NGO Networks In Haiti Cause Problems For ISPs 108
angry tapir sends in an article from GoodGear Guide that begins: "While the communications networks that aid groups set up quickly following the earthquake in Haiti were surely critical to rescue efforts, the new networks have had some negative effects on the local ISP community. More than a month after the earthquake devastated the island nation, local ISPs are starting to grumble about being left out of business opportunities and about how some of the temporary equipment — using spectrum without proper authorization — is interfering with their own expensive networks, causing a degradation of their services."
No good deed..... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Disaster Capitalism, at Its Finest (Score:1)
Witness the corporate theft of Haiti. Aided by the humanitarian NGO's, funded by "charitible" donations from the MegaBanks and agribusiness, etc.
The military of the US comes in and does the "muscle". Marines work for Monsanto and GoldmanSachs. They will shoot YOU on sight, if told.
This is how it's done boys.
Why Is The US Military Occupying Four Airports In Haiti?
Phyllis Bennis said in Huffington post that "the reality is, on the ground, U.S. military forces take charge, as the United Nations is pushed asi
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
But, in order to rebuild a country, you need more than just throwing food at refugees. This [newsweek.com] article is interesting as it brings Katrina experience to help Haiti. It seems the best results happen when the locals are involved. There are many reports of this in Thailand after the tsu
Re:No good deed..... (Score:4, Insightful)
like, for example, hire the local ISPs for connectivity. I'm sure they can use the business, and their employees families too.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh god, no, never.The aid agencies will have their systems ready and tested, good to go. The local ISPs will not be tailored for their needs and plenty of man-hours would be lost in pointless busywork ironing out interoperability problems.
Re: (Score:1)
So NGO's just get to violate local law whenever they find this appropriate ? They don't even have the small modicum of politeness of using military frequencies only ?
Can I play too ? I see very urgent needs. Very urgent indeed. Of course, you won't be able to receive the BBC radio anymore. Anywhere in the world. But it'd be really cool for me to play tetris with a south korean friend over a radio link.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, and when the relief forces pull out many years from now, who do you think will still be around? The local ISPs or the NGOs?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, it's why I only give to local charities I know and then work outwards. That might seem harsh, but I want to know that my money has actually gone somewhere and
Re: (Score:1)
Very good grasp of the situation. But we're living in the year 2000. If we had this attitude from 1950 and then consistently pushed it worldwide there might be significantly less of a third world.
But today "development aid" and direct aid is the ONLY contributor to so many economies, even for supposedly "modern" countries like Morocco, 50% is direct and indirect aid. By now it's so bad that if aid were to stop to a lot of countries, including even Morocco, they'd lose the ability to feed their own people.
So
Re: (Score:1)
I understand your point that fixing the problems of a developing community by just stepping in and doing it yourself doesn't affect lasting change. Feel-good projects like building schools in Africa often end up abandoned by the community once the builders leave because we try to implement solutions that are specific to our society without considering that other societies simply work differently. In the long term, projects that instead empower the community to solve their own problems (for instance, micro-l
Damn it.... (Score:1, Funny)
If it weren't for the temporary networks interfering with my wireless I would have had first post
Flawed system. (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't rtfa, so I don't know if this is analogous to donating clothes to poor countries, but in that case, the free clothes have devastated local clothes industry. There's some fundamental flaw in the system if giving people free stuff is bad for them...
Re:Flawed system. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's some fundamental flaw in the system if giving people free stuff is bad for them...
It creates dependency. My wife hand feeds our seven year old son. Now when he wants something done he goes to her and takes up her time. Additionally he doesn't learn how to do things himself.
Re:Flawed system. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I was hand fed as a child too. Mainly back hands but sometimes open palm.
Re: (Score:2)
If your industries can't compete with one product, don't whine about it. Make another product and sell it to them! Maybe they should put those f
Re:Flawed system. (Score:5, Insightful)
The aid groups are not 'donating internets' as a relief measure, they just need the networks to be up to run their operation.
The networks are temporary and it doesn't sound like the NGOs have a problem working with local ISPs so no big deal.
I guess the story is about greedy ISPs but hey, these guys have been through hell too and they have a right to want things to get back to normal.
Re:Flawed system. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's greedy about it? A fundamental principle of international aid (and given that within the past six weeks I've been in the Solomon Islands, and on stand-by to go to Haiti, the Cook Islands and Tonga, to help with disaster relief I think I've got some clue on the topic) is that you try and spend aid money in the affected community. The people who live there and the businesses that operate there must remain viable once the relief effort is over, and that means keeping businesses alive until the locals are in a position to earn and spend money themselves.
Donating services is nice if the locals cannot immediately furnish your requirements, but as soon as there's local capability available for utilisation it is a failure of the aid system if that capability goes unused. It is not a good use of aid money to use donated services in place of local ones when carrying out relief work.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed. SIDA, the Swedish government organization handling aid etc has operated like that since the 70's. Instead of directly bringing children's teachers, they train adults to become teachers. Sanitation engineers are sent out as tutors, taking on apprentices sort of, that sort of thing.
SIDA has repeatedly come under fire however, both domestically and internationally, for their approach, especially from religiously influenced charities, for their method of not donating stuff directly, main accusation bein
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
SIDA has repeatedly come under fire however, both domestically and internationally, for their approach, especially from religiously influenced charities, for their method of not donating stuff directly, main accusation being that it's "not compassionate enough".
Give a man a fish, and you make him dependent on you for food. This is what organized religion has been up to since it was invented. You learn to go to them with all your problems, appropriate or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Of course the fact that the idea of working with and training locals is something that was first introduced by religious organizations is completely irrelevant.
Living up to your nickname, I see. It's entirely relevant; the problem is that "working with and training" is also known as "indoctrinating" and they're continually taught that god is the root solution to all their problems, just as the Salvation Army does today. Believing in yourself is the real answer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's greedy about it?
What's greedy about it is that there's a massive international relief effort going on and rather than being part of it the local ISPs want to profit from it. Look at the wording in the article, they feel left out of "business opportunities."
A fundamental principle of international aid (and given that within the past six weeks I've been in the Solomon Islands, and on stand-by to go to Haiti, the Cook Islands and Tonga, to help with disaster relief I think I've got some clue on the topic) is that you try and spend aid money in the affected community.
I understand that you know a lot about this, but that doesn't make it correct in every situation. International aid is pretty inefficient in places like Africa, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan where spending locally means a big chunk of the money disappears to corruption,
Re: (Score:2)
The ISPs apparently have fully functional networks again, they obviously don't need much help. They're just missing out on some profits that wouldn't be there anyway without the earthquake. It's not like their customers are canceling accounts and switching over to the free NGO network.
Except they don't have fully-functional networks again, and that is due in some part to interference from the unlicensed networks the NGOs established.
The NGOs, however, have caused another set of problems as well. Many began using their wireless and satellite equipment without getting approval to use the required frequencies. That's in part because the Haitian regulatory authority's office had collapsed. "Their ability to license people in 48 hours or so [after the quake] was nonexistent," said Zavazava. "So people came in and started switching on their equipment and operating."
That caused interference with local ISPs who are licensed to use the spectrum, thus degrading the service that they are offering to customers, Zavazava and Bruno said. It continues to be a problem.
"This is causing discomfort on the part of local operators who have invested quite a lot of money in getting licenses and buying the equipment they are using," Zavazava said.
Haiti's regulatory authority has issued a statement asking all visitors to indicate which frequencies they are using in an attempt to harmonize operations, but many have not stepped forward, Zavazava said.
I'm not saying the NGOs necessarily did anything WRONG, they came in, needed communications, and put up a series of networks so they could communicate. The local ISPs, by and large, survived the quake but couldn't come online fast enough for the NGOs and aid organizations to rely on them, so the organizations did what they had to do to feed people and get me
Re: (Score:2)
Except they don't have fully-functional networks again, and that is due in some part to interference from the unlicensed networks the NGOs established.
True, though I would argue the networks are fully functional just not in use due to interference. My point was they apparently haven't suffered massive infrastructure losses that are going to cost them money to repair. Other businesses have no doubt suffered massive losses and need help too. You never answered my question about why allocating aid to the ISPs is more worthy than allocating aid to businesses that obviously suffered more.
However, you're now looking at a situation where the ISP is ready to go back online, but they can't activate their network on their licensed frequencies because someone else has usurped them. For good reason, and with good intentions, but now it's preventing parts of the local economy from starting up again.
Well, the interference issues are real but I think you're massively overs
Re:Flawed system. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the fundamental reason why we don't dump all of our uneaten food into starving countries. Doing so strongly devalues the local farmer's products and makes it difficult for them to buy seed and fertilizer for the next year.
It's extremely difficult to compete with free or very, very cheap. In the corporate world, if this is done it's called 'dumping'. In the world food aid world, it's only done if the demand for food far outstrips supplies and doing so would not impact food prices significantly.
Thus, why the west can live in food glut conditions while many africans are malnourished. Suddenly feeding them all for free would collapse the mainstay of their internal economy.
Tricky, isn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
call shenanigans. Modern life without data access is extremely difficult. cellular network have the most penetration in the 3rd world. by jamming the cellular networks, the charities are screwing over the communications networks that people rely on.
contrary to popular belief, the developing world is not all starvation and huts
Re: (Score:2)
mod parent up (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No reason at all. But that is a good thing, the "mainstream software industry" is a parasite on the productive economy. Every dollar it makes is a dollar that could have been used for doing something useful.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a huge difference between affecting a nation's food security (which can mean mass starvation if exports fluctuate) and affecting a nation's ISPs.
We did (and do) dump food. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the fundamental reason why we don't dump all of our uneaten food into starving countries. Doing so strongly devalues the local farmer's products and makes it difficult for them to buy seed and fertilizer for the next year.
We do dump food.
In the 80's, Regan re-instituted all the price controls and tariffs on sugar. Poorer countries which relied on the US for sugar sales suddenly found a giant chunk of their exports gone, and farmers switched to growing different crops.
What did we do then? Pr
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
This is Haiti. We do dump our uneaten food. That's what destroyed the Haitian farming industry, which is who such a large part of the population lives in Port au Prince instead of the countryside, which is why so many people died when the earthquake struck.
Re: (Score:2)
> There's some fundamental flaw in the system if giving people free stuff is bad for them...
The flaw is that the free stuff will not flow forever. So it is important to maintain both commercially viable local systems, and a functioning local society. Both aspects have received way too little attention in Haiti, and that is the reason that most of the aid will fail in making a lasting impact.
Re: (Score:2)
The reasoning is sound, but applying it to this situation is flawed. If the NGOs provide free food, nobody will buy local food. The NGOs are not providing free internet access, they are *using* internet access. No Haitians are canceling their ISP accounts and switching over to the free network. So the ISPs are not being impacted at all by this, except for the issues with interference, which I'm sure will be sorted out in due time.
Re: (Score:1)
Agreed. That's why I love having support and being able to sit on the couch all day long, every day. But for some reason, I'm barely strong enough to even stand. Oh well, who needs muscles anyway?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The NGOs are not taking away customers or resources from the ISPs so that analogy doesn't work. (Well, except for the interference issue, which is true but simply a result of the non-functioning Haitian government in the aftermath of the earthquake... I'm sure they will get their frequencies sorted out.)
It's more like this (after the interference issues are solved). Someone came in and set up their own clothing factory, but they are only providing clothing to their own workers. Those workers wouldn't even b
No it isn't... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nothing is being "donated to the country". At least regarding "the internets".
NGOs that are there to provide aid got their own satellite and wireless links because none of the local IPSs were operational at the moment. Nothing is being donated (to Haiti) - it is for their own operational and personal use.
Later, since Haitian internet backbone is operational, the backhaul bandwidth was donated (to the NGOs) by two local ISPs - AccessHaiti and MultiLink.
So in fact, Haitian companies are donating the bandwidth to NGOs who are donating the humanitarian aid and services to Haiti.
But, now that the local small ISPs are coming back online, they (local ISPs) find that the NGOs are quite happy with their current setup and don't really need the local wireless services - but are willing to switch, they just need more time.
They are kinda busy doing something a little more important at the moment.
Being practically the only game in town (read: the only paying customers) - local ISPs would really like to sell them their services.
But, on top of that, the wireless relays the NGOs have set up for themselves are drowning out the wireless signal of the local ISPs.
So, basically...
1 - Local ISP companies are providing the bandwidth to the relief workers for free. Which will probably change in the future.
2 - NGOs have their own equipment for the use and distributing of that bandwidth - and they are providing the humanitarian aid for free. They are willing to pay for the bandwidth but are asking for more time to switch to the local providers as they are rather busy at the moment.
3 - Local small ISPs would like to sell THEIR bandwidth (that they will buy from the ISPs mentioned under 1) to the NGOs - but they lack the capacity to do that as their wireless networks are being drowned out by the signal of the NGO's equipment.
So... it is not the case of donated food drowning out the local production.
But it is going to be, one way or the other, for a while at least. Because the local ISPs want it that way.
Cause it will take time for the local customers to be able to match the NGO's ability to buy the services of the local ISPs.
Who will then fix their prices to match the paying capabilities of the NGOs - NOT the local population.
So... in the long run, the locals will have to pay more for less longer - because NGOs can pay more and thereby they set the prices.
But in the LONGER run, when NGOs leave, locals will be left with a working ISP structure, and some money will flow into the community.
So, not quite like donating food. Or clothes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's some fundamental flaw in the system if giving people free stuff is bad for them...
Would you be upset if (e.g.) Wal-Mart came into your town, opened a mega-market, and promptly put every mom and pop store out of business because they sell things cheaper? How do you think that any local industry can compete with "free"? (FWIW, free is a real benefit to the people getting the free stuff, but it does leave the local economy unable to provide for itself. Autarky isn't that important in developed countries, but when you live somewhere with civil unrest or unreliable utilities, where you might
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's some fundamental flaw in the system if giving people free stuff is bad for them...
Yes, it's called "human nature" and by overwhelming agreement it's one of the worst things in the universe. Unfortunately, no two people agree on how to fix it...
Re: (Score:2)
Uum, it’s the same fundamental flaw in logic, as giving more food to a country, that the land can support by itself. (Talking about long-term here. Not about short-term catastrophes.)
Because the only effect that will have, in of course a growing population. Because people in poor countries tend to get more children, to cope with deaths. So you have to give even more.
Or if you don’t, even more children will die of hunger.
So the intention of saving children from starvation, has turned into making
Dead Aid (Score:2, Insightful)
I read an interesting book on the subject, by an African woman with first hand experience with aid (Dambisa Moyo: Dead Aid - Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa). It explains with how sending aid to poor countries often causes more problems then it solves. If you give something for free, you ruin the part of economy that provided the same thing for money. Then when the aid stops, there are no local producers to replace it. The countries become dependent on aid.
Of course this does
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If this is a give a fish/teach to fish case wouldn't the best thing for the Haitian people be to instruct them how to connect without ISPs? That way they would be free from both NGO dependence and protected from profiteers.
Re: (Score:2)
If this is a give a fish/teach to fish case wouldn't the best thing for the Haitian people be to instruct them how to connect without ISPs?
Through Magic Fiber Pixies perhaps?
Re: (Score:2)
The Haitians can only rely on the NGO's instead of their ISP's while the NGO's are there, offering aid. So it's more a case of "give them fish for a while", which, if you think about it, is even more catastrophic because it undercuts the existing system with something that's only transient.
how to connect without ISPs?
If you have a method for this, you truly have struck gold! Even more so in light of ACTA and so on.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps this [wikipedia.org] would be a decent start?
Re: (Score:2)
True, but I can't see this being "taught" (to Haitians in particular and Internet users in general) until there is not only a functioning proof of concept, but it's a well-tested, wide-spread, common thing to do.
That said, that's exactly what I think we will have to do in the future if regulation continues on its current path.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't buy that argument. I mean, I buy it in the sense that I know it happens, but it's not necessary at all. Here's how it *should* work.
The US gives free food to Haiti, the Haitians are happy. The farmers are a bit worried -- how do they compete with free once the disaster is over?
The Haitian government recognizes this and says, don't worry farmers, you know how the US massively subsidizes their own farmers? Guess what, we're doing that too! The overall economic cost is equal since the people will be sl
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, I was talking about your note on African aid, and extending it to a hypothetical example of food aid in Haiti. I'm not sure that was clear. I think the approach I outlined works in any country and any industry. It's basic protectionism and all it requires is the political will to make happen. African countries could do the same thing with e.g. pharmaceuticals if they wanted to.
Reminds me of the joke (Score:1)
Capitalism, Baby! (Score:1, Insightful)
There is never a disaster big enough to stop capitalist exploitation.
Connecting Those Who Need IT Most (Score:1)
Inveneo [inveneo.org] certainly does involve local service providers in their work. In fact, that is what they are all about. I recommend that you have a look at their interesting business model.
P.S. Their "How to Deploy Long-Distance WiFi in Haiti" [inveneo.org] is a very informative read for the radio geeks among us.
P.P.S. I am a former Inveneo employee.
Now all Haiti needs is 100,000 Mexican workers. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh... Sorry... That was Katrina/New Orleans.
-Todd
as someone who actually has people down there... (Score:3, Insightful)
...we showed up with a pair of satellite dishes but all our network connections are wired. Additionally, we didn't feel we could or should rely on local ISPs for communications since we need those communications to be reliable and secure and sending a buncha people down there with no way to talk across the pond to home station didn't seem like the smartest move I've heard of.
So now the ISPs want the NGOs to shut off all the expensive hardware folks shipped down there and use local resources?
In the interest of full disclosure we do work for a GO, just not the one in Haiti.
Re: (Score:2)
I think there are two factors at work.
First, of course, being that the local ISP wants aid organizations to use them because it's profitable. That part appears to be greedy, vying for profits from someone who is trying to help your country out.
Second, and just as important, is that the aid organization is preventing the ISP from engaging in their normal business, by using equipment that interferes with the ISP's assigned and licensed frequencies. This is not greed on the part of the ISP, but simply a desi
UserFriendly already covered it... (Score:1)
"stop killing our ham radio operators" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
here [slashdot.org]
Re:Haw (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a larger problem to this. Those same local ISP and service providers operate on a shoestring budget for the most part, and even in the USA operators will cut back on operating costs to keep a profit. The trouble this brings is that they are not equipped to fully integrated to emergency situations. Recent hurricanes and non-natural disasters in the USA led to regulations that are simply expensive to comply with in order to be compliant with state of emergency situations. It's expensive enough to pay for 4 hour response times to outages, but pay for 24-72 hour battery backup at every remote site, and longer at key sites and the cost is nearly unrecoverable.
When huge cash injections come for emergency aid, it DOES leave the businesses out of the loop. IMO, it's the fault of the government for not stating up front that local ISP/providers will eventually benefit from the cash and infrastructure injection as part of building future emergency response preparedness.
Yes, there are of course arguments on both sides, but I'm just saying they do have a real and rational point.
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
When did they ever ask for handouts? You're trolling, not to mention racist.
Re: (Score:2)
You're trolling, not to mention racist.
I hate the anti-US-plug-in for no reason as much as the next guy, but US is not a race.
Re: (Score:2)
And stop killing our ham radio operators, you goddamn savages.
One of the articles found by google said it was Dominican people who were attacked. Are you Dominican? Maybe US ham radio operators should try installing repeaters in Pakistan, Afganistan, Iraq and Iran and see how they get on.
And while I am at it, do we really need earth based repeaters in this day and age? Aren't there enough birds in the sky, especially over the Americas?
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Do we really need legs, in this day and age? Aren't there enough wheelchairs, especially in North America?
The earth-based repeater can be operated independently by the locals without reliance on the benevolence of/ability to pay money to/guarantee of friendly relations with the government of some offshore corporation. Similarly, the emergency mobile telephone infrastructure relies on the temporary benevolence of the Scandinavians, followed by global business as usual.
The popular Internet is under two decade
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, yes we do. Satellite capacity is limited, and requires fairly expensive and advanced handsets. Good for important, long range communications. Putting up an FM / UHF repeater to serve a bunch of metropolitan two-way analog radios, or an HF antenna to serve long-range analog communications is simple, cheap, cost effective and with prepared hams a matter of hours, if not less. They've repeatedly proven to be useful after emergencies when no official communications capability has existed, or what exists ha
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah but I think that is changing. Now a cheap cell phone is the easiest way to get communicating, and amateur gear won't get that working. If the infrastructure is in place but not working then hooking up a generator may be the best thing you can do. Amateur radio operators could help if local communication infrastructure is totally destroyed but doubt that was the case in Haiti.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, as long as a given cell phone tower depends on central registries of handsets and SIMs for billing, authorization and coordination between cell sites, you must not only have the backhaul between cells, but also connectivity to server farms and control systems. If you have that, fine, but if fiber is cut and the operator's data center is fubar, getting the cell network up will take a few days.
Obviously 2-way radio is very capacity limited, relies on verbal communication (packet HAM radio aside), and is
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Isn't in the USA where you could be busted by the Sheriff/FBI for setting unauthorized radio systems (for example the pringles'antenna)? I do not know what is wrong about asking people (including NGO) to abide to the laws of the country; an emergency situation may justify breaking them but after that the aim should be to return to legality.
Also, as it is posted, using the country infrastructures where available will help the country get the infrastructure they need, or are the NGO going to leave their syste
Re: (Score:2)
Hate to be responding to a troll, but do you really think that every one of 9 million people in Haiti was responsible for shooting at some Dominicans? Do you consider yourself a goddamned savage because some Americans commit crimes and murders too?