Initiatives for 2008-2010
Enabling Access Initiative
This initiative focuses on enabling access to the Internet by addressing the fundamental impediments to Internet growth and usability.
The challenges of improving Internet growth are multifaceted and interrelated, particularly in developing countries. They include, for example, access to technical skills and knowledge, the regulatory and policy environment for information and telecommunications services, and broader economic and market factors, language diversity, and the diffusion and reliability of basic infrastructures and services.
- Technical Capacity Building
For the Internet to grow and be sustainable, network operators need the technical capacity necessary to build, maintain, and protect networks, as well as make informed choices about new infrastructure implementations and methodologies. With Internet technology changing rapidly, capacity building needs to be an ongoing process and local information-sharing mechanisms must be in place to sustain knowledge transfer beyond classroom trainings. ISOC’s technical capacity building program goals are to:
- Train network operators on basic and advanced internetworking skills and techniques,
- Build regional and functional operator communities that can maximise knowledge, experience, and skills transfer and problem solving, and
- Foster technical leadership within communities that sustain and advance local capacity and more fully participate in regional and global Internet technical and governance forums.
- Policy, Regulation, and the Access Environment
Regulatory impediments to internetworking, onerous licensing requirements and other regulatory and policy factors can slow or prevent Internet growth. ISOC’s goals for the Policy, Regulation, and the Access Environment program are to:
- Encourage policymakers at the national and international levels to adopt ICT policies and positions that promote the expansion and reach of Internet infrastructure on a national and global basis.
- Facilitate the elimination or revision of national Internet and telecommunications regulatory impediments to Internet growth.
- Educate policymakers on contemporary Internet issues in order to promote sound decision making.
- Educate policymakers and regulators on the broader economic/market and social factors that impact Internet development.
- Enabling Access for Under-served Communities
Under-served communities – including people that use non-Latin language scripts, people with disabilities, and geographically remote and dispersed communities – face additional challenges in accessing the Internet. ISOC will work towards enabling access to the Internet by under-served communities with goals to:
- Advance the development and distribution of technologies that support the use non-Latin language scripts on the Internet (in a manner that upholds the overall end-to-end connectivity of the network).
- Advance the development of technologies and the business case for facilitating the use of the Internet by people with disabilities.
- Educate policymakers and industry on the challenges, needs, technologies, and opportunities of increasing Internet access to these communities.
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