This document discusses community networks and who should benefit from investments in network infrastructure like fiber optic cables. It notes that copper telephone wires will be replaced by fiber optics with much higher capacity. It asks whether cities and citizens or absent owners like phone companies should benefit. It then introduces the Open Public Local Access Network (OPLAN) model where infrastructure is controlled independently and provides abundant connectivity for local communities at low cost, preserving value for users. The CONFINE project aims to experimentally test this community network approach.

1. Community Networks
… neutrality or hostage?
Malcolm Matson
email: malcolm.matson@oplan.org
www.oplan.org
http://confine‐project.eu

2. FACT
In the coming decades, the innately scarce capacity of the
1,500,000,000 copper telephone wires in the world which
connect our phones and computers to the local telephone
exchange and via that, to the ‘public internet’, will be replaced
by optical fibre with its innately abundant capacity.
QUESTION
Who should reap the primary value and benefit from this
investment in a major technology upgrade?
OUR CITIES & CITIZENS? ABSENT OWNERS?
• YOU? • PHONE COMPANIES?
• ME? • PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS?
• OUR CHILDREN? • BANKS?
• OUR GRANDCHILDREN? • INVESTMENT FUNDS?
• LOCAL BUSINESSES AND ORGANISATIONS? • GOVERNMENTS – LOCAL AND NATIONAL

3. FACT Sascha Meinrath “When Malcolm Matson asks the question,
Director, Open Technology Initiative
In the coming decades, the innately scarce capacity of the ‘Who will control
1,500,000,000America Foundation istelephone wires local connectivity?’
The New
copper a non-profit, non- in the world which
connect our public new ideas toand computers he exposes the fundamental question
partisan
phones that invests in next
thinkers and
policy institute
address the
new
to the local telephone
exchange generation of challenges facing toUnited States
and via that, the the ‘public internet’, will be replaced
facing civil society at the dawn
by optical fibre with its innately abundant capacity. st century”of the 21
QUESTION
Who should reap the primary value and benefit from this
investment in a major technology upgrade?
OUR CITIES & CITIZENS? ABSENT OWNERS?
• YOU? • PHONE COMPANIES?
• ME? • PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS?
• OUR CHILDREN? • BANKS?
• OUR GRANDCHILDREN? • INVESTMENT FUNDS?
• LOCAL BUSINESSES AND ORGANISATIONS? • GOVERNMENTS – LOCAL AND NATIONAL

4. CONCLUSION
Public policy in almost every country in the world and
certainly in the European Union, and every ‘next generation
broadband’ initiative we are aware of, (past, present and
future) is guaranteed to deliver the very opposite.
OUR CITIES & CITIZENS? ABSENT OWNERS?
• YOU? • PHONE COMPANIES?
• ME? • PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS?
• OUR CHILDREN? • BANKS?
• OUR GRANDCHILDREN? • INVESTMENT FUNDS?
• LOCAL BUSINESSES AND ORGANISATIONS? • GOVERNMENTS – LOCAL AND NATIONAL

5. Open Public Local Access Network ‐ OPLAN
 capacity is dictated by the technology deployed – not by ‘artificial scarcity’ tariffing mechanisms
 restricted to serving a local geographic community – usually defined by administrative boundaries
 provides abundant low cost local ‘point‐to‐point’, symmetrical connectivity
 a 4th Utility© ‐ available for access by any party (no artificial ‘retail / wholesale’ differentiation)
 no differentiation between ‘content creators’ and ‘content consumers’
 infrastructure is owned and controlled independent of traffic/service/content using it
 is structured, financially and legally with governance measures that:
 protects the local ’common public good’
 ensures the long term ‘value and benefit’ rests with users of the network (not absent owners)
 ‘access’ charges are based on servicing capital, and recovering maintenance and upgrade costs
 to preserve global competitiveness, ‘rent seeking’, even for local public benefit, should be avoided
 financed by the private sector and market driven – not government funded/owned/controlled
 subsumes the incumbent telco’s existing local copper PSTN network

6.  EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7)
 ICT‐2011 Future Internet Research & Experimentation (FIRE)
 Large Scale Integrating Project
 construction and operation of a new “experimental testbed” for research in
community networking
 ‘mesh networking’ based on distributed, open source control
GOALS
 experimentally, rather than theoretically driven research into community networking
 evaluation of the community network model for the ‘future internet’
 free and open dissemination
 socio/technical/economic/legal evaluation of the testbed outputs and model
 sustainability (technical and financial)

7. Community Networks Testbed
for the Future Internet
http://confine-project.eu/
Universitat Politècnia de Catalunya (co‐ordinator) ‐ Spain
Fundació Privada per a la Xarxa Oberta, Lliure I Neutral guifi.net ‐ Spain
FunkFeuer ‐ Austria
Athens Wireless Network ‐ Greece
The OPLAN Foundation – United Kingdom
Comunicació per a la Cooperació – Pangea ‐ Spain
Fraunhofer‐Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.v. ‐ Germany
Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology ‐ Belgium

8.  ‘real‐world’ rather than laboratory conditions (based on existing community networks)
 serious academic and scientific involvement
 a test‐bed at both the physical and application levels
 the under‐pinning driver is ‘openness’
 open source hardware/software
 test‐bed network and the CONFINE project is ‘open’ for others to become involved and collaborate
 ‘opening minds to open networks’
FOUR YEAR PROJECT
● Year 1: Initial set-up
● Year 2: open call round 1
● Year 3: open call round 2
● Year 4: refinements, stabilization of operation and dissemination

9. Community Networks
… neutrality or hostage?
Malcolm Matson
email: malcolm.matson@oplan.org
www.oplan.org
http://confine‐project.eu