Internet Governance Forum Rio de Janeiro, 
 Brazil 13 November 2007 Access

 Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the
 The 2nd Meeting of the IGF.  Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it 
 may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. 
 It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should 
 not be treated as an authoritative record.
 
 [ Gavel ]

 >>MARKUS KUMMER:   Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  May I ask you to be
 seated.  We would like to start with the session.  And minister Helio Costa
 will make some introductory remarks. Please, minister.

 >>HELIO COSTA:   Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  I am the minister of
 communications of Brazil.  And for the benefit of those that do not speak
 English, I will speak in Portuguese. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning.  I am
 honored to participate as a state minister for communications to participate in
 this meeting, which, since Athens, represents an exceptional opportunity for us
 to discuss very important issues related to the Internet. What makes the IGF a
 different forum is the fact that here, the forum is open to all.  No
 organization, individual, or national state is more important than anyone else.
  And this couldn't be different, because cooperation and participation are
 precisely the best we have in the Internet universe. One of the most
 fascinating features in the word wide Web is the fact that the Internet was
 made and became so powerful precisely because it is a substrate for global
 cooperation via greater facility in communications, and for representing a
 privileged space for collective intelligence, and a reservoir of human
 knowledge.  It is, in fact, the library of Alexandria, only this time, it is
 fireproof. The democracy in this program should be an inspiration for the
 building of technological, economic, and social scenarios that will be more
 balanced in the Internet. If democracy and balance are constant words in this
 forum, in the World Wide Web of computers, we have still a lot to do.  Even
 though there have been significant efforts by governments and companies to
 reduce the digital gap, differences still persist in access to information
 between developed and developing countries and between the rich and the poor.
 We still have differences in terms of access to the traditional forms of access
 of information and communications, such as newspapers, radio, and the telephone
 for certain social classes and regions of the world who do not participate in
 this effervescent world of the Internet, this evolution may seem threatening,
 because it is another unknown and therefore something to be mistrusted.  We are
 here, therefore, to discuss these inequalities, to try and find solutions for
 the infrastructure, legal, and regulatory bottlenecks which have the power to
 include or exclude citizens of the future.  And this future will be better if
 all can have access. As a means to start the discussion on access, I would like
 to recall that all of this infrastructure in communication and information is
 stimulated by governments.  Certain companies need to be at the forefront of
 innovation, and they would like to increase their cognitive capacity, their
 autonomy, and the capacity of interaction. For everyone to benefit from this
 evolution, I understand we have to assess the issues related to Internet
 access.  And between them, I would like to enhance the development of
 communications infrastructure. The scenario in telecommunications is of the
 responsibility of private players and besides contract tools forcing them to
 universalize their services, especially wide band.  An environment of wide and
 fair competition is essential for a larger number of people to be included. 
 And in this sense, the existence of efficient regulatory tools, such as the
 duty to separate Net elements, unbundling, and a strict (inaudible) are very
 powerful tools to stimulate a reduction in access prices and for the
 improvement of better services. Likewise, we are aware of the fact that the
 availability of infrastructure must come together with low-cost access
 solutions. Very often, access, shared access solutions are more appropriate. 
 Other times, individual access will allow those who are excluded from the
 information society to have contact with the Internet world. In Brazil, the
 program originally called "Connected PC," which consists in a package of
 services for Internet access at low prices, together with a reduction in the
 prices of data processing equipment, allowed for an increase in the number of
 Internet users.  We have around 20 million users right now in the country.
 We're also testing all the alternatives of low-cost equipment for students in
 public schools in order to include the youngest Brazilian citizens in the
 information society. I am certain that all governments are now struggling to
 build sustainable models and programs of access to the Internet for their
 citizens.  However, I believe for us to be even more successful, we have to
 think about the level of international interconnection costs.  We need to find
 solutions for the routing of Internet traffic to be increasingly close to the
 people interested in order to reduce prices that most of the developing world
 is forced to pay. These costs are becoming more significant to the extent that
 the world voice and data traffic has been increasingly transferred to I.P.
 networks. Apart from the impact on culture, on society, and on global economy,
 issues related to Internet governance become even more relevant. 
 Next-generation networks and telephony operators at the same time as they all
 expand the offer of services to consumers, turning the separation between
 services and technologies a more complex reality, then everything will become
 data packages, or all I.P.  And these new technologies represent huge
 challenges for developing countries, since very often they do not have points
 for traffic exchange, and this burdens access to Internet excessively.  This is
 why countries may have access to financial and technological resources that
 should enable them to build their own links, the so-called NAPs or network
 access points.  I give you an example.  The Internet Center in Johannesburg,
 according to a report from the ITU, promoted savings of $2.5 million in 2005
 with the implementation of an access point in the city. One point I consider of
 utmost importance is the use of the whole existing technological potential to
 expand the offer of services to citizens, joining coverage and bandwidth in
 reasonable amounts.  For that, we have to do everything possible for scarce
 resources, financial and natural resources to be used fully for the diversity
 of technologies and contents.  Greater offer of technologies will bring about a
 reduction in prices for the end users.  In Brazil, we are working to create a
 vast public network of high-speed to serve public schools, hospitals, health
 stations, police stations, and community associations. In the next three years,
 the whole of Brazil will be connected to high-velocity Internet. I am certain
 that our speakers discussants will raise other points that are very relevant in
 their discussions.  Finally, I would like to say that the IGF is the expression
 of all of those who wish to see the Internet develop in all corners of our
 planet.  This is why its topics are so important.  Each IGF discussion brings
 hope to the new reality. We know that the building of a more balanced world
 will not be easy.  And I hope that this second IGF in Rio de Janeiro should
 represent a step forward towards building a better reality.  Thank you very
 much. [ Applause ]

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you very much for those introductory remarks.  My
 name is Richard Sambrook.  I'm the director of the BBC's world service and
 global news channels.  And I'm going to be moderating this session on access.
 In a moment, we're going to hear from our panelists here on the stage and
 introduce our discussants, who are sitting in the front row.  But first some
 details on how you can take part in this session. I would like it to be as
 inclusive as possible.  So we'll be seeking some short and concise
 contributions to allow as many people as possible to take part. If you'd like
 to ask a question, colleagues with microphones are on the floor of the hall and
 also have pieces of paper for to you write your question on with your name. 
 And if you give it back to them, they will take the questions where they'll be
 collated at the front and make their way here to me on the stage. If you are
 selected, I will call you by name.  Please stand up, wait for the microphone,
 and say who you are and ask your question.  And let me just warn you, I may
 call on two or three questions at a time in order to keep the discussion
 flowing. We may also receive some remote questions submitted by e-mail from
 those following this session on the Web. Now, access is a very broad topic,
 encompassing many, many different things.  To give some focus to this
 discussion, we had a couple of proposals.  Firstly, perhaps we should bear in
 mind who might be the next billion people to be connected to the Internet.  How
 do they differ from those who are already connected?  Probably less wealthy,
 they probably have different kinds of content needs.  There are certainly more
 challenging connection issues. Who are they and what is needed in order to
 bring them online? Yesterday's workshop on access suggested we need to look at
 this issue from the demand side as well as from the traditional supply side. So
 I'll seek to manage the discussion to focus from those two different
 perspectives.  A question of supply encompassing regulation, law, policy,
 competition, capacity building and so on, and perhaps the question of mobile
 versus computers.  And on the demand side, issues of cost, ease of use,
 relevance of content, access perhaps for the elderly and those with
 disabilities, questions of language, and the crucial link between access and
 development. So that's the field we have perhaps the next hour and 40 minutes
 to explore. In a moment, our panelists but first let me introduce our
 discussants on the front row who will make their contributions as the session
 progresses. Perhaps you can just indicate when I call you out.  On the left we
 have Mr. Maui Sanford from the Pacific Islands telecoms.  We have Mr.  Rajesh
 Bansal from Nokia Siemens in India.  We have Hökmark Gunnar a, member of the
 European Parliament.  Mr. Sam Paltridge from the OECD.  And Radhika Lal from
 the U.N. Development Program.  And they will indicate to me if they may want to
 come in or I may call on their particularly area of expertise. I would like to
 begin by calling on Mike Jensen from South Africa to begin.

 >>MIKE JENSEN:   Thank you, Richard.  To focus us on this area of access, I
 believe we need a very clear perspective of what we need and how to get there. 
 So for me the goal would be affordable universal broadband.  Affordable for the
 next billion, the bottom of the pyramid, and universal in terms of complete
 coverage across the world or across every nation. And for me the five things we
 really need to focus on to get there would be, number one, more competition and
 innovation in the Internet and telecom sector.  Much more backbone fiber,
 national and international.  More effort to build demand, especially by
 national governments to build useful local applications.  Improved availability
 of electric power.  And better indicators for measuring progress. Just to go
 into those briefly in a little bit more detail. I think that we see despite lip
 service to opening markets, in the majority of developing countries we still
 see long-term monopolies, duopolies or cozy cartels in key areas of the markets
 such as international gateways or mobile sector. The regulator regime really
 needs to change as fast as possible to allow more competitors, especially they
 local loop level and including mobile sector. And in international gateways. I
 think there is a consensus emerging now that we need at least four competitors
 in the field to have real competition that will drive down prices.  Any less
 than that, you can see they collude together and keep prices high.  For
 example, in South Africa, we have had three operators now for many years, and
 the prices have remained pretty much static over the course of that period, and
 the introduction of the third operator did very little to reduce prices. At the
 same time, there's also a growing interest in more innovative models for
 service provision.  Particularly community-owned service providers.  And this
 range is from municipal fiber to cooperatives running mesh wireless networks.
 So for national policy needs to allow these types of initiatives to emerge and
 should not just focus purely on commercial, national operator models. Part of
 the way of achieving this is capacity building of regulators, competition
 boards and national policymakers. We need this to help them to understand these
 issues and to help ensure they have sufficient political will for their
 enforcement. I think the need for this is well illustrated in two other areas,
 which keep costs high:  Interconnection and number portability, particularly in
 the mobile sector which is becoming more and more important for providing
 Internet access. Here it is much too common to see operators charging high
 tariffs for connecting to other operator networks, and generating big profits
 on the back of artificially maintained high interconnection rates which do not
 reflect the actual cost of interconnection. Similarly, without number
 portability there can't be any real competition in the sector because people
 don't want to change their phone numbers, and so the operator has a captured
 market, and can charge high rates. The operators have often opposed these
 regulatory changes or any regulatory or policy involvement in this area, and
 argue that number portability, for example, is unnecessary.  And many
 regulators and policymakers have accepted these arguments because they don't
 have the capacity to dispute them and there are very few consumer watchdogs
 working in this area to sensitize the public about these issues and create
 political pressure. In the area of better national and international fiber
 infrastructure, there's a great need to get away from satellite links for
 international connectivity.  This is due to the high construction and launch
 costs for satellite which inherently cannot provide enough bandwidth at an
 affordable price.  And furthermore, satellite does not provide sufficient
 quality of service for virtual private networks or streaming interactive
 multimedia services. So part of the strategy is to look at new models for
 national and international fiber deployment.  In particular, not to treat
 backbone infrastructure as part of the local loop service providers
 infrastructure. I believe it is a public good in the same way roads are, and
 should be deployed using open access models which separate retail service
 competition from public backbone service provision. The other part of the
 picture here is to improve the coordination of infrastructure roll-out.  New
 roads, rail, electricity and gas pipelines should all have a fiber component. 
 Development finance for these types of infrastructure projects should be
 conditional on including fiber in their deployment. In the area of increasing
 demand, building useful online government services in local languages for the
 bottom of the pyramid should take place in concert with infrastructure
 development; otherwise, the infrastructure will not be used to its full
 potential, or justify the cost of its deployment. I believe others on the panel
 are covering this area in more detail so I won't dwell on it here. In the area
 of improving access to energy and electricity in particular, this needs to
 happen also in concert with telecom infrastructure deployment, and content
 development, because there are many areas that don't have access to electric
 power or it is unreliable and costly. And finally, to improve policy
 decision-making around these goals, we need to have better and more up-to-date
 indicators of progress. Currently, few developing countries have good national
 indicators of Internet uptake, especially disaggregated by agenda or by
 geographic area within the country. In addition, most supply-side indicators
 rely on reporting by national operators, and this data is often two or three
 years old, which makes it very difficult to conduct any reliable, realistic,
 rapid response decision-making. So I think we need to adopt the use of more
 up-to-date Internet metrics such as autonomous system numbers, domain names,
 and Internet protocol addresses. Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Mike, thank you very much, indeed. And now can we move
 along the panel to Roque Gagliano, from the Latin America Latin Interconnection
 Forum, perhaps representing the view of the ISPs.  Can I ask all our panelists
 to bear in mind we have simultaneous translation so keep your comments at an
 easy pace for them to translate. Thank you.

 >>ROQUE GAGLIANO:   Thank you very much.  My name is Roque Gagliano.  I am
 coming from ANTEL in Uruguay.  I am currently the coordinator for NAPLA which
 is the IXP or network access point, mainly it's for Latin America and the
 Caribbean.  This year I also chair the connectivity working group at the ALAC's
 2007 Working Group 1 initiative. My main focus is going to be talking about
 regional connectivity and exchange point.  This is not only a network issue. 
 We can also research about regional connectivity on the energy sector,
 communication sector, to understand the difficulties of this challenge. So
 Internet transit cost is one of the main problems for developing countries. 
 Not only the cost of the Internet port itself but also the cost of getting to
 those ports by transport. Particularly in the Latin America region and the
 Caribbean, ports are basically located in the United States and operators need
 to pay 100% of the cost of getting to those ports, particularly, for example,
 in Miami. Internet exchange points are meeting points where operators, content
 providers, and other providers who have an Autonomous System Number meet to
 exchange traffic. Basically, if I have data from my server to your customer,
 the data goes straight from my network to your network without going through
 those expensive transit points. The benefit of this model is that it reduces
 the cost of connectivity, improves the quality of service by reducing the
 delay. Also, the Internet exchange points are a meeting point for critical
 infrastructure such as root servers, and the natural place to host content
 providers. Please remember that, for example, when we talk about the cost of
 transit, for example, content provider like YouTube have around 10% of all our
 traffic so it's going to be very beneficial if you become host of that content
 locally, and the IXP is the natural place to host those kind of services. So we
 can say also that the IXP is also the place where demand and supply meets. And
 the IXP, if we carry local and we manage to get demand on local supply in a
 local point, we get all the local traffic local. But what is the next point? So
 what's afterward? So we want to talk about regional connectivity.  And when we
 talk about connecting different countries between themselves, we are talking
 about connecting people with similar content. As an example, for example,
 people in Uruguay, they download the same music, probably, than people in
 Argentina.  They watch the same soap opera.  The activities are very similar.
 The same is their profile in the Web. So having a good regional connectivity
 just makes sense from all the perspectives. The question is what problems are
 we facing when we talk about regional connectivity in the Latin American
 region?  First of all, we're talking about the first problem that we face is
 the cost of the regional transportation.  Many times getting to the
 international cable systems is more expensive than actually the transportation
 to the last point in the U.S. Again, sometimes what we face are de facto
 monopolies in different countries. Secondary, there's some country regulations,
 especially when we try to host international organization in IXPs. 
 Particularly some IXP are self-regulating, avoiding regional companies to get
 there. A strong IXP is going to be the natural place to meet between operators
 from different countries, and that's something we need to explore. Thank you. 
 That was all.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Okay, Roque, thank you very much for that. And next on my
 right we have Valerie D'Costa who is the program manager for InfoDev based at
 the World Bank.

 >>VALERIE D'COSTA:   Thank you very much, Richard, and good morning, everyone.
 Yes, as you just mentioned, infoDev is a multi-donor program which is housed at
 the World Bank.  InfoDev focuses on creating knowledge on ICTs for development
 in three important areas.  Firstly, the issue we are discussing today here,
 access for all to ICTs.  Secondly, how do we mainstream the use of ICTs better
 in critical sectors such as health or education. And thirdly, infoDev looks at
 incubating small and medium enterprises that are focusing on creating ICT
 businesses and enabling ICT-enabled innovation. Now, it's clear that the access
 agenda is an unfinished one.  I'm ready to bet some money that there will be an
 access panel next year at the IGF in India to see how much progress is being
 made. And the issues are fairly clear.  They are the same ones that we
 discussed last year.  Cost, coverage, services, content. But I think that the
 IGF 2007 is an important inflection point here for us all so that we can learn
 from the past and think creatively about how to get to the next billion users,
 as Richard contextualized our debate here today. For that I would like to add
 three points to this debate and I am looking forward to a lively discussion to
 come. Firstly, I would like to suggest that we should think about what the user
 interface device should be.  Many roads lead to the Internet. I was told that
 there are 15 million computers in India, and 225 million mobile phones. Two
 weeks ago when I was at the Connect Africa summit in Kegali, Rwanda I heard
 that in the next 15 minutes, 15,000 new mobile phone subscribers will be added
 to the 3 billion existing mobile phone subscribers, the vast majority of them
 in the developing world. Various community and rural access initiatives abound.
  Village connect, village phone, I could go on and on. If I could advise the
 people who manage large universal service funds for their countries and who are
 looking for new ways to spend those monies on meaningful initiatives, I would
 say to them let's look afresh at the promise of mobile and wireless technology.
 I would say to them, let's think about spending some of those funds to support
 the many innovative grass-roots solutions which are mushrooming out there
 rather than just telco led roll-out plans. My second point.  Let's engage the
 users better.  One of the learning points about better serving the next billion
 users is to listen better to what they need. A lot of discussion centers around
 how to get broadband connectivity to the underserved.  But less attention is
 being paid to what those villages will use a one megabit line for. We must
 start by asking ourselves what the critical Internet use issues are in
 underserved communities, and then address ourselves to how ICT can make those
 problems less intractable.  How it can save, for example, a two or three day
 journey to the nearest town.  How it can help a citizen better engage more
 effectively with a local or their municipal authority. How it can help a small
 business to expand its market reach, or its distribution network. How it can
 help new entertainment and information possibilities open up to those citizens.
 My third and last point.  Let's expand the evidence base showing the causal
 link between ICTs and development, between technology and development, between
 the Internet and development. InfoDev is a donor funded program and my donors
 ask me, as they ask many of you out there, how does access to the Internet fair
 in the pecking order relative to, say, access to clean water, access to a road
 or electricity? It's often a tough question to face, especially for true
 believers like many of you out there, and for me, who have spent our careers in
 ICTs. But similar questions come up in cabinet meetings in developing
 countries, and within ministries in developing countries.  To justify why these
 are important investments to make and put the political will behind, I think
 these questions keep us honest. Info Dev is keen to undertake some analytical
 work going forward on the development impact of the Internet and ICTs.  How we
 can best illustrate why ICT and Internet access continue to matter, demonstrate
 its transformative effect on society and business.  And show why ICT skills
 development is absolutely critical to help developing countries participate
 more fully in a global knowledge economy and society. So my point is this.  For
 this access debate to really take off, the conversation has to expand to
 include those who are involved in science and technology, health, education,
 governance, in addition to us ICT true believers. Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Valerie, thank you very much.  Again if I can encourage
 our discussants if they want to come in op the back of any of these, just
 indicate to me and I will bring you straight in.  And again if delegates in the
 audience want to ask a question, please indicate and my colleagues over here
 will come and give you the paper to allow you to do so. Our next panelist is
 Sylvia Cadena.  Sylvia is the organizer behind WILAC, a network of wireless
 technology for development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:   Thank you.  I am very honored to be here to represent the
 people who are working in the field, community wireless networks, in trying to
 make some contributions from our experience, and I would like to make those
 contributions in my mother tongue, in Spanish so they are also represented
 here. The wireless technologies such as UHF and others want to share resources
 to operate as they can also allow to share resources. The design of these
 technologies and the projection of them, this entails the cooperation strategy
 that goes beyond technical knowledge and favoring education processes.  This is
 key for any initiative and the wireless networks are no exception. The
 translation and the promotion of local languages and local customs which will
 clarify important aspects of culture enables communities to use networks, and
 they can expand them according to their need and to promote and develop the
 skills of men and women in rural zones, and ensure that they remain those areas
 so that they can ensure the continuity of any national network regardless of
 the platform chosen. Wireless technologies call for greater applied research to
 develop them and to test integrated solutions for low cost which cover
 practical aspects such as recycling and the building of antennas, calibration
 and alignment of equipment, and the development of applications for service
 development and learning management tools which enable the development of
 sustainability strategies according to local context. The wireless technologies
 for development call for a broad regulatory integrative facility, and there's a
 great complexity and high cost.  And integration processes apply to different
 organizations and regulations and procedures, not only institutional but within
 each one of the involved organizations. And these have direct bearing upon any
 wireless network to serve a rural community, especially there are four areas
 which, in my opinion, reforms are called for. The first is to review the
 certification so that communities should not be subsidizing the entry of the
 markets that will charge these certification costs.  That should be dealt with
 by the companies which will derive economic benefit from them. Secondly, to
 work in the regional integration to allow for the management in frontier areas,
 borderline areas, so that communities which share the same culture can be
 integrated. Third, these communities should not be dealt with as the exception
 to the norm because they are in the rural zones.  They should be the foundation
 based on which an outreach and regulatory mark should be done.  This is
 projected from the structures of the cities and they should be adapted to rural
 areas, when in truth more than 70% of the population lives in rural areas. And
 lastly, services with greater demand in the rural areas, such as voice and
 messaging services and emergency communication for disaster occasions should be
 ensure and supported as a right that should be more important than any economic
 interest. Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Sylvia, thank you very much for that.  Our next panelist
 is Mouhamet Diop from Senegal, and I... (no audio). (no audio). (no audio).

 >>MOUHAMET DIOP:   For those of you who have not yet your headphones, taken out
 your headphones, I shall make my contribution in French.  My name is Mouhamet
 Diop.  I am a consultant and work in helping Senegal and Africa, be it a
 government or businessmen or in the private sector. To integrate new
 infrastructure and to try to help the penetration of the Internet and expand
 users. The objective of my intervention would be the dynamics of
 infrastructures and access to infrastructures. From the point of view not only
 from what is done locally, but also the accord nation, what is the economic
 focus that is necessary to build infrastructure with a spirit of efficient use
 of the spirit by the populations, not only for Africa but for all developing
 countries. And the second focus is the Internet with several resources,
 critical resources, as how to have access to this.  Have we thought this out in
 a useful manner regarding accessibility to resources by users in the developing
 countries or least advanced countries?  And third focus regards tools.  When we
 talk about access, the issue about access is not just connectivity, nor is it
 just of finding yourself before a machine, but we're talking about the tools
 and the adaptation and adequacy of interface.  I will give you statistics that
 will surprise you. We are speaking of one percent of world users of the
 Internet, 3.6 penetration in Africa, and some African statistics to help so
 that you may better realize the problem of access.  They are 14% of the world
 population, and Africa has less than 2% of what we call those that are
 subscribers, registered subscribers, internationally.  And those who are
 subscribers that have a domain name, that's less than 2%, considering
 worldwide, we're talking about less than 2% as regards Internet content. So we
 have the 2% syndrome.  We talk about access, but it's obvious we should ask
 ourselves, what can we do to go beyond this 2% in all of these statistics
 points that talk about -- that deal with access. I will separate the two
 approaches regarding infrastructure.  We have what we do nationally, and for
 many years of private users for intercommunications, an ISP found a response in
 the model to create the infrastructure to a certain extent. We have the number
 of users has increased, but on the regional level we do not have a consistent
 response because there is what we call the lack of understanding of the global
 mechanism.  So as to say what can we do so that regionally we can create
 infrastructure that will break through the transit model and that will place
 Africa in the peering model with the rest of the world. This has already been
 initiated as a debate.  If we have the European Union which has quickly
 understood how a continent can get structured in order to make use of the
 Internet and not just a multitude of IxPs.  This is international peering.  You
 are connected globally and you pay nothing to anyone.  We have 50 states in
 Africa.  Each one pays connectivity because we are still with the individual
 focus. Latin America has the same problem and this is just the beginning of
 this problem, because in the domain of decisions, one does not understand that
 when we talk about private settlements or agreements -- that is, if you
 negotiate properly, you have good results, but if you are not good in
 negotiations, you will have to suffer all of the consequences of the problems
 of the system. You must make use of this in Africa.  The individual focus,
 without a regional focus, will lead us to nowhere, because we're going to spend
 a lot of money and not to build infrastructure, which should support
 initiative.  We will go back to details during the debate, but this is what I
 wanted to bring up. The second point as regards critical source -- resources
 for the Internet. Today, in order to have content and to have applications and
 to develop the use, we know quite well that everything is built around the
 Internet.  However, we know that when -- we know that the register supply -- we
 have those who are registered.  Some offer services.  We have more than 950 in
 the world.  You know how many -- there are in Africa?  Two. What can be the
 possibility where all countries, where you have the users and service
 providers, we do not understand the economics of this.  We have to understand
 the mechanics so as to be able to balance out things and not follow the
 rationale of the users, who pay and continue to pay, and they do not -- they
 cannot say, if we get organized, then we can have players who will -- well,
 this economy which is more than one billion dollars is not only set aside for
 players in the developed countries.  This is one example.  There are many
 others.  This is just to show the awareness that has to be built with the focus
 of economic intelligence.  This has to be a new dynamic that has to be thrusted
 forward by the old one in saying that the states have a role to perform.  It is
 not just an issue of economics, of getting organized and promote initiatives so
 that things can be balanced out. The third point is the adaptation of interface
 tools.  We don't have much time.  I don't have time to say everything I would
 like to say. If we have a continent such as Africa and we talk about a literacy
 rate that is very low, we are not concerned with the profitability of the
 interface.  It's good to have a machine.  But if the machine is not fit for
 use, do you think this person will have access to the Internet? If you give a
 computer to someone?  No.  I think that the effort regarding adaptation tools
 for adapt interface, and there you have the whole dynamics of
 capacity-building, developing resources, adapting and developing multimedia
 interface to gunman straight that the Internet, if we want to use it for
 development, is not the technique for technique, but technique at the service
 of development.  This is for health, for education, development of agriculture.
  We're not -- we don't have to request all to change this technology, and
 therein derives all the problem technicians face. We don't want a change to
 make use of the Internet.  But what is it that we can do to have the tools help
 use the Internet? We can speak about access.  But we forget a key point.  We
 know that the problem of the World Summit, which was financing all of this.  We
 know these are the ideas.  And what can we do to try to connect the other
 billion users?  How can we finance and fund all of this?  We know it is
 national responsibility, but it is also international responsibility. I believe
 that the issue of the international services fund is there.  But, you see, the
 correction of investments done locally to enable connectivity that is not
 lasting just two or three years, but that is a proposed mechanism so that the
 developing countries will not pay such a high cost for investment, because the
 adequate -- the technological choices were not adequate, the user was not
 considered, and we do not have enough resources to support recurring costs
 regarding telecommunications networks. I do not want to speak to -- for too
 long.  But financing is the heart of the problem.  There are tools which are
 inefficient, and we should think about new sources of financing, and that there
 should be a new forum for financing of the information society and an
 operational plan of action so that the rural populations can have access. 
 Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you very much, indeed. (No audio). (Foreign
 language translation on channel 1).

 >>ANITA GURUMURTHY:   Thank you.  I'd like to start by saying that questions of
 access and governance are inextricably connected.  They are two sides of the
 same coin and part of the very critical agenda on human development and the
 Internet. We know enough now to be able to say that sustainable development is
 not about people's access to goodies, but people's control over systems of
 governance.  And therefore, access is not just a peripheral theme in the IGF. 
 Recent research on ICTs and their development impact points to how social
 impacts of ICTs are perhaps no different from the impact a couple of decades
 ago of ICTs on business. As has been said ever so often, computer-induced
 productivity was seen everywhere initially except in the statistics.  This
 notion of productivity paradox in the adoption of digital systems in business
 is more than relevant to development.  You don't see the impact for a long
 time.  You cannot invest in ICTs for development and begin desperately to look
 for results.  And if I may add, the returns on investment that are so
 passionately sought through business models may never be realized. Why do I say
 this emphatically?  Because I am presuming that the most meaningful ICT models
 for the poorest are not just about creating demand loops for individual users
 to pay, but models that address systemic and institutional change through ICTs.
 Demand cannot be generated unless the supply sets up a virtual cycle.  It's
 like public libraries, where ICTs get embedded within systems, within public
 health, public education, governance, women's livelihood projects, et cetera,
 change towards human development and rights begins to happen in an almost
 unbelievable, exciting, nonlinear, and systemic way. And since we have been told
 that there's no such thing as a free lunch, the question to ask is, who's to
 finance this systemic approach?  And here I would like to quote from an
 extremely inspiring submission to the IGF by the Council of Europe. Quote
 begins: The Council of Europe advance the concept of public service value of
 the Internet, and the council defines public services from the Wikipedia,
 public services is defined in the council's document as a term usually used to
 mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly through
 the public sector, or by financing private provision of services.  The term is
 associated with the social consensus that certain services should be available
 to all, regardless of income. The submission goes on to saying that this notion
 of public service value should help provide responses to many public-policy
 questions that arise under the IGF themes, inter alia, in respect of
 engendering confidence, sustainability and sustainability of the Internet.  It
 should be stressed that for the many people who are at present
 information-poor, access to the Internet is a legitimate aspiration linked to
 their very prospects of development and democratic citizenship.  This is a
 clear example where states have an essential role to play in providing a
 framework for the private sector to operate. Developing and promoting islands
 of trust on the Internet, for example, by means of content provided by public
 service media or public authorities is one important way forward which we are
 currently examining and developing at the Council of Europe. Quote ends. The
 idea here is to see ICTs not just as commercial or business infrastructure, but
 also as development infrastructure, where the public aspect is separated
 clearly from the rest, just as it is in the case of public health or public
 education.  Basic access calls for the essential role of the state in creating
 that comprehensive ecosystem which makes access meaningful enough. But then why
 do we see many northern governments defy this consensus articulated so
 eloquently in the Council of Europe submission in global policy fora that
 discusses access for developing countries?  While public sector monopolies in
 communications can be legitimately critiqued in many developing countries,
 there is no basis to negate the role of public finance in these countries that
 in many ways has shaped what the information society is in the north today. 
 But many governments of the north take a stance that seems to contradict this
 wisdom in forums like IGF, preferring to focus on privatization. Invocations to
 the notion of public goods heard last year in Athens and in the opening
 speeches yesterday, cannot just be mere assurances that warm our hearts.  They
 need to be taken to their logical policy ends. It's noteworthy, and perhaps
 rather disconcerting, that references to public infrastructure and the role of
 public financing in providing access, as well as to nonmarket structures and
 alternative business models, that were present in an earlier version of the
 IGF's synthesis document in the month of May disappeared in the final version.
 The section on access is, of course, logically consistent, only it has been
 sanitized and standardized completely into a privatization, liberalization,
 competition story. Very ironically, the concepts that disappeared were direct
 references from the original WSIS documents.  There's obviously no intention
 here to allege a conspiratorial angle at all, but to say that agenda-setting in
 Internet governance needs a bit more imagination and vision from the global
 community that has space not just for those serviced by the market, but also
 for those who may never be. My last point pertains to access and community
 ownership. It is the nature and manner of the use of technology by
 communities that needs to determine infrastructure policies and frameworks of
 governance. So far, the business use of technology has monopolized policy
 frameworks and the development use has often been contorted as extended
 business use.  The governance of technology, including Internet governance,
 derives from imperatives for development.  Governance cannot be a pre-given
 into which development concerns are forced to fit. The poor may not have the
 time or the energies to understand the politics of governance, but they are
 indelibly impacted by the principles of governance.  The most vulnerable
 populations of the world may not care too much about intellectual property
 regimes, but they do care about life-saving drugs. If a public goods to ICTs
 approach is acknowledged as enabling development and when the infrastructure
 design begins to look at more and more systemic uses for development, going
 beyond individual user-oriented conceptions, then the nature of Internet
 governance is bound to be different. Much here, of course, depends on the
 courage to set our agenda differently. The chairperson of this panel began by
 describing the IGF as a unique initiative in democracy and balance.  From the
 perspective access to ICTs, we need to also hope and push for it to be an
 experiment in imagination and courage.  We need to think of the 6.6 billion
 people in the world and not just the next billion.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you very much.  Our final panelist is Jacquelynn
 Ruff.  And Jackie is vice president for public policy in international
 regulatory affairs at Verizon, based in the states.

 >>JACQUELYNN RUFF:   Thank you very much.  And thank you for the opportunity
 for Verizon to participate in this panel. I think that the issues that we're
 dealing with, which is access for the next one billion, ultimately, the five
 billion, is a very complex issue.  It's a puzzle that has many pieces.  And
 this panel today represents in the range of contents many pieces of that
 puzzle. The one that I will talk about is the perspective from the company like
 Verizon, which is -- plays many different roles in terms of Internet access. 
 We provide Internet access, obviously, in the U.S. as a broadband provider. 
 We're also a global backbone network, and we're an ISP.  And sometimes we're
 the ISP that others are connecting with.  Sometimes we're the small newcomer in
 a different market and we're looking for connection ourselves. There's been a
 lot of discussion even so far on the question of the relationship between
 supply and demand.  And let me just throw out a few indicators of what I think
 has been major progress on the supply side. Since we gathered in Athens, in the
 last year or so, the international Internet bandwidth has risen almost 70%. 
 That is, 68%, as backbone operators around the world have upgraded their
 networks. Latin America was actually one of the fastest-growing regions, with a
 rate of 73%.  And I think, very importantly, if you look at Latin America, a
 lot of that growth was within the region, a theme that a number of people have
 talked about. Another way of looking at it is that broadband growth in the last
 quarter, the top ten countries for broadband growth included at the top of that
 list Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.  And almost all of the others
 were similarly emerging economies.  You have a significant increase in supply. 
 You have prices decreasing.  According to telegeography, for example,
 international circuits of the STM1 capacity dropped between 2002 and 2006 on
 the U.S. route to Brazil by 67%; to China, 75%; to Mexico, 84%.  So those are
 real marks of progress.  There's much more to be done.  But I think it's
 important to notice what is a-happening in the market. To a large extent, these
 marks of progress are the result of investment in infrastructure and services.
 The capital that is available to be invested today is truly global in nature. 
 And I think an important point that I'd like to touch on is, what is it in
 terms of a policy, legal, and regulatory framework that will help draw capital
 to the areas, especially in the developing world, that need it in order to get
 to the next billion, and the next billion, and so on. So a question checklist
 on that is, from a perspective of a company like ours, transparent and stable
 regulatory environment; respect for the rule of law; openness to foreign
 investment; a commitment to encouraging competition -- and I'll come back to
 that point in a moment; good licensing and spectrum allocation procedures,
 especially since we've heard the focus today on wireless as a technology that
 is increasingly important; a flexibility for innovative services.  Now, the
 classic one in the last few years has been the role of Voice over IP and the
 extent to which that is permissible, both as an important service in and of
 itself, and also as a driver for demand on the Internet access side.  Political
 and legal commitment to support e-commerce.  And, finally, an environment that
 enables local developers to create attractive and useful content. And I think
 that's been a real theme in the last day in terms of Internet access. Those are
 some of the sort of key elements of a policy-enabling environment that I think
 is important to foster investment.  Now, I'm -- this is just one piece of the
 puzzle.  Others here have talked about the role of -- say we think about it as
 a public-private partnership, the role of the public.  But I'm just speaking
 from this perspective for this particular moment. Another way to look at the
 issue is to look at cost.  And I just want to touch on a few points there. What
 are the factors that affect the cost for Internet access?  And here, I do think
 that in recent years, we are figuring out this issue more and more in detail,
 and we've heard a couple speak about that. The way I look at it is, you look at
 the end-to-end connectivity, look at all the different pieces of it, and see if
 there's a problem with cost at any one.  And I usually would look at first
 whether we've got competition there. So five of them.  They're fairly obvious,
 but it's good to go through the mental drill.  The number and types of ISPs;
 whether there are Internet access points.  And we heard excellent discussion of
 that, beginning with minister Helio Costa, who talked about routing -- the need
 to have routing increasingly closer to the user. We certainly believe, and
 we've seen, that having more Internet Exchange Points within a country or
 region makes the connectivity significantly cheaper.  And I would say that it's
 also good if we are a provider in the market, because it can make it cheaper
 for our customers, it can decrease latency and improve quality.  And it also
 can have the effect of freeing some of this international capacity for truly
 international uses rather than just being a way to get what really can be local
 traffic back and forth. The third point is, in fact, then what is the local
 network access within countries and within regions.  And as Mr. Gagliano
 pointed out, oftentimes that's the greatest cost in terms of the Internet, the
 end-to-end connectivity.  But, again, there I think we're seeing very positive
 trends in terms of intraregional increases. Fourth, the back hall, the
 connectivity to international facilities and to local access to customer sites.
 And then, finally, of course, the international facilities, be they undersea
 cables, which are carrying about 80% of traffic, or satellite, or terrestrial
 between countries.  If we have competition in more and more of these, we will
 see prices fall, see more innovative services with better reliability, see more
 foreign investment in the sector, and all of these things in turn will have
 multiplier effects in terms of economic development. Just two final quick
 points on some interesting models and best practices that have particularly
 caught our attention. There's been a number of discussions about things that
 have been done in India recently.  And I'd just like to add to that picture a
 bit, because that's a country that several years ago was faced with limited
 access, still is, but even more so then, and high prices, which, among other
 things, raise the concerns of the growing I.T. industry, the business
 processing industry that had such promise but could not fulfill it if the costs
 of international connectivity were very high. So there was a series of
 public-policy steps that introduced competition through different parts of the
 sector.  At a certain point, when that wasn't working well enough, chose to
 impose price caps or ceilings on international private lines, increased the
 limit on foreign investment from 49% to 74%.  Then launched the issuance of new
 international long-distance and national long-distance licenses, and took some
 measures to increase competition within the undersea cable landing stations,
 which was very important. During the course of this period, prices have dropped
 significantly.  You do see more players coming into the market.  And something
 that may have been driven in part by the local business stakeholder
 constituency who wanted that will actually benefit the country more broadly and
 other types of users. We heard a similar story about Egypt, very interesting,
 in one of the workshops this morning, the multiple steps that have been taken
 in that country and the progress there. I will finally note that it's been very
 interesting that there are a number of the new undersea cables that have been
 proposed.  There's been a real trend in that direction in north Africa and the
 Middle East, in south Asia, Southeast Asia, there are now, between the U.S. and
 Asia and Southeast Asia, four major new submarine cables proposed, including
 one that Verizon's very involved with directly to China.  Three -- at least
 three under construction in the Caribbean, which will eventually affect this
 area as well. There's -- as I understand, a second one in west Africa.  And we
 all know the very complex and ongoing discussion about east Africa and undersea
 cables that we've heard about. I think this is a further illustration of the
 trend on supply, and, therefore, the need to also focus on the demand that's
 going to fully utilize this new capacity. So, again, thank you for the
 opportunity to talk about this piece of the puzzle.  And I look forward to the
 conversation..

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Jackie, thank you very much, indeed.  This is now your
 turn and we'd like to see a lot more questions coming forward.  Please take
 your opportunity and take one of the pieces of paper and submit your questions.
  This is your chance to ask things of the panelists.  And, indeed, our
 consultants.  I'd like to bring them into the discussion as well during the
 next kind of 45 minutes or so we have left.  I don't know if we can get a
 microphone, perhaps, to the front row here so that our discussants can easily
 start to take part without having to call for one. I'd like to take one
 question from the floor and then take a couple of contributions from the
 consultants.  And the first question I have, if I could stand up -- they could
 stand up, please -- is from Guru from I.T. for Change.  I don't know if it's
 Mister or Miss.  Is Guru from I.T. for Change here? Yes.  Could we get a
 microphone there, please.

 >> GURU:  My question is on this concept of the next billion.  We had speakers
 from either end of the panel talking about it. The WSIS declaration of
 principles, the very first paragraph talks about the inclusive society.  And if
 you're talking of the next billion and the billion after that and the billion
 after that, because we have a particular model in our mind as to how this
 process will happen, we are clearly looking at several years down the line for
 the last billion to get into the whole information society. I come from India,
 with a billion-plus people.  And I am sure most of my fellow countrymen are
 going to be in that last piece.  And I want to ask myself and the panelists
 whether that is something consistent with the vision of inclusive society.
 Before the question, just one small point to make is --

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Briefly.

 >> -- in India, very briefly, in India, we have a scheme called the community
 information center scheme where the government, along with partnership with
 civil society and with private sector is planning to have 100,000 such centers
 throughout 600,000 villages in India within a two or three-year time frame. 
 This is not the typical market-led approach, but a very innovative process of
 strong public drive and initiative to make it happen with support from other
 sections.  Actually, spoke about next billion and the bottom of the pyramid.  I
 was very glad to hear that but not sure how that will happen.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Okay.  So are there better models or different models for
 getting as many people online as possible. Who would like to take that from the
 panel, or I should pick on somebody in that case. In that case, I'm going to
 come down to Raj in the front row who had some experience in working on the
 model in India.  Raj, a little bit about your experience, perhaps.

 >>RAJESH BANSAL:  Okay.  My name is Raj Bansal from Nokia Siemens Networks
 working in India on providing low-cost connectivity for local rural areas. This
 point around the next billion, perhaps not so inclusive.  Billion in my mind is
 a big number. So I would say a step at a time, at least, from my perspective,
 works. I think if we set a target of a billion and we meet that, it's a very
 good starting point. Just to put it in perspective, when we are already looking
 at the next billion, we cover folks who have less than about $2 a month to
 spend as total cost of ownership for the telecommunications service. And then
 if you look at it from a business model perspective, or trying to get to a
 point where it is feasible to make an investment on which some non-zero return
 can be had, that is a very good benchmark, in my mind, for now. So that's, in
 my mind, a starting point. I think it's also safe to say, just from our
 experience in many of the villages where we are installing early systems, that
 it is -- ICT is a big challenge.  When your biggest problem for the day is
 getting food for the table or medicine for a kid, you are not really too
 concerned about having information bed flow to you at that point. So it's in
 this context that we have to look at many of these implementations. More
 comments I welcome on this topic.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK: Thank you very much.  I wonder if I can ask Radhika as
 well.  I know you wanted to contribute on a different point.

 >>RADHIKA LAL:   I wanted to pick up on two points.  One with regard to
 different kinds of models.  It's precisely because people are concerned with
 medicine and food for their kids that technology is important. And I think some
 of the new models that are coming up is also looking at things that Mike talked
 about, which is meshed networks, other forms of noncommercial kinds of
 organization which is complementary to the kinds of private sector provision
 that you talked about. But I wanted to pick up on two other issues.  One, which
 is looking at what you were talking about, the supply side factors.  And we
 have had two -- some of the issues that are coming up is the whole investment
 in back haul. Jacquelynn talked a lot about the investment that is going on,
 but a lot of that isn't going on in Africa, and it's excess capacity that is
 bringing down prices. What do you do when there isn't enough investment in that
 kind of undersea cable, for example?  Maybe Valerie would talk about open
 access and why that's come up as an issue in terms of infrastructure. What I
 wanted to ask Mike, you also emphasized the importance of investment in back
 haul.  Isn't one of the side effects of the success of mobile a lack of
 investment?  And if so, who is going to be doing this investment in back haul? 
 Are there any sort of emerging tendencies on that front? Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Mike and then Valerie, perhaps, briefly.

 >>MIKE JENSEN:   Thanks.  I think perhaps the success of mobile is probably
 more related to the restrictive regulatory environment around fixed access and,
 to some extent, around back haul.  And you can see the mobile operators have
 invested a lot themselves in back haul.  But generally, it's been microwave
 links and not high capacity fiber. So I think there needs to be a kind of
 collaborative effort between government and the private sector to build these
 types of private backbone, back haul infrastructure. And we can see a lot of
 the mobile networks now having developed national backbones which reach up to
 the borders of neighboring countries where they may also have operators. So it
 would be quite a simple matter for them to link up these backbones.  And if
 they can be augmented with additional finance from the development finance
 institutions and local government investment, I think we can see a much quicker
 growth of backbones. The other area, of course, is local authorities. 
 Especially we are seeing this in Europe and North America now, taking a strong
 interest in municipal fiber.  And again, I think if this kind of trend can take
 place in developing countries, these municipal networks can also mesh together
 to create national backbones. Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thanks, Michael.  I have a lot of panelists who want to
 come in on this point.  Valerie first, then Roque, and then Mouhamet, and then
 we will go out to another question.

 >>VALERIE D'COSTA:   Well, I think Radhika raised a lot of interesting
 questions.  The open access point is something that infoDev has studied quite
 deeply, and it's again an approach I think I would commend. Certainly in terms
 of countries that are playing catch-up for the international bandwidth
 connectivity and having that cable land, you then have to face the very
 important question of who owns that cable and the extent to which affordable
 access is given to those who don't own it. So quite simply, that is what the
 open access debate is about. This calls, I think, for a really fresh look by
 regulators and by policymakers and the political establishment in a particular
 country, far more than a technical analysis, because the technical analysis is
 fairly clear of its benefits. When the rubber hits the road, the problem really
 is is the fairly inordinate market power of the incumbent.  And for them who
 say, well, I have invested a lot of money and why should I give a free ride, as
 they claim, to the people who are going to compete with me.  And you don't hear
 that argument only in developing countries.  You hear it everywhere that you
 go. I used to have the incumbent in Singapore which is the country I come from,
 shouting that in my ear because I used to be a regulator in Singapore. This is
 something that I think regulators and policymakers, I think, more importantly
 as well need to sit down and figure out the value of.  But open access models
 certainly are one way to turbo charge the ability for those who don't just
 invest in the cable but who want to have cost effective access to it to get
 that access.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thanks, Valerie.  Roque and then Mouhamet.  And if I
 could ask us to be brief.  I want to get out to more questions on the floor as
 well. So Roque, Mouhamet, then take more questions.

 >>ROQUE GAGLIANO:   I just wanted to mention an experience that is going on in
 central America, even though I am not extremely familiar with it.  It's called
 (saying name) and it's about capacity building and basically it is an
 association which in the public and the private sector, and it's a fiberoptic
 network that goes from Mexico to Colombia, almost. And basically what I realize
 is their connectivity issue is not just fiberoptics but was electricity and
 gas, et cetera.  And they are building their fiber network along their
 electricity power grid.  And they got an agreement with a private company
 that's going to service those fiber -- or illuminate those fiber, how we say. 
 And they are going to connect the landing post of the cable system. And that
 may be an experience that you want to check out how the private and the public
 sector are working together to solve the issue. Also, I want to mention the
 undersea cable systems, they really changed in the last decade, perhaps, after
 the bubble.  And what we have seen now is most of the cable owned by carriers,
 like Global Crossing, Telephonika, et cetera, and those are -- as users still
 using the bandwidth, that's what drives the investment.  Because they need that
 bandwidth because if you don't do it, the country next to you is going to do
 it.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Okay, Roque. Mouhamet.

 >>MOUHAMET DIOP:   Okay.  To go quick to changing language from one to the
 other. I just want to say that everybody agree that the mobile technology will
 be the next -- I mean the device that is going to help connect for the
 Internet, even in Africa. But there was one big dilemma, because the network is
 already there, and the telecom operator, the mobile one, have their return on
 investment without any Internet projection. So their business model is they
 have their return on investment after 18 months or something like that, just on
 the telephony system. But they did not have any clue about the modeling and the
 tariffing they got for Internet questions. I can give an example in my country,
 the network there, but I can tell you the customer are not on the network, that
 is one problem.  Because the tariff that have been defined on the cellular
 phone for Internet access is incredible.  Is not adapted to that environment.
 But the second problem is the content.  People use their device, mobile, to
 connect to somewhere.  But to which site?  No Web site has been developed using
 the mobile format environment. The device are enabled, Internet enabled, I.P.
 enabled, ready for that, but there is no content, no usage available for the
 Internet using the mobile device because the industry have not developed the
 skills to have their Web site adapted to be connected using the mobile device.
 So really need to shift and see how the mobile operator can understand the new
 Internet business and try to develop new tariff using their network that is
 already ready in order to enhance Internet connectivity.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   I would like to take three questions from a row from the
 floor because I think they are a similar theme. So first question from the
 floor, could we have Mr. Souheil Marine from Alcatel, if you could indicate. So
 the first one there, and just to warn you, Mr. Murakami from Nippon and Vint
 Cerf from Google. So those three questions in a row and then we will come back
 to the panelists and discussants. Mr. Marine.

 >>SOUHEIL MARINE:   Thank you.  I want to ask the panel about, we have many
 recipes, we have many good ideas that emerged from this panel and the workshops
 of yesterday about how to improve access.  But there is one missing link, I
 believe.  It is about this recipe could work only if we have strong actors. 
 Thus, competition means anything between weak actors, and I mean economically
 viable actors.  So I would like to have the panel's view on this point.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Can competition work with weak actors. Mr. Murakami, here
 in the middle.

 >>TERAYASU MURAKAMI:   My question relate to the access and development issue.
 I have a question on how countries like India and South Africa place the
 priority to the access capacity building to the Internet among various policy
 target. In last 15 to 20 years in Asia, we have seen a dramatic change of
 economic development pattern among the countries. In 1980s and to the middle of
 1990s, it was a generally-accepted notion that country with rather small
 population, such as newly industrialized economies, such as Singapore and Hong
 Kong, could enjoy very high economic growth rate.  Whereas Asian countries like
 Indonesia and Thailand and countries like China and India had a difficulty to
 materialize high economic growth rate at that time. But around the turn of the
 century, this flying geese type development completely changed.  Countries like
 China and India which hold tremendous population and national land started to
 show very high growth rate around the 8 to 10% per annum. And I believe that
 the penetration of the digital information network and the Internet played a
 critically important role for those large population countries started to grow
 at high economic growth rate. And yesterday, we heard that Indian government
 accelerate this process by developing several hundred thousand community
 Internet kiosks or centers. So I would like to ask the panelist from India and
 South Africa whether those countries place the highest policy priority to the
 access capacity development to the Internet among various competing national
 development policy targets, such as industrial development or port or highway
 development,  health and education development,  and others,  or ICT policy for
 capacity-building in those developing countries has just the same priority as others.
 
 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you very much.  This is all about access and
 development, and Vint Cerf had, on the same theme here, Vint Cerf from Google
 at the front.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you. I'll keep my question short. First one has to do with
 markets that are too small to sustain competition, what should we do, what is
 the right policy for that case. And the second one has to do with the
 possibility of regional cooperation in order to reduce aggregate cost for
 capacity. I think we already heard several suggestions along those lines, so
 perhaps we don't have to go into more answers there. Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Okay.  So who would like to take this issue of can
 competition work in weak and developing markets, is it going to be the best
 model. Yes, Sylvia.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:   Well, I would like to say that in regards of competition and
 ways to maintain markets that are not big enough to keep the competition going
 that we are shifting to new paradigms and new ways of ownership of
 infrastructure that are more engaged with the way that communities worked and
 more engaged with their traditional ways of sustain themselves for ages. So I
 think that technology right now are kind of starting to reflect the way that
 people sustain their lives and their livelihoods for a long time. And I think
 that has to be nurtured and encouraged by regulatory frameworks that are
 integrated.  And sometimes it's not the question of if the regulator opens the
 spectrum, that, at least in Latin America, is free everywhere, almost
 everywhere, but it is like all the processes and the practices that are related
 to that "free" thing are not free. And those are the things that are stopping
 this, that work is to be developed. So sometimes it's a matter of a regulation
 about electricity that is the one that is not enabling the wireless networks --
 or the community networks to be deployed.  Or, for example, it's customs that
 offers extremely expensive taxes to import new equipment that consumes low
 power and are recently designed and works better under extremely high
 temperatures or dust or things like that. So that was my comment on (inaudible)
 charges, about how this brand-new equipment that performs better, that behaves
 better, have to be imported by the community and they have to pay the
 (inaudible) charges and things like that. I think that now that we are shifting
 ownership, we also have to shift the way the regulations are built and the
 practices involved in that regulations are built.  So they are coherent, and
 there is nothing like really free things when you have to go through all these
 processes in the middle.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you. Can I just ask if Maui Sanford from the
 Pacific Islands has a point on the weak markets.

 >>MAUI SANFORD:   Hello, do you hear me?  I will do it in English.  Could do it
 in French later. Thank you. Yeah, the one person out of 1,000 lives in the
 Pacific.  So that's around 6 billion something.  More than five and a half
 million people lives only Papua New Guinea.  All the rest are scattered among
 21 other countries, so this gives you the scale.  And around 65% of the
 population lives in remote rural area. Therefore, the cost issues of
 infrastructure is really high. For national communications, which equals to
 almost international, distances can be 3,000 kilometer from one island to
 another.  And of course when we talk about the Internet we need to be in an
 open world and be connected to the World Wide Web.  That means another added
 cost, and usually it's on satellite. But coming back to this issue on
 competition, we will talk more later on infrastructure, we are experiencing
 very funny situations.  Some of them are successful.  Some other might ruin
 some of the countries.  Especially when we talk about long-term viability. I
 totally agree with this situation within the Latin America.  Some initiatives
 are going about the traditional public service obligation that people have. 
 It's their own thing, so let's do it ourselves, the most clever way we can. And
 in some of the ways, the people say, okay, especially in some developing
 countries in the Pacific, okay, we are eligible to funding so we will have
 funding.  But country per country, there is no coherent approach, and in some
 of them the open competition, or sometimes forced by some funding agencies, I
 won't say them, to open competition.  Even if the country is really small and
 with risk of nonviable of the time. So really there is not a perfect model. We
 need to learn more.  But if I could say one thing here. Internet is a world
 phenomena that will not finish, we'll meet again in the next few years.  Really
 it is to the international community would really need to have a coherent
 approach to those small countries by not replicating only those big,
 theoretical models that can apply in bigger countries to the small economies.
 It can even ruin them on the long term. So I hope I gave some ideas on that.
 Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you.  Now we have three questions here about
 broadband, and I think perhaps I will get those, and then I might come to Mr.
 Gunnar who I know has been trying to get in. You would like to come in first
 now?

 >>HÖKMARK GUNNAR:   It's up to you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Let me take three questions and then we will come back to
 Mr. Gunnar who has some experience of broadband in Europe which might be
 relevant. Firstly, Dr. Shongwe from South Africa.  At the back there, yes.

 >> DR. SHONGWE:  Testing, testing.  Hi.  Can you hear me?  Yes, thanks. I had a
 comment is all, but I think it's already been talked to.  Just two short
 questions.  A very simple question.  What is it that we are trying to get out
 of broadband?  Is it volume, or is it speed?  I think part of the challenge is
 we do get faced with in developing countries is that we have a plethora of
 different types of connectivity, cables and so forth, arriving at houses and
 institutions. The challenge there is that these are technologies that, to a
 large extent, develop at different phases and at different rates.  And these
 pose a maintenance -- all sorts of technology challenges. On the other hand, we
 hear a lot of service providers selling the concept of speed when we talk about
 broadband. The second point on shared infrastructure was also touched on very
 briefly, and my short question is what is the incentive for players to share
 infrastructure?  And are there any models that have shown this has worked? 
 Especially cross-border sharing.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you, Dr. SHONGWE. Now, second question, Ms.
 Clara-Luz Alvarez in the center. Can we get a microphone? And then there's also
 the next follow-up question will be somebody from Uruguay who hasn't left their
 name but wants to ask a question about ISPs in Spanish.

 >>CLARA-LUZ ALVAREZ:  Gracias.  Thank you.  My question is we have said a lot
 about broadband, and I believe that is highly positive and satisfactory. But my
 question to the panel is, to what extent the real problem lies in the
 availability of broadband or in the distribution of broadband.  To what extent.
  The fact that there is a lot of broadband, that means real access to the
 population or if, in truth, this is limited to those who can pay the service.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Okay.  Thank you.  There was a question from Uruguay who
 didn't put their name on the paper.

 >> The question regards -- is addressed to the whole panel -- what is your view
 of suppliers and operators such as Verizon, because many times, the
 technological update and improvement in database and speed not always reflects
 in the larger number of users or better distribution of access in rural areas
 or in the hinterland. But they concentrate services in cities, and they provide
 better-quality services to cities, where they have better buying power.  And
 many times, these providers make more money, is more profitable, the area and
 the social responsibility is set aside.  So that is what we see regarding rural
 access, it's set aside due to profitability of the business. Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   (inaudible).

 >>JACQUELYNN RUFF:   Yes.  Thank you for the opportunity to comment on that. In
 the U.S., Verizon is a national provider.  We provide residential services of
 all sort, broadband.  We're building fiber to the home and so on.  And there,
 we are very engaged in providing services throughout to rural areas, as well as
 urban areas. In the rest of the world, we have -- we play the roles that I
 mentioned at the beginning, which is, in the case of our particular company, we
 are a global backbone provider.  And then we offer -- we're an Internet service
 provider in some locations.  And we also offer as a business model services to
 large enterprise customers.  We're not in the position at this time to be doing
 sort of rural connectivity to residential customers, which I think is what
 you're trying to get at. Nonetheless, you've raised a very important point more
 generally.  So first I just needed to explain where we are and what our
 particular role is. But I think you've raised an important question more
 generally, so I'll circle back to the kinds of things that we look at in the
 U.S. and that we've heard here for making sure that accessibility is truly
 nationwide, whatever that nation is.  And I think that's about having a good
 universal service or universal access program and making sure that that is
 updated in whatever way is appropriate to the needs of the country.  In the
 U.S. again, we focused several years ago on making sure that schools and
 libraries had Internet connectivity.  And we've heard that model being used
 here. Second, in some areas that are underserved, I do believe -- and, again,
 we're seeing this in the U.S -- that you will have more of a public-private
 partnership that will be necessary in order to respond to those needs.  In
 fact, in some of the places, again, that are underserved in the U.S., we have a
 very interesting program of putting together the different providers, trying to
 really identify exactly where the needs are in great detail so that you can say
 to one of many providers, "Here's the community that you can go serve," and you
 don't need to sort of think about the rest, because it's already served.  You
 know, that sort of detailed information and mapping.  It's called mapping, of
 where there is the need. So I think there are -- those are just some of the
 ideas and models that come to mind for dealing with exactly that issue that you
 described. So I think when you said "Verizon," you were thinking more than what
 we may be doing in a particular non-U.S. country.  That's why I wanted to share
 the broader ideas.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you, Jackie.  I'd like to come to Hökmark Gunnar
 from the European parliament.

 >>HÖKMARK GUNNAR:   Thank you very much, my name is Hökmark Gunnar from the
 European parliament, coming from Sweden.  To those of you who complain about
 the rain here, I can tell you it's snowing in Stockholm right now. My
 reflection is about how we define the problems and the challenges of access, as
 we have been talking about numbers quite much. I think if we had been here ten
 years ago, we would have thought it was quite far away that it would be one
 billion today.  And I think it's fair to say that the development will go on
 very rapidly.  We can see that, not the least, if we look upon the development
 on mobile phones, which is, of obvious reasons, very closely connected to this
 development. And, of course, we need to go further ahead.  But sometimes we are
 also confronting with the problems of poor and developed countries that are of
 a more general kind. But I'm thinking about another problem of access.  And
 that is that we probably will be surprised by the change regarding new services
 and content that will require much broader and broader broadband than we are
 seeing today. And then we can have a new -- another form of divide that is not
 the quantitative, but that we will have in some regions extremely good,
 high-quality broadband, with services and a supply of services that you can't
 achieve in other places. So my reflection is about how much should we look upon
 the numbers, on the quantity, and how much upon the quality.  But also, what is
 the conclusion from that? If my point of view, it underlines the importance of
 competition and neutrality between different operators supplying and providing
 different services.  And that will be interesting to hear from the panel
 comments upon that.  Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you, Gunnar.  If we could hear from Sam first and
 I'll come back to the panel before more questions.

 >>SAM PALTRIDGE:   Thank you, Richard. I'm a communications analyst, and being
 a communications analyst used to be quite a predictable job.  You knew which
 countries would tend to do better in the types of benchmarking that we were
 talking about.  Today it's much less predictable.  People are trying new
 things, they've liberalized the market.  The example of Jamaica.  At the turn
 of the century, they had less than five telephones per hundreds of inhabitants,
 now they have a telephone penetration rate which is in excess of many OECD
 countries, and they do so with a very low GDP per capita.  It's because they
 have let private capital develop that market. So when it comes to Valerie's
 choice about water or communications, I would say governments will always have
 scarce resources.  Let the private sector develop the communications market,
 and then, for Anita's point, let government come in with complementary
 policies, capacity-building, getting village kiosks, and so forth.  I think
 that's the way to do it. On the broadband point -- and I really want to give
 Roque and Mouhamet a chance to talk about IXPs, because Roque's point was very
 telling.  You know, even in Latin America, YouTube content is some of the most
 popular content.  It's creating huge traffic.  A lot of that traffic needs to
 be exchanged locally.  So I'd like Roque and Mouhamet to comment on how we can
 get IXPs to those, about half the world's countries that don't have Internet
 Exchange Points at the moment.  And perhaps Mike would like to come in on the
 Internet -- international connectivity with undersea cables and how we can get
 undersea cables to underserved regions like the coast of Africa that doesn't
 have that connectivity. Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you.  Thanks.  We have about ten minutes left. So,
 briefly, if we could.  And then we can get some more questions.  Roque, and
 then Mouhamet.

 >>ROQUE GAGLIANO:   Thank you.  Sometimes you get people from countries where
 there are no IXP and they're trying to set up a new one.  For example, we had
 the example of somebody from Bolivia, even Haiti, trying to set up a new IXP.
 And the reason why they are trying to do it is because not only are there small
 ISPs trying to battle the incumbent PTT policies. The main problem they face,
 first of all, is that many times they try to get the PTT on board, and that
 probably won't happen.  So you have to get momentum without the PTT inside. 
 And that's also what happened here in Brazil when EMBRATEL would not connect to
 their exchange point. The second condition sometimes they face is the lack of a
 good neutral data center to set up the IXP. Basically, there's no data center
 infrastructure where to put your equipment.  And, for example, an interesting
 case has been in Nicaragua, where they set up the IXP actually in a trailer
 next to a non-neutral IX.  So in order to get to the trailer, you can get to
 any kind of access you want. So find an IX with good neutral infrastructure is
 very important. I think not something was mentioned here that's not really
 clear, is that we do a lot of training on the technician side about PGP and
 peering, but not to the commercial people to understand the value of peering. 
 That's totally different for their telephony agreement in Swiss Franc, whatever
 they do in Geneva is totally different.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you, Roque. Mouhamet, and then I think Anita wanted
 to comment as well.

 >>MOUHAMET DIOP:   Okay. I would rather speak French to make my remarks. I
 answer the question by our friend from South Africa who was asking about the
 interest in developing what we call -- which incentive you have to develop
 connectivity in terms of traffic.  And to give you a correct response on the IX
 points, I would like to give you an example of many countries dominating
 telecom operator says we do not need exchange points, Internet Exchange Points,
 because they are the exchange point.  And in many countries, they say that
 there's no need for the Internet Exchange Points.  But in terms of traffic,
 what happens?  It was pointed out that we do not have content because simply to
 place content, I cannot do it myself with the structure that works on content. 
 I can have a connection that's 100 megabytes which I send to the telecom
 company.  The routing is very, very expensive.  Tariffs are very high.  And the
 connection between routing and peering to create content, the same analogy can
 be made with transportation.  If I want to send goods from Senegal to another
 African country, if I want to do it safe, I would take, what, air France or
 another company.  So I will pay not within the spirit of economic space; I will
 pay for a carrier to come and pick up my merchandise from Dakar and take it
 elsewhere.  This is easier for me than to have an operator in the African space
 between Senegal and the other country.  The consequence is that in order to
 have an economic transaction between two countries, I will pay a foreign
 company outside my economic space to send my merchandise.  We have the same
 situation with Internet traffic.  Let me give you an idea about the interests
 of the exchange points for the local economy to develop content and the
 operators not to pay connectivity to an operator to have the data -- the
 information placed in the data center.  And content is encouraged.  Mobile
 phone operators say they do -- they cannot pay an IXP because they only pay for
 the telephone call. So the exchange is not a technical problem; it's an
 economic problem for the Internet Exchange Points.  If we have to make a
 decision, it's what is the economic model that the IXPs bring to the developing
 countries in thinking about the logic of development of traffic between
 countries.  Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   (No audio). (No audio).

 >>ANITA GURUMURTHY:   The questions that have been raised. I think in all
 forums that discuss ICTs, there is a fundamental problem, which is that ICTs
 mean different things to different people. And, therefore, in the discussions
 around access, it's really important to separate the whole notion of basic
 access from the fact that there are -- you know, there are bound to be and it's
 desirable that there be a multiplicity of commercial models.  What we're
 talking about here is the question also of basic access of, you know -- of a
 basic guarantee. And here, I think, it's important to remember that if, indeed,
 development is freedom, then we can't really be thinking about information bits
 not making a difference to people.  I think information bits do make a
 difference to people.  The question is, what kind of information.  And that was
 what, I think, Radhika tried to point out in making the linkages between, let's
 say, basic drugs and livelihoods and right information at the right time for
 the people to whom the information matters. I think it's also important that we
 debunk the myths about how we conceive of technological artifacts when we are
 talking about basic access, the myth here being that we often carry in our
 heads the vision or the imagination of people carrying gizmos, of individuals
 sitting at computers, of entrepreneurs in public access points, when we imagine
 access.  But basic access is much more than this.  Basic access is also not
 just about telephony.  Basic access is about, let's say, public databases, you
 know, which is controlled by communities, you know, communities that are
 interested in monitoring their local governments, you know.  So we really have
 to have a kind of imagination to move beyond, you know, individual users to
 thinking about new frameworks where people can be citizens. In respect of
 telephony, I would like to say -- respond to the question about broaden
 particularly.  In India, we now have bandwidth capacity of 16 terabit, of which
 only 0.2 terabits have been used, which actually pushes us back to, you know,
 predictable debates around business models and competition.  Whereas, if you
 really looked at basic access as a public goods model and all public goods,
 obviously, have commercial models.  You just don't have public hospitals.  You
 also have hospital hospitals from the private sector. So I think it's important
 to innovate in terms of this entire ecosystem that can then be, you know, a
 basic guarantee, not just for the next one billion, but for people who aspire
 to, you know, participate in the information society. Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you, Anita.  So we're entering the last few
 minutes.  I want to get some more questions. So let's group some together
 around costs.  And if you could keep them brief, we can get more in. Firstly,
 Ms. Olga Cavalli from the foreign affairs ministry in Argentina. Ms. Cavalli? 
 Thank you. And then I'm going to come to Dr. Linda Misek-Falkoff and Miguel
 Alcaine.

 >>OLGA CAVALLI:   My name is Olga Cavalli from Argentina and I will do my
 question in Spanish. My question regards -- is a question to Gagliano and to
 the whole panel, actually. I agree with all in the sense that the most
 expensive part of access is the backbone, the national backbone.  In a city far
 from Buenos Aires, I know it is very expensive to buy national access for data
 and to create an ISP. How do you think we could solve this problem in the
 context of privatized companies where profitability is very important for the
 sustainability of these companies in the future and when we have a
 concentration of markets in large centers and the capital cities of countries
 and not in the far-away, rural areas? (No audio).

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   No?

 >> It's a question by e-mail.  So, Richard, if you could just read the paper
 you have in front of you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   So she's simply asking can the costs of the Internet --
 how can the costs of the Internet be reduced. And then a final question, Miguel
 Alcaine. Yeah.

 >> MIGUEL ALCAINE:  Thank you.  My question has to do with the next billion
 users we want for the Internet.  This next billion will be poorer than the
 present billion using the Internet.  So this is a challenge for private
 companies to create markets which will adapt to the needs of this new billion.
 I would like to hear comments from the panel members to this regard.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Okay.  Perhaps you can start with Raj on that one and
 then we'll go out to the rest of the panel, which I think will be the last few
 questions.

 >> RAJESH BANSAL:  (No audio) ...how do we have viable business models and
 situations where, for example, the cost of a backbone (inaudible), the people
 have lower propensity to pay, and so on. So, fundamentally, I think we get back
 to the question that we need new and disruptive business models to essentially
 play in this space. And I think one topic which has not been touched at all by
 this panel, which perhaps is -- there's room for thinking about, and I would
 like comments from the rest of the panelists, is, I think we all have
 significantly underestimated the intellectual propensity of the next billion.
 We sit here oftentimes and think we'll solve the problems.  What we found when
 we went into remote, rural India, we went with what we thought was a very
 innovative solution of Internet structure at $100. A villager with no,
 absolutely no, formal education, came back with a solution under $50, which we
 are now using in other environments. So I think those are the kinds of things
 that we also need to bring to the fore in this whole context of innovation and
 new business models.  And I want the panel perhaps to reflect on their
 experiences, how they see new business models emerging in this space.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you, Raj.  We're very tight on time.

 >>RADHIKA LAL:   One of the points that's been coming out, much like the early
 history of the Internet, in spite of the very dynamic role of the private
 sector, it's been local communities, it's been the public sector which
 underpins a lot of its development, and in terms of connecting the next
 billion, we've heard from panelists about a whole range of public-private
 approaches, the role of local communities, public investment. So I wanted to
 just pick up on the demand side, which is something that Sam had brought up in
 the beginning, that we don't just look at all the sort of blockages on the
 supply side, but bringing the consumer, the citizen, back in.  And I think
 that's something that Anita's been talking about. So in that context, I just
 wanted to say, what is the role of the state in terms of looking at that side? 
 I mean, we've had countries like Estonia, where access to the Internet as a
 right has meant very high rates of penetration, dynamic business growth.  So
 those things don't have to be antithetical.  It's possible to have a very
 strong empowerment and rights-based framework and yet create the conditions for
 strong private sector development. The minister from Brazil talked about the
 steps that his government has been taking in terms of reducing costs right
 through the whole system right down to the production of cheap PCs. So is that
 something that's also led to more dynamic investment? So I'm just trying to say
 that different aspects where the public and private could be complementary and
 one could get a sort of rights-based plus dynamic growth. Thank you.

 >> My comment is about how the (inaudible) are assigned and how frequencies are
 assigned. Normally, they are based on a formal solicitation process that is
 based on covering the business of big cities.  And they live out in the rural
 communities from the solicitation process and the licensing scheme their
 company signed.  So I think that's, for startups, that's the thing that should
 be changed, is that solicitation processes and regulations should not look at
 the rural areas as the exception to the norm, but as the base from where the
 norm is built up. And there is this -- the solicitation processes and the
 licenses are assigned without mechanisms, clear mechanisms, that the regulator
 or the government or whatever, whomever is in charge of, can reinforce those
 companies to actually provide services in the rural areas.  So it's like they
 assign a complete band to do -- or a service, a (inaudible), for example, to a
 particular company, and never in the contract it says that they have to cover
 rural area. So it's like there is no legal mechanism to force -- to reinforce
 them to do business where no business will be done. So I think that's the --
 one thing that should be looked at with a big glass, a big lens, to bring more
 sense, more logic to that concept and allow the companies to have their
 licensing schemes and their -- one solicitation processes, but then they'll
 have to change the processes afterwards and ask the companies to do things that
 were not supposed to because they didn't sign that on their agreements.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you.  We're almost out of -- we are out of time,
 really.  But two very brief final comments, firstly from Roque and then from
 Jackie.  And then we'll be through.

 >>ROQUE GAGLIANO:   Hi.  Talking about the role of the government, something I
 want to mention is, we know that there's clear missions for the government when
 we talk about school, education, connecting hospitals, connecting police
 stations.  But don't forget, on the government itself is one of the biggest
 customers.  And through being a customer, it can also do policy not regulating
 the market, but also imposing conditions to buy. There are some countries that
 have a very good experience of government being customers of the IXPs, custom
 forms, et cetera, everything going through the IXP. So if you're a government,
 perhaps you want to check, who are you buying your bandwidth from, what kind of
 condition you have, and why are no -- if you cannot -- if you can or cannot run
 BGP and actually impose some routing policies.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you, Roque.  Valerie very briefly and then we'll
 finish with Jackie.

 >>VALERIE D'COSTA:   I'll only take a few seconds to say that a question was
 raised about the value of broadband.  I think (saying name) raised it to say is
 it really just for the rich.  And I think the value of broadband, you have to
 ask yourself the value to who.  We began this debate by saying we're
 contextualizing the access to those who are currently unserved or underserved. 
 And of course there are different needs.  And as somebody mentioned, a
 multiplicity of models.  I think Anita said this.  So there's a very different
 paradigm that sets in when we're thinking about the unserved maybe at the
 bottom of the pyramid or however you want to talk about it. I also want to say
 that when we think about business models that serve that community, you take
 the prism and you shift it a little bit, the light will hit differently.  And
 there what I hoped I had mentioned in my intervention was that many of the
 community-based initiatives that we see out there would be interesting places
 to begin.  When you just think of the normal cast of characters you engage when
 discussing business models, as an incumbent, a couple of very irritated
 operators who don't get access, a regulator, and a beleaguered government, we
 can look at a much wider cast of characters which have grass-roots innovators
 in their midst, and you would be surprised what you hear.  Thank you.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you.  And then the final comment from Jackie before
 we wrap up.

 >>JACQUELYNN RUFF:   Just a couple of brief comments, taking into account both
 the business model and the Argentina point that was raised. I appreciate the
 fact that you talked about the local back haul, because certainly Verizon, we
 have a public I.P. presence in probably about 50 countries.  And that's
 something that we notice very much as the local cost. And I would say that the
 first thing to look at -- and, of course, you know this better than I for your
 own country -- is, are there regulatory barriers, certainly, as Ms. Cadena
 said, particularly for new technologies, for wireless to be able to come in and
 be the alternative competitor there, are there any kinds of regulatory
 barriers? Second, are there other new technologies beyond the wireless ones we
 know of now that could be -- provide the service and be disruptive. Third, the
 universal service access fund that we talked about earlier. Ultimately, it also
 may be that you have just got a situation where there's a market failure for
 some reason, and there needs to be a regulatory intervention.  So in Europe,
 for example, there were previously very high prices for leased lines or that
 kind of back haul.  The combination of introducing competition and also where
 that wasn't producing the full results, looking at some price caps which also
 was done in the U.S. at some point before there was full competition, and then
 phasing those out over time.  And the prices in Europe dropped incredibly when
 that was done, as I'm sure everyone knows. My final point is, responding to
 what Ms. D'Costa just said, I think for the IGF next year, one of the things to
 really focus on is the innovative and socially valuable uses of broadband,
 whether it's telemedicine, education, those kinds of things, environmental
 conservation would be a very interesting best practices forum.

 >>RICHARD SAMBROOK:   Thank you, Jackie. So now I am going to hand over to
 Markus, our secretary, to summarize what's come out of what's been a very, very
 interesting discussion before closing comments from our chairman, the Minister.

 >> MARKUS KUMMER:   Thank you, Richard.  I think I will not be as ambitious as
 that to summarize the discussion.  I think we had an extremely far-reaching and
 wide-ranging discussion that will need some more time to summarize. It's more a
 kind of Secretariat initial reading of this discussion. The discussion
 confirmed what we saw in the preparatory process that access was clearly
 identified as the single most important issue to all in the IGF process. And it
 strikes me that we now talk about the next billion, and it strikes me that this
 is a very optimistic approach, and I think that this is also a very positive
 approach. I do recall that two years ago we had preparatory meeting, WSIS
 preparatory meeting in Rio de Janeiro and June, and my friend Juan Fernandez
 sitting in this room said when we were celebrating the first billion, he said
 don't forget, there are five more billions out there who don't have access, and
 I think we listened to this remark, and we are actually looking at the next
 billion.  And we are reminded by several speakers that a few years ago, talk
 about the first billion would have been seen as exceedingly optimistic and now
 we are talking about the second billion. We were also told that since Athens,
 much progress was made in terms of connectivity, just by market forces as they
 happened. The discussion also showed that there's no one-size-fits-all model. 
 I think it was said that there is no perfect model as such, but I think there
 was a general agreement that an enabling environment needs to be put in place
 that includes a solid regulatory framework, the rule of law, and you mentioned
 the integrated regulatory framework that includes also electricity, taxation,
 tariffs.  This is something you never talk about, actually, the role of tariffs
 when importing hardware, for instance. I'm trying to find my notes here. There
 was also a notion that market forces alone may not be sufficient, especially
 for creating access in rural areas. There was much talk about the need for
 innovative models for public/private partnerships, but also for a policy to be
 put in place, universal access policy programs, that force market operators to
 think about these remote areas. I think I saw a strong message that much
 remains to be done on the supply side.  And the need for regulatory reform and
 for competition, innovations, and investment was underlined by many speakers.
 The appropriate policy framework clearly needs to be designed for specific
 situations, for specific countries, and they cannot be simply transferred from
 one country to another. There were many more technical details were emphasized.
  The particular issue of backbone networks was mentioned by many speakers, and
 this will remain an important issue. Some speakers suggested that opening up
 the market further was the appropriate way forward, while others focused on the
 need for public sector initiatives and the importance of open access networks.
 It was observed that access is also much broader than connectivity.  The link
 needs to be made between access and development.  And this was, I think, an
 important remark that we are not talking just about technology alone.  We talk
 about technology in the service of development. There was some discussions on
 the size of the market.  If this country, the market, is too small to allow for
 competition.  But it was also mentioned that regional cooperation can then
 offer the way out in terms of creating bigger markets.  And in this context,
 the experience of regional IXPs appears to be a good example of the ways in
 which collaboration can help all users and reduce cost. A general read of this
 session is the importance of collaboration between governments, private sector,
 but also civil society, in the use of telecenters, for instance.  Provide open
 access networks to stimulate demand, to help people in remote areas.  And I
 think these partnerships are very much in the spirit of the IGF on
 multistakeholder cooperation. I think access will remain on the agenda of the
 IGF for many years to come.  It clearly is an important issue.  And I think the
 discussion we had today went deeper than what we had in Athens when we started
 our discussion before. Before handing back to the chairman for his concluding
 remarks, I would like to remind you there will be another reporting back
 session at 3:00.  The organizers of the workshops or the events this morning
 are invited to report back, or some of them -- or some of the events that were
 held yesterday and did not have the opportunity to report back, they can do so
 at 3:00. But at least announce yourself at the beginning of the session to the
 Secretariat so we have a clearer idea of how many speakers we are going to
 have. Now, Mr. Chairman, over to you to conclude the session. Thank you.

 >>HELIO COSTA:   Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I only have very few
 remarks.  First of all, as we expected, we had no controversy on the issue of
 access.  And for the benefit of the Brazilian press, I would like to mention
 that I mentioned international telecommunications union, a report on
 Johannesburg making savings of $2.5 million in the year 2005 on building their
 own network access points. Although we have been doing more of the same thing
 in Brazil, I mentioned the experience of Johannesburg because it was in the
 report of the International Telecommunication Union. I also was very impressed
 with some remarks that I took my notes in English, that's why I am speaking in
 English, so I have to follow them the way I put them down. Number one, Mr.
 Mouhamet mentioned in the regional focus, which is absolutely important, and he
 mentioned that without it, we will be led to nowhere, and it's true.  We
 believe that the regional focus is absolutely important. He also said that
 financing is the heart of the problem that we are discussing here, at this
 particular moment. It is.  It is the heart of the problem. We all agree with
 that. Also, it was mentioned the routine costs which I especially took notice
 on my remarks, my opening remarks. I also would like to mention Ms. Anita
 saying that the states have a fundamental role in providing access to the
 Internet.  And in Brazil, we are doing exactly that.  We just had a couple of
 meetings in which the president of Brazil, President Lula, is participating
 actively because in the next three years, as I said before, we are going to
 have every single city in Brazil connected by broadband. And we hope to do that
 before Mr. Lula's term is off. I noticed also Ms. Radhika Lal from the United
 Nations Development Program mentioning the Brazilian problem that we call PC
 connected PC. It is important to notice that the moment the Brazilian
 government decided to finance low-cost computers, we actually ran out of
 computers to sell in Brazil.  We sold 1.5 million computers financed by Banco
 de Brazil or by the developing bank with a very low rate, which every single
 student in this country, even in the low echelon, even those of very low income
 would be able to access a computer.  And without the computer, there was no
 digital inclusion. I would like to notice also that the unbalancing between
 international interconnection costs is a concern of this meeting.  And we all
 know that this is going to have to be dealt in the future in such a way that
 will make it easier for people to use Internet anywhere in the world,
 especially in the poor countries. Another thing that I noticed was that
 Internet has no owner.  And this is good, it belongs to the people of the
 world.  So nobody is about to say I own it or I will do this or that. The
 governments must work to correct the distortions imposed by the market, which I
 hope that we are doing the right thing in Brazil, and other countries can do
 besides the same thing. And the debate on access cannot focus only on
 infrastructure.  There are so many other subjects that should be included and
 will be included.  I'm quite sure that in this meeting and the next meetings,
 we will do precisely that. And finally, Mr. Sambrook, Mr. Secretary, and other
 members, on behalf of my country and the government of President Lula, I would
 like to thank you all the opportunity for giving Brazil the chance to see all
 of you here, meeting and talking about this important issue as Internet and all
 the beautiful things that come with it. Thank you very much. [ Applause ]