Low-Cost Strategies for ICT Deployment
in Developing Countries

by Roberto Verzola

Introduction

The distinguishing feature of the information sector of the economy lies in
the nature of information. The unique features of this sector therefore are 
better appreciated by first studying the nature of information.

Information refers to a new awareness which resolves existing uncertainty. It
is non-material. An expectant mother, for instance, may be uncertain about the 
sex of her child. When the doctor tells her, "it's a girl," the uncertainty has 
been resolved. The mother has received the smallest amount of information 
possible: the resolution of uncertainty between two equally possible outcomes. 
This smallest measure of information is called the bit. There are millions of 
ways a blank page may be filled with letters. A poem by Shakespeare resolves 
this uncertainty by providing one of all possible ways and therefore provides 
the reader a much bigger amount of information (among other things of course). 
There are billions of ways bits may be strung up serially on the tracks of a 
diskette. A particular program represents one instance of these billions of 
possibilities, another example of information.

The non-material nature of information distinguishes the information sector
from two other major sectors of the economy. The industrial sector is the 
sector of material goods which are non-living. And the agricultural and fishery 
sector is the sector of living goods.

While information itself is non-material, it may need a material medium for
storage and persistence. The baby's sex is information stored in the doctor's 
mind, later copied to the mother's. Shakespeare's poems are stored in books, on 
paper and ink. Computer programs are stored on magnetic or optical media. [1]

The development of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) has
propelled the full emergence of the information economy by making it easier and 
easier to transfer information from one medium to another and from one form to 
another. Digital technologies have further revolutionized ICTs, by allowing 
these transfers and transformations to occur with no information loss. With 
today's technologies, the cost of replicating information without loss is 
approaching zero. I explained further the implications of such low replication 
cost in the article "Towards a Political Economy of Information" (URL: 
http://glocal.peacenet.or.kr/training/).

High start-up costs, near-zero marginal costs

From this, we note another distinguishing feature of information goods: while
the cost of moving or copying them is approaching zero, the initial costs 
involved in creating new information or in building the infrastructure for 
moving and manipulating them remain relatively high.

It takes a lot of effort to invent a new design, write a book, or develop
software. But the cost of replicating them, once they are developed, is nearly 
zero. It also takes much resources to set up information infrastructures like 
transmitting stations, telephone exchanges, microwave repeaters, satellite 
facilities, copper and fiber optic lines, oceanic cables, etc. But once they 
are in place, the marginal cost of information transfer through these 
facilities is nearly zero.

Because of this, ICTs are very often much more accessible to those who can
afford the high start up costs, than to those who cannot, to the rich than to 
the poor. Yet, those who are privileged to have access will then enjoy much 
lower marginal costs than those who don't and will therefore be in a much 
better position to compete vis-a-vis the latter. In short, the rich will tend 
to become richer, and the poor poorer. While there will obviously be 
exceptions, the logic of the information sector -- with its very high entry 
costs and very low marginal costs for those who are in -- will generally work 
in favor of those who have the resources, capital and existing infrastructure 
to take full advantage of the benefits of ICTs.

Form of income: Information rents

Because of the high costs of entry, it is often those who have access to huge
resources who are in a position to set up the facilities for full utilization 
of the technology. In terms of content and software tools, private investors 
who do so clinch their control through statutory monopolies like patents and 
copyrights, which grant them the exclusive right to use the resources they have 
developed. In terms of the communications infrastructure, the huge investments 
involved exclude all but a few huge firms, who then lease out the resource 
under their control to other users. Either way, private control over the 
software and hardware infrastructure enables the owners to extract rents over 
the information resource.

This rent-seeking system eventually extracts from the public wealth that is
way beyond the cost of setting up and maintaining the system. The rent-seekers 
of the cyber-economy, or the cyberlords, therefore become the superfluous and 
unwelcome propertied classes of the information economy. In the article 
"Cyberlords: the rentier class of the information sector", I discussed in 
detail the nature of this rent-seeking system and how it manages to concentrate 
wealth in the propertied class of the information economy.

ICTs and the Internet: a critique

In the articles "The Internet: A Second Opinion" (URL:
http://glocal.peacenet.or.kr/training/) and "Globalization: The Third Wave" 
(URL: http://global.peacenet.or.kr/training/), I explained in more detail how 
the Internet has in fact become the leading edge of the global information 
economy, the new infrastructure for marketing the information products of the 
more technologically advanced countries. As such, it will will facilitate the 
intrusion of global capital into developing countries, the extraction of more 
wealth from these countries, and an even faster concentration of wealth among 
rich countries and global corporations. My critique of the new ICTs, best 
represented by the Internet, may be summarized as follows:

- The entry costs are very expensive, and these entry costs recur every three
to five years, as rapid obsolescence forces the frequent replacement of 
hardware and software. In effect, those who join the Internet are caught in a 
expensive technology trap. While many of the supposed benefits of these new 
ICTs may eventually prove to be illusory, the high costs of entry are very real.

- In reality, the Internet is emerging as the infrastructure for the marketing
and distribution of the information products of rich countries. The more it 
penetrates into developing countries, the greater the market of information 
economies expands.

- The Internet will also facilitate rapid financial transactions which will
benefit most the huge finance firms who have the facilities, clout and 
connection to take the best advantage of the new ICTs. These will all hasten 
the ongoing concentration of wealth.

- ICTs will further weaken labor and strengthen capital, as machines are more
and more in a position to replace labor and as the technology enables tighter 
management control. Many people will lose their jobs to machines, and new jobs 
created by new technologies will not be secure either, as they will also be 
under threat from a new round of replacement. On the other hand, ICTs will 
facilitate managing-at-a-distance even better than working-at-a-distance, 
empowering capital even more than labor.

- The benefits of the Internet will be best enjoyed by those who live in
countries where the ICT infrastructures are most developed. Most resources and 
effort spent on serving information on the Internet will not help the poorest 
and the least advantaged, who cannot afford commercial Internet services and 
whose lives revolve around basic needs and survival concerns.

- Many of the promised benefits of the Internet will be as illusory as the
broken promises of television, which has become the idiot box of the 20th 
century. The ongoing commercialization of the Internet will tend to turn it 
into the TV --  and idiot box -- of the 21st century.

- In fact, very few seem to be looking at the negative effects of ICTs. The
issue of radiation and its impact on human health persists -- from the 
near-microwave frequencies of the cell phone, to the video monitor radiation 
that direct shines on the user's eyes, to the very low frequency of power lines 
-- and remains a matter of dispute. The increasing dependence on computers for 
mental work, thinking, and even entertainment reminds us of the deleterious 
effects on the human body of machine-dependence and its resulting lack of 
exercise.

To be connected or not?

To some, these misgivings are enough reason to stay away from these
technologies. Yet, the option to completely reject the new ICTs may have its 
own pitfalls. While one can argue that to use them is to immediately get tra
pped in a losing battle; one can also argue that not to use them is to lose the 
battle by default. But is the battle in the information arena in fact worth 
fighting, or are we simply being drawn away from what are real wealth -- our 
ecological wealth, our natural resources, our cultural heritage -- to be 
exchanged with virtual and perhaps illusory wealth?

The answers do not come so easily. Perhaps, we need to know more about the
technology itself and to dip one foot to check the waters while reserving the 
option to get out if sharks and crocodiles lie in wait.

If a developing country -- fully aware of the pitfalls and traps that lie in
wait -- nonetheless wants to tap ICTs and continue exploring the possibility of 
bringing their benefits to its people, what then are the options available to 
such a country? This is the question we will try to answer for the rest of this 
paper.

Cost of entry is a barrier

A real obstacle to the introduction of ICTs in a developing country is the
high entry cost of the technologies.

In the Philippines, for instance, the following summarizes the costs of
providing 51% of Filipino families access to different technologies:

Technology	CurrentCost per    Total Cost for 51%	   	Reach (%)   family
($)   reach (million $)

B&W TV only 43%  $ 100   	$  102
M Color TV only   14	  300    	 1,413
VCR	12	  250    	 1,241
Cable TV	 2    1,000    	 6,236
Telephone	 6    1,000    	 5,727
Fax	 1	  200    	 1,273
Internet	 0.1   1,000    	 6,478
CDROM/DVD	 0.1	  300    	 1,943
Virtual Reality 0	2,000 (?)    12,982
Radio	84	   10	      20 (100% reach)

Total				37,314

Considering the rapid developments in the field, some of these technologies
become obsolete rather quickly, forcing those who have made commitments to 
deploy them into another round of huge investments every few years or so.

Responding to high costs

The introduction of ICTs is clearly an expensive proposition for most
developing countries. They compete for our peoples' time, skills and attention, 
taking resources away from essential activities like food production, health 
services, basic education and so on. Yet, the possibilities of the new 
technologies are also tantalizing, and many people sincerely feel that these 
technologies also have some benefits to offer and, properly deployed, can 
facilitate solutions in providing for basic needs.

How does a poor country solve the problem of providing for its people
facilities which are terribly expensive and which are hardly affordable? I 
propose a five-point strategy for doing so:

- stick to the idea of appropriate technology, make do without the online
frills, and concentrate on low-cost offline technologies, which can bring in 
the most essential services;

- use free/open software where they are available, because they take full
advantage of the benefits of pooling together the intellectual resources not 
only of a country but of the whole Internet community;

- apply genuine compulsory licensing where commercial software is the only
option; GCL is an internationally-recognized mechanism that allows poor 
countries access to technologies on their own terms;

- set up public access stations that do not require the ordinary citizen to
pay a fixed monthly charge; and

- work out a system of public ownership over the hardware infrastructure to
minimize rent-seeking by private interests, which can lead to further 
concentration of wealth.

Appropriate technologies

Countries must practise extreme care in selecting the technologies to tap,
identifying those which are lower-cost, simpler, and capable enough to provide 
the most essential services. Often, as Schumacher pointed out, these are 
intermediate technologies, which greatly improve on the old ways of doing 
things but are very accessible to poor communities because the technologies are 
simpler and more affordable. Schumacher's ideas remains as relevant as ever in 
the information sector.

An example of appropriate technology is low-power, community-based radio
broadcasting. As the table of technology costs above shows in the case of the 
Philippines, this technology can provide 100% access and approximate 
interactivity with very affordable investments, while the more advanced 
technologies would require billions of dollars of investments every several 
years or so and yet leave half of the population unserved.

In computer communications, appropriate technology would be offline
technologies, i.e., technologies based on store-and-forward email and 
email-based services such as mailing lists, email-enabled access to ftp sites, 
Web sites, etc. Such technologies would be text-mostly, offline, low-bandwidth, 
and low-cost. They would run over the basic POTS ("plain old telephone system") 
network, instead of requiring a huge and expensive network of dedicated data 
lines.

Free/open software

The basic principle in overcoming high resource requirements is to pool meager
resources and the share the benefits with as many people as possible. This is 
exactly what free/open software does: it pools the intellectual resources 
available over the Internet, and shares the results freely with the rest of the 
world.

The result is something dramatic, effective and reliable. Free/open software
have proven themselves equal to if not better than commercial software in terms 
of quality and reliability.

The most popular example of this approach is the Linux/GNU operating system.

A philosophy of freedom

Linux represents a philosophy of freedom. It is freedom that makes free
software like Linux/GNU "free": the freedom to use it; the freedom to copy and 
share it; and the freedom to modify it, because the source code is available.

These freedoms are the mark of free software. A legal document called the
General Public License (GPL) was carefully formulated by the Free Software 
Foundation, also headed by Richard Stallman, to protect these freedoms while 
the protected software goes through the process of use, sharing and 
modification. Thus, free software can also be defined as software that is 
protected under the GPL.

The access to source code that Linux/GNU makes possible represents at the R&D
level the same kind of pooling of resources, an approach perfectly suited to a 
poor country like the Philippines.

The source code of a computer program is the equivalent of the schematic
diagram of a piece of electronic equipment, the architectural plans of a 
building, or the mechanical drawings of a machine. Once a piece of equipment, a 
building, or a machine becomes complicated enough -- as most pieces of software 
are -- modification becomes extremely difficult without the corresponding 
schematic diagram, architectural plan, mechanical drawing, or source code.

Microsoft doesn't make its source code available; Linux/GNU does. Since the
Linux source code is available, Linux can be customized much more easily and 
flexibly than software without source code. Windows users have to wait a long 
time for an improved version of the software to be released by Microsoft. Linux 
is being improved all the time by the Internet community, which includes 
thousands of independent developers and programmers who volunteer their time 
and effort making the software faster, more robust, and generally better.

Working in harmony with the nature of information

One of the key concepts in ecology, is the idea of harmony. We must learn to
search for harmony and to work for it, because the dynamic balance that it 
represents gives peace to our lives. Thus, today, it is now commonly accepted 
that we must work in harmony with nature instead of in opposition to it. For to 
conquer nature and to defeat it is, in truth, a self-defeating goal, because we 
are part of nature.

Information has its own nature. It is non-material; basically a numeric
measure of resolving uncertainty. By its nature, information is easy to 
duplicate at little cost, unlike material goods which require significant 
amounts of matter and energy to go into every unit. As the economist would say, 
the marginal cost of reproducing information approaches zero. It is this nature 
of information which determines its social character, why people tend to copy 
it, to share it, to exchange it. As the mathematician would say, the 
acquisition of information is not a zero-sum game, it is a positive sum-game. 
To use a popular term today, sharing information goods like software is a 
"win-win" situation, because you do not lose what you give away.

Free software like Linux/GNU works in harmony with the nature of information,
because it recognizes and takes advantage of its social nature. Intellectual 
property rights (IPR) like software copyrights, on the other hand, work against 
the nature of information because they create statutory monopolies that 
artifically create information scarcity, so that the privileged monopolists can 
dictate their price of a good that, by nature, is easily available to all once 
created.

That is why, despite that power of Bill Gates and his fellow cyberlords, they
will never be able to completely implement their so-called property rights over 
information, because they work against the very nature of information. The 
social nature of information will continually assert itself and people will 
continue to copy and to share whatever information they find useful and worth 
sharing. On the other hand, free software and its copying license, the GPL, 
work in perfect harmony with the nature of information. In the future, IPR will 
become obsolete and GPL and similar practices consistent with information's 
social nature will become the general rule.

When we work in harmony with the nature of information, it becomes easier to
improve, and its quality, reliability and usefulness rised rapidly This is 
probably why Linux is superior to Microsoft Windows in many respects. It can do 
many tasks (multitasking) and service many users (multiuser) at the same time. 
It has all the facilities for communicating with other computers (networking): 
it can be used as a workstation, as a server, or both; e-mail is built-in; and 
it is Internet-ready. Linux can also be configured with a graphical user 
interface. Unlike Windows which inexplicably stops every now and then 
(sometimes taking your work file with it), Linux machines run twenty-four hours 
a day for months with no problem. Ask any local Internet service provider 
(ISP): many use Linux, hardly any uses Windows NT.

Linux, furthermore, is Unix-compatible, a Unix look-alike. Who hasn't heard of
Unix? It is THE operating system, the one which runs on almost every computer 
from lowly 386s to supercomputing Crays. Nearly all computer science 
departments in every self-respecting university in the world use Unix as their 
platform for teaching and research. The latest developments in computer science 
often make their appearance on Unix first, before trickling down later to other 
operating systems like Microsoft Windows or the Mac OS.

Social movements and non-government organizations (NGOs) should look beyond
the cost effectiveness of Linux, into its philosophy of freedom in software. It 
is a philosophy consistent with the advocacies of cause-oriented groups, 
voluntary associations and alternative movements -- a philosophy of pooling 
resources, sharing, and working in harmony with nature and with information.

Genuine compulsory licensing (GCL)

If the General Public License (GPL) ensures public access to free/open
software, genuine compulsory licensing (GCL) provides an 
internationally-recognized mechanism for public access to commercial software 
and other copyrighted or patented goods.

GCL works as follows: Somebody who wants to use/commercialize patented or
copyrighted material approaches NOT the patent or copyright holder, but the 
government for a license to do so. The government grants the license, whether 
the original patent or copyright holder agrees or not, but compels the local 
licensee to pay the patent/copyright holder a royalty rate that is fixed by 
law. Many countries in the world have used and continue to use compulsory 
licensing for important products like pharmaceuticals and books, in order to 
bring down their prices and make them more affordable to ordinary citizens.

GCL would legalize the operations of computer shops which offer copying of
commercial software as a service to the public, but would require these shops 
to pay a reasonable royalty -- usually between 5 and 10 percent of the local 
price of copied item -- to the original copyright owners. It would allow the 
government television channel, for instance, to show on television the 
Discovery Series, while paying a reasonable royalty set by law.

Genuine compulsory licensing (also called mandatory licensing in some
countries) is a demand of many countries who want to access technologies but 
cannot afford the price set by patent/copyright holders. While this 
internationally-recognized mechanism was meant for the benefit of poorer 
countries, even the U.S. and many European countries use it.

In the article "Cyberlords: the rentier class of the information sector", I
explained why GCL is an important demand which not only helps poor countries to 
acquire access to expensive technologies on their own terms, but which also 
splits the cyberlord class because small cyberlords welcome GCL while big 
cyberlords oppose it.

When referring to compulsory licensing, it is important to emphasize that it
must be genuine, because the GATT/WTO agreement pays lip service to compulsory 
licensing but defines it in a way that negates its essential purpose by giving 
back to cyberlords the power to set the terms of the license.

What about hardware?

Even free software like Linux/GNU are expensive in terms of the hardware
necessary to run them and the time needed to learn them, to master them, and to 
modify them for our particular requirements. These additional investments have 
to be justified vis-a-vis the competing requirements of our impoverished 
people, only a small minority of which have access to potable water, to medical 
care or to a telephone.

Unlike information goods, hardware is material. Therefore, the cost of
replicating hardware and building infrastructure cannot take advantage of the 
near-zero marginal cost that information goods enjoy. Harware is therefore 
expensive.

To look at the options open to a developing country which wants to provide
access to ICTs to its citizens despite the huge capital requirements for doing 
so, it is useful to go back to the information superhighway analogy. A 
government which wants to provide universal access to transportation services 
will have the following approaches available:

* one family / one car
* walkways, bicycles
* efficient public transport

Most U.S. cities have taken the first approach. This is unfortunately the
default approach taken by many developing countries, which mistake a 
car-oriented society as a mark of progress. This misguided policy is further 
encouraged by industrial economies which export cars and other transport 
equipment to developing countries. A common way of doing so is by granting 
loans to cash-strapped governments to enable them to engage in road-building 
sprees so that people will buy more cars. We know today that this approach is 
unsustainable even for rich countries which may be able to afford them. There 
will certainly be not enough resources available to provide the metal as well 
as the fuel necessary to provide one car for every Indian or Chinese family. 
Even if there were, our atmosphere will never be able to accomodate the highly 
pollutive as well as greenhouse gases that will be emitted as a result of such 
an approach.

Despite this, many developing countries continue to consider increasing car
ownership as an indicator of national progress.

The second approach would emphasize non-motorized transport systems like
covered walkways and bike paths. To a poor country, bicycle manufacturing is 
much more technologically accessible than car manufacturing. It will also 
require much less in terms of a road network and fuel. This is, recalling 
Schumacher, appropriate technology.

The third approach is one that emphasizes public access to a commonly-owned
resource that is too expensive to be acquired on an individual basis. It nicely 
complements the second approach.

While the three approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive, it often
happens that one option precludes the other. In Metro Manila, for instance, 
government transport policies were heavily biased in favor of private cars, 
resulting in a rapid increase in private car ownership in the region. As the 
traffic situation deteriorated and road congestion worsened, it became very 
difficult to expand public transport services as the politically powerful car 
lobby insisted on retaining the private car biases in the government's 
transport policies. Therefore, instead of improving the bus and jeepney system, 
the government took the much more expensive option of building overhead rail 
systems, which will displace buses and jeepneys and free more roads for even 
more private cars.

Had the government paid early attention to the development of alternative
transport systems like walkways, bike paths and an efficient public bus system, 
middle class families would not have found the private car a necessity for 
urban living, and neither would it have been necessary to build very expensive 
overhead rail-based systems. The experience of Curitiba in Brazil is a good 
example of this enlightened approach.

Unfortunately, government are often drawn away from this enlightened approach
by the attractive loans dangled before them by countries who want them to build 
more roads instead so that they can buy more cars.

The clear lesson from this experience is that an early enlightened approach
can make it much easier for a government to provide universal public access at 
a much lower cost, than if market forces were allowed to rule and set the 
direction of development of services. Letting the "free market" direct the 
deployment of infrastructure would lock a country into very expensive options 
which are most beneficial only for the suppliers of the technology.

Let us now pose the question: what would be the analogue in the information
sector of walkways, bike paths, and an efficient public transport system, the 
approach that makes much more sense, particularly to developing countries, that 
the one-family, one-car approach?

The hardware solution: public facilities / universal access

Publicly-owned, publicly-accessible facilities represent this strategy of
resource-pooling and resource-sharing, a proven strategy among poor countries. 
This approach contrasts sharply with what seems today to be the dominant idea 
for introducing ICTs: "a computer on every desktop," recalling the "one family, 
one car" approach in the transportation sector.

These two contrasting approaches are as follows:

- public libraries vs. a library in every home
- public viewing centers vs. a television in every home
- public calling stations vs. a telephone in every home
- the public access terminals vs. a computer on every desktop

The first represents a community-oriented approach that emphasizes sharing and
minimizes cost; the second represents an individualistic approach that creates 
a huge demand for suppliers.

It is clear what strategy the ICT industry wants governments to take. It is
also clear what strategy will be able to deliver universal access at a cost 
which cash-strapped governments can afford.

Unfortunately, many governments do not give this issue much thought, and
accept without question the approach which the ICT industry is taking. The 
Philippine government, for instance, had in 1998 a project to install a public 
calling station in every one of the 1,500 municipalities of the country. The 
budget for the project was drastically reduced; instead the government is 
relying on private telcos to install telephones, which they are doing, but 
mostly in urban centers, and the target is to install one in every home.

Public ownership of the infrastructure

Because the ICT infrastructure is very expensive, the effort to set it up
presents an opportunity for collective pooling of resources by an entire 
community. Once the infrastructure is set up, it can then offer universal 
access, charging only enough to maintain good quality service and provide for 
future requirements. This is the rationale for public ownership of natural 
monopolies and large infrastructures.

To open such public works to private ownership open the door to rent-seeking
with no time bound, extracts additional cost from users to support the 
profit-driven rent-seekers who will charge as much as the market will bear, and 
contributes to the further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich. 
Because of the low marginal costs of moving and reproducing information goods, 
the information sector attracts more than its usual share of rent-seekers. A 
conscious effort by the government to encourage public or community ownership 
of ICT infrastructures can avoid this problem.

Conclusion: The Philippine Greens' Programme for the Information Sector

Within the Philippine Greens, we have developed a critical analysis of the
emerging global information economy and have formulated what we believe is an 
appropriate set of responses to the entry into our country of the Internet and 
various other information and communications technologies (ICTs). This set of 
responses contains many of the elements discussed above, as well as other 
policies which, we hope, represent a well-rounded policy framework for the 
information sector.

These information policies include:

1. The right to know. It is the government's duty to inform its citizens about
matters that directly affect them, their families or their communities. 
Citizens have the right to access these information. Neither the State nor 
private corporations may use "national security", "confidentiality of 
commercial transactions", or "trade secret" as reasons to curtail this right.

2. The right to privacy. The government must not probe the private life of its
citizens. Citizens have the right to access information about themselves which 
have been collected by government agencies. The government must not centralize 
these separate databases by building a central database or by adopting a 
unified access key to the separate databases. Nobody should be forced against 
their will to reveal any information they do not want to make public.

3. No patenting of life. The following, whether or not modified by human
intervention, may not be patented: life forms, biological and microbiological 
materials, biological and microbiological processes, genetic information.

4. The moral rights of intellectuals. Those who actually create an
intellectual work or originate an idea have the right to be recognized that 
they did so. Nobody may claim authorship of works or ideas they did not 
originate. No one can be forced to release or modify a work or idea if he or 
she is not willing to do so. These and other moral rights of intellectuals will 
be respected and protected.

5. The freedom to share. The freedom to share and exchange information and
knowledge must be recognized and protected. This freedom must take precedence 
over information monopolies such as intellectual property rights (IPR) that the 
State grants to intellectuals.

6. Universal access. The government will facilitate universal access by its
citizens to the world's storehouse of knowledge. Every community needs access 
to books, cassettes, videos, tapes, radio and TV programs, software, etc. The 
government will set up a wide range of training and educational facilities to 
enable community members to continually expand their know-how and knowledge.

7. Compulsory licensing. Universal access to information content is best
achieved through compulsory licensing. Under this internationally-practiced 
mechanism, the government itself licenses others to copy patented or 
copyrighted material for sale to the public, but compels the licensees to pay 
the patent or copyright holder a government- set royalty fee. This mechanism is 
a transition step towards non-monopolistic payments for intellectual activity.

8. Public stations. Universal access to information infrastructure is best
achieved through public access stations, charging subsidized rates. These can 
include well-stocked public libraries; public telephone booths; community 
facilities for listening to or viewing training videos, documentaries, and the 
classics; public facilities for telegraph and electronic mail; educational 
radio and TV programs; and public stations for accessing computer networks.

9. The best lessons of our era. While all knowledge and culture should be
preserved and stored for posterity, we also need to distil the best lessons of 
our era, to be taught -- not sold -- to the next generations. There should be a 
socially- guided, diversity-conscious selection, undertaken with the greatest 
sensitivity and wisdom. It is not something that can be left to a 
profit-oriented education system, to circulation- or ratings-driven media, or 
to consumption-pushing advertising.

The information economy is growing at a phenomenal rate, often independently
of the capacity of communities to absorb it, or of governments to control it. 
This growth is driven mostly by global forces external to our own society but 
very much present within it.

Left by themselves, these global forces will simply treat our country and our
communities as fodder for their relentless drive in search of profit and 
growth. On the other hand, we want the balanced development and interaction of 
our agricultural, industrial and information sectors in a way that enhances the 
overall quality of life in our communities. These are often orthogonal, if not 
opposite directions.

To be able to attain that dynamic balance between these sectors so that they
enhance each other and contribute to the overall health and sustainability of 
our communities -- this is the challenge of the information sector.

file: lowcost.rtf