Report on the PacINET 2005 Conference in Kiribati
Prepared by
Don Hollander
August 29, 2005
The 4th annual PacINET conference was attending by more than fifty people, perhaps one-third being from Kiribati.
The topics were generally well focused on ICT techniques and technologies with an occasional smattering of policy and practice thrown in.
Addresses of note include:
GIS Systems – Presentations from Franck Martin and Wolf Forstreuter provided interesting views of Mapping systems and their use in the Pacific. There was a full day devoted to GIS systems as a breakout group. Wolf Forstreuter advocates a Pacific wide adoption of MapInfo as the standard GIS application.
Open Source – Strong focus on advocating of Free Open Source Software (FOSS) in several presentations and many discussions. Key presenters here included Shahid Akhtar from UNDP-APDIF, Marko Schutz from USP and Franck Martin from SOPAC. Shahid indicated that UNDP-APDIF is looking for a Pacific based regional centre of excellence for FOSS. While USP may be the most obvious choice to host this funded position, Victoria University or to a lesser extent the Samoa IT Society (SITS) are also viable options.
Strategies – The Kiribati government took the opportunity of the attendees presence to seek advise on the development of their ICT Policy and Strategic Plan. The Kiribati government have already separated policy, regulation and delivery into three separate organizations. The locals also delivered a number of presentations on the state and history of their environment.
Networks – There were several presentations on networks in action. Keith Moala from USP talked about the old and new USPNet and proved a fantastic resource of knowledge of all things satellite and power (not to mention his provision of Sky television services to watch the Rugby!) WiFi experiences were also shared by Tuvalu, Niue and Canberra Girls Grammar – where security was made to look almost easy. David Leeming of the Solomon’s spoke about their experiences with HF networking and their moves to ‘Broadband’ via satellite. We also heard (in a poor quality video link up from Brisbane) about HF voice connections used in health delivery systems in the Solomon’s. Jonny Martin of Wellington’s Citylink offered the concept of ‘NearlyNet’, a ‘good enough’ low cost alternative to expensive telco solutions that often offer no better reliability or quality – particularly in the Pacific. Ian Thomson of New Zealand spoke about the Tuhoe network where wi-fi was used over extensive distances to overcome traditional telco costs. Solar power was prominent in many of the presentations.
New Toys – VoIP was a very common subject, as was wi-fi. Rajnesh Singh talked about the policy issues, coming to the conclusion that government regulators must support this new technology. Jonny Martin demonstrated his wireless IP telephones by making a call to New Zealand and getting a Wellington based dial tone. Skype was very much in use with a number of ‘air traffic control’ headsets in evidence during the breaks. Al Blake also gave a very nice demonstration of a content management solution (www.contentkeeper.com) and then donated it to the Kiribati Internet operation. (Al noted that when a similar donation had been made to Tonga that the authorities promptly blocked access to any sites critical of the monarchy.) Don Hollander gave a presentation on how easy it is to transfer television to the Internet – ‘Overcoming the tyranny of distance and time’.
Keynote – Dr Vint Cerf gave an entertaining and interesting talk that was very well received, including a discussion of Inter-planetary protocols!
Other Meetings – There were other meetings held in conjunction with PacINET. These included the CROP (Council of Regional Organizations in the Pacific) who elected John Budden of the Forum as the new chair and GKP Oceania (Global Knowledge Partnership).
Other – the PIP program was presented with a request to add Vanuatu and Tuvalu to the programme. The ICANN meeting in Wellington was mentioned several times, including in a presentation by Theresa Swineheart of ICANN.
PICISOC has agreed to join InternetNZ as an organisational member with initial funding being provided by Fiji based Patara.
Samoa won the bid to host the next PacINET 21 – 26 August 2006 at the Hotel Kitano.
Social – the camaraderie among the delegates was very strong and positive. Newcomers were made very welcome and the chairs actively encouraged participation from Kiribati, though the foreigners – and mostly palagi/pakeha at that dominated discussion and contribution.
Summary
I am delighted that PIP has explicitly chosen to support the PacINET conference. It is not a junket. The days were long and there seemed to be very few playing hookey, certainly none of the people that we sponsored.
There is a strong commitment by the ‘geek’ community to helping themselves.