Re: (Fwd) Re: [ga] GA/DNSO Funding Issues

["L Gallegos" <jandl@jandl.com>]

On 26 Aug 2001, at 16:09, William S. Lovell wrote:

> 
> 
> L Gallegos wrote:
> 
> > On 26 Aug 2001, at 11:23, Nilda Vany Martinez Grajales wrote:
> >
> > IMO, it would be just wonderful if governments and other
> > organizations could and would provide better infrastructure to users
> > and other stakeholders so that literally anyone who is interested
> > could participate in webcast meetings.  However, I would not go as
> > far as to expect that ICANN is the means for this provision.
> 
> There may be a "model" for that sort of thing.  I'm on a service
> called OregonVOS.net, which is run by the State of Oregon
> (through a third party vendor), and it was put together not for
> reasons of people lacking funds but rather because Oregon is
> a big, wild and wooly state, and it has isolated communities that are
> lucky even to have a phone line, let alone an ISP.  When "this
> Internet thing" started looking serious, the state put together both a
> central server and a system whereby there are local dial-in numbers
> throughout Oregon at practically every wide spot in the road. (I
> myself signed on with them because of those local dial-in numbers --
> I'd been popping out of the Portland area to both Newport and Lincoln
> City, and using the local dial-in numbers in all three places --
> seamless internet access, so to speak!)
> 
> Anyway, if simple "access" is the issue, and in many other places in
> the world it certainly is, that is one way to do it.  (How it was done
> in terms of hardware, etc., I have no idea.)
> 
> (Relative to the single paragraph of Leah's that I retained above, I
> speak now not of webcasts as such but indeed any access at all, which
> might be the biggest problem of them all.  This is a "digital divide"
> kind of thing, methinks.)
> 
> Bill Lovell
> --

Yes, there is definitely a digital divide, but solving that is not part of 
the function of ICANN, IMO.  I think that we must concentrate on 
making it possible for those who ARE connected to participate in 
ICANN's decisions process.  The point is that ICANN's 
stakeholders are those who are on the net in whatever capacity.  
Those who are not yet on the net are future or possible future 
stakeholders.  ICANN's stakeholders do not have the means to 
participate, even with the webcasting, because they are denied a 
voice that has any meaning.  IOW, ignored or paid meaningless lip 
service.

Let's deal with what "is" and not what "might be."

Leah



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