europe (EC)
- Creation of ad-hoc funds to stimulate investment (EC)
- Improve digital skills and literacy (Coding week, networks of Digital champions) (EC)
- International organizations should show benefits of investments in access, high capacity connectivity, promote healthy, competitive and stable market environments, develop private-public partnerships for non-commercially viable areas, transfer expertise and share best practices (EC)
- Promote corporate social responsibilities (Nigeria IGF)
- Broadband policy, ICT Policy encouraging investment and Local Content Policy (Nigeria IGF)
b. Private sector-led initiatives and market strategies
- Alliance for affordable internet:
1. Liberalized market with open, competitive environment
2. Nurture healthy market competition
3. Streamline licensing process with no barriers to market entry
4. Ensure competitive market structure, with no govt ownership of end user providers
5. Available access at market rates to international gateway or cable
6. Transparent disclosure of pricing and service options
7. Permit pre-paid and tiered pricing
8. Remove barriers to crossing national borders with infrastructure or traffic
- ICC Basis:
1. Open and competitive markets, fair, investment-friendly, comparable regulatory intervention for all actors
2. Strong reliance on voluntary commercial arrangements
3. Policies that promote efficiency through engineering-driven design (creation of IXPs)
4. Policies that promote growth of products and services provided over broadband
- Run localized networking initiative with solar backup (Kenya IGF)
- Social enterprise that makes broadband available at low cost, based on national fiber optic network (Kenya IGF)
c. Non-profit, Public-Private partnerships and Other initiatives
- Arab IGF:
1. Foster private-public partnerships to invest in telecom infrastructure to reach out to disadvantaged areas
2. Establish national and local dialogues on benefits of internet and how it improves economic situation of individuals
3. Develop policies and regulations that cater for competitive access-price strategy, macro-level affordability
4. Engage with CSOs to reinforce their role in mobilizing communities they work with
- Facilitiate deployment of telecoms infrastructure to facilitate access to spectrum and lower taxes (LACIGF)
- Companies must develop business models to break restriction income. Universalize through mobile telephony (LACIGF)
- Digital inclusion programs such as distributing computers to children in schools (LACIGF)
- Invest in network services in order to close coverage gap (LACIGF)
- Roll-out of optic cables throughout country (Benin IGF)
- Promote national TLD (Benin IGF)
- Federal Telecommunications Institute of Mexico:
1. Promote access for persons with disabilities
2. Make terminal devices and telecom services more affordable and better quality to ensure widespread access
3. Strengthen telecoms infrastructure by encouraging public-private partnerships
4. Encourage campaigns for skills building
5. Encourage multi-stakeholder governance
- Facebook:
1. Reduce the cost of internet access, such as supporting innovative business arrangements like free basics
2. Promote free and open internet
a. Do not permit fast lanes, blocking, throttling
b. Do not introduce laws inhibiting innovation
c. Innovative practices such as zero-rating can give more people access to content
3. Expand connectivity infrastructure
a. Streamline local licensing processes
b. Reduce legal barriers to entry
c. Promote sharing of passive infrastructure (dig once, build once)
d. Tax incentives can accelerate development
- Colombia IGF:
1. ICT appropriation linked to access is important to increase impact of government initiatives and reducing digital divide
2. Promote production of software and local content with social focus
3. Encourage public internet access strategies, and do not neglect them in favor of mobile access. Public access links vulnerable communities.
4. Expand community wireless networks and connection of schools and libraries to rural areas
5. Reduce or eliminate taxes related to internet access and devices
6. Reduce gender gap and ICTs
- Broadband commission:
1. Prioritize supply and demand-side policies to full range of broadband infrastructure, applications and services
2. Initiate and prioritize broadband planning process
3. Invest in ICTs and digital skills as engine of growth
4. Review and update regulatory frameworks to take into account evolving models
- Expand private and public sector engagement, augment stakeholder community, recruit leaders from various sectors (civil society)
- More regional cooperation initiatives to address lack of domestic political will (IGF Niger)
- Microsoft:
1. Openness to dialogue across partners institutions and organizations
2. Inclusiveness of local actors aware of local needs
3. Enabling environment for joint planning and execution
4. Identification of socio-economic development opportunities and priorities
5. Application of successful models across disciplines
- Promote public-private partnerships for connecting remote regions (Telefonica)
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