NGO Networks In Haiti Cause Problems For ISPs

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."

Comments

Re:Haw

[zappepcs]

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.

Flawed system.

[migla]

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.

[MichaelSmith]

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.

[outsider007]

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.

[FishTankX]

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:Flawed system.

[oldhack]

Tell that no-good bum to get a job.

Re:Flawed system.

[sn00ker]

I guess the story is about greedy ISPs

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.

No it isn't...

[denzacar]

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:No good deed.....

[cHALiTO]

like, for example, hire the local ISPs for connectivity. I'm sure they can use the business, and their employees families too.