Jason Brown

IT or “Information Technology” is very rarely about information, much more frequently about technology.
Proof our information-age knowledge-economy ain’t all about IT.
Exhibit (a) website for PICISOC, the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society.
According to their homepage, global internet pioneer Vinton Cerf is inviting IT people to Rarotonga for the annual PacINET convention, running from 1 to 5 September, 2008.
Yes, 2008.
Unless PICISOC has suddenly mastered time travel, the fact that the ‘news’ is six months old should make supporters and developers of IT-based approaches like SPIN, the South Pacific Information Network, afraid. Very afraid.
PICISOC is on record as a strong supporter of SPIN.
Exhibit (b) is SPIN itself.
A damning report from last September exposed the fact that SPIN was overpriced and under detailed.
“SPIN doctors fail to impress Cooks,” reads an update from Pacific Magazine, a former news magazine that, yes, went defunct last year from lack of advertising and sale support, even in Hawai‘i.
Luckily a copy of the story survives on the new site of the Pacific Islands News Association, itself only recently back online after many years of absence.
Officials in the Cook Islands grew alarmed when sign-up costs doubled from 5% to 10% of US$1.5 million in annual fees for a 155- megabyte per second download speeds per country.
Sounds like a lot, theoretically meaning that an eight-gigabyte movie could download in roughly a minute.
If there were only one person online. In the entire country.
Add the fact that US$3 million is needed for a dedicated station. Oh, and other costs would require an initial investment of US$37.5 million.
Roughly. They’re not really sure. Oh, yes, we haven’t asked French Polynesia yet if we can hook up to their connection.
And so on.
Jaw dropping stuff.
“On this point also, it appears that the total costs of the cable are not fully disclosed particularly that of the interconnection with other cables, which really is the whole purpose of the cable,” said Mac Mokoroa, an ex-cop with an eye for detail, now chief of staff at the office of the prime minister.  
But problems go deeper.
Exhibit (c) is the sheer lack of news surrounding SPIN.
Despite involving all sorts of juicy facts and figures of the kind journalists like juggling about, SPIN registers just six news stories since being announced in September 2007.
That would be 18 months, about a year and a half, or roughly one story every three months, on average, on a mainstream media aggregator like Google News.
Except there is no average, because four of those six stories come from three days in 2007, two other stories from two days in 2008.
Five days is not a lot of coverage for a project worth millions.
We don’t know how many millions for sure because the SPC website doesn’t list estimated costs beyond a US$3 million budget for each new station.
Of the 12 countries able to access the new cable, only five had signed up for SPIN by May 2008, being Niue, American Samoa and the three French territories, which an update does not bother to list.
So outside of two very minor Anglophone states, and Francophone counterparts  New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, SPIN meant very little then, possibly much less now.
Other than, perhaps, another attempt at corporate welfarism popular under the French and Australian systems. One getting a warm reception under the new National government in New Zealand, as well.
Anyhow, since signing up, Niue failed to meet the down-payment required 10 days after signing, American Samoa is going with an American option, Papua New Guinea signed up and pulled out again, and even French Polynesia is going to hook up with Hawai’i instead.
All fairly solid indicators of the failure of the technology-driven approach to bridging the digital divide, especially when much easier evaluation methods are available.
Like, for example, journalists.

Briefs Digicel, Vodafone for French Polynesia? Two major mobile phone network operators already well-represented in the Pacific, Vodafone and Digicel, are vying for a green- light to operate in French Polynesia, according to Oceania Flash. Digicel, which is now operating in at least five Pacific islands states (Vanuatu, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga) and is regarded as the fastest expanding mobile phone operator in the region, has already started to make approaches and representations with the local government of this French Pacific territory. Vodafone is also bidding for a space in the local market. In French Polynesia, mobile and fixed telephone networks have been monopolised by public company OPT (Office of Posts and Telecom) and its subsidiary Tikiphone. Cooks Telecom takeover Cook Islands Chamber of Commerce is heralding news of the Digicel takeover of Telecom Cook Islands as good news, according to Cook Islands News. “The Cook Islands community and businesses in particular have long suffered under exorbitant phone and internet charges, and frequent equipment failures, as provided by the current monopoly operator,” said chamber president Steve Anderson. Telecom Vanuatu staff cut Telecom Vanuatu Limited has let go of 19 of its staff members. Vanuatu Daily Post reported the move came as no surprise in the wake of a tough environment in the Vanuatu telecommunications market since the introduction of rival company Digicel in 2008. Jobs for wounded GIS A United States firm that trains and re-employs wounded American soldiers is looking at American Samoa’s proposed call centres as employment opportunity for returning injured service members, according to Radio New Zealand International. The company Smart Solutions of Delaware is headed by John Scudi, a retired Rear Admiral. Vodafone’s roaming service Fiji’s mobile network, Vodafone, continues to expand its roaming partners globally.    Roaming allows Vodafone post-pay customers to stay connected on their Vodafone Fiji number even when they are away overseas. The latest addition to Vodafone’s growing list of countries where roaming services are available is India. Vodafone customers can now access roaming services in almost 99% of Indian states. Samoa gateway opening up The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in Samoa says liberalising the international telecommunications market will create more competition which may drive down prices.Th e government will be wayterminating its exclusive ownership of full International Gateway Services by the end of June, opening the door for companies to apply.

Yet content creation gets less of a look-in than the enabling technology.
For answers, return to the PICISOC site.
Teased about old, out-of-date news, a long-time member rather stiffly explained that PICISOC is a voluntary organisation doing serious IT stuff, and they don’t have the time or resources to update “the website.”
Exhibit (d) “the website”, now two of the most dreaded words in the English language, scary enough to stop even information technologists in their tracks.
Online, PICISOC is merely an example of thousands of similar websites across the region, no doubt costing dizzying millions of aid dollars to set up and not maintain.
To be fair to PICISOC, there are a few updates from last year, mainly from Cerf himself, a rare technologist who can actually write. One or three among how many thousands of IT workers?
Exhibit (e) is PIJO, Pacific Islands Journalism Online.
Less than a hundred information specialists have exchanged more than 5000 messages since it was set up 14 months ago.
Or its partner site, the Pacific Freedom Forum, a few dozen senior media workers and managers have issued 20 updates on threats against media freedom in the region in less than a year.
All volunteers.
Including some that walk for kilometres to gain internet access. PIJO and PFF use web2 sites, easy to update sites where users create content, an information-driven approach.
Compare this with the web1-style PICISOC site; static, stifled by technology bottlenecks despite hundreds of thousands spent on conferences and other “capacity” building “outcomes.”
Basic message?
In 2000, one journalist interviewed a web builder that set up the first hotel ecommerce site in the world—a half Cook Islands-owned company in Hawai‘i which won a contract from the Outrigger chain.
Like many remote islands business, Outrigger was an early adopter of IT to overcome tyrannies of distance, years before people in the US, Australia and New Zealand started swapping fax for email.
Unfortunately, an exact quote is not available because of IT failure. Consider that exhibit (f).
From memory, his basic message was focusing on more than better or basic internet access, focus on what content to put on the web when better access arrives.
So far, not much evidence of where the content is going to come from—SPIN or no SPIN.
Exhibit (g) an unrelated report on New Zealand aid, from last year, that does touch on early evaluation.
“Generally speaking, few New Zealand NGOs prioritise or have the capacity to devote to policy advocacy on issues such as the Paris Declaration,” notes an evaluation report from NZAID.
The Paris Declaration is a UN agreement from 2005 supporting still emerging concepts of aid effectiveness, including local ‘ownership’ and ‘partnership’ with NGOs.
If advocacy is in a bad shape in New Zealand, no prizes for guessing what it’s like in the islands.
Exhibit (h) SPC itself, with barely 250 press and media releases since its website went public four years after the Outrigger, in 2000.
This works out to an average of roughly two stories a month from an organisation with an annual budget of some US$50 million and a famously dedicated IT team.
One now sponsored for unlimited bandwidth by France, sponsors of the SPIN network, while Australia takes care of PACRICS, the rural satellite interconnectivity system.
Luckily, one of those releases from November 2008, mentions there are eight PACRICS already, another nine are due online this year, and, reports SPC, “the hope that 100 sites will be ready by December 2009.”
Other islands states are said to be waiting for an evaluation from the World Bank before committing to SPIN.
Exhibit (i) A simple web search shows no sign of any SPIN on the World Bank site. Or, less punningly, PACRICS.
For SPC?
Just two World Bank pages. One from 1999. The other, 2002.
Perhaps the World Bank evaluation of SPIN is waiting for the IT section to get around to uploading to “the website.”