RE: http://www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/papers/unicef-w3c-presentation.html

Dear MW4D group,
 
I would also like to also briefly comment upon Stephane's remark. 
 
I think all in this group would agree that reduction of the total cost
of ownership is one of the most important success factors in providing
universal access to people in the developing world. It goes without
saying that telecom liberalisation has ensured strong competition, which
in turn has improved the breadth and depth of offerings and ultimately
brought down prices in developed and less developed countries alike. 
 
Unfortunately, high data costs and nascent business models in many
developing countries still make it prohibitively expensive to create
and/or facilitate the delivery of broad-based, locally relevant and
sustainable data services.  The net effect is a missed opportunity of
providing information access to those that need it the most. 
 
However, I think that through creative partnerships - be they with
governments, NGOs, other companies - there is a strong potential to
provide affordable and relevant services. Inspiration from the financial
sector's empowerment of the rural poor through microfinance comes to
mind.  In short, I think we should welcome all stakeholders to tackle
the challenge. 
 
With best regards, 
 
Sean
 



________________________________

	From: public-mw4d-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-mw4d-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of ext Bill Gillis
	Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 4:51 PM
	To: Stephane Boyera
	Cc: Arun Kumar; Kai Hendry; public-mw4d@w3.org
	Subject: Re:
http://www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/papers/unicef-w3c-presentation.html
	
	
	Stephane wrote:
	
	In my own view, operator should provide the pipes, the handset
manufacturers should focus on providing a generic platform, and then it
should be up to "other parties" to focus on the service side, which
would work on all devices, connected to all operators. the "other
parties" in my mind are ngos/grass-roots, government, ...
	
	
	Having spent a significant portion of my career as a
telecommunications regulator, I have an opinion on this point.  
	
	Given the great need for innovation in the development of
relevant services and the significant financial resources required to do
so, we should welcome all, and not put stakeholders into boxed walls.
The rapid deployment of lower cost ICT in the developing world requires
a more liberalized telecommunications environment.  To be successful the
market rules of engagement should not be overly structured/managed that
it creates a barrier to those with entrepreneurial resources and new
approaches to be successful, but of course there must be enough
structure to ensure those with market power from preventing others for
producing alternative services from being successful.    This may be
especially so if the handset manufacturers and/or network operators view
the deployment of relevant, usable services for the developing
population as a serious barrier to creating a market for their product.
A partnership with an NGO or government may be the first choice,
however, the direct approach could have advantages for a global
company(s) that wants a more direct and less expensive route to
aggressively pursue the opportunity.   BUT what must be watched (and of
serious concern) is when a hardware/ software vendor or network operator
creates a set of service tools which are not of open standard and tie
users to their specific suite of services rather than the customer
having the freedom to pick and choose as they desire.  The other
challenge we have seen in liberalized markets is introducing services
for "free" or a low cost and then creating a variety of other fees which
must be paid to access those services.  This to me seems where W3C is so
very important.
	 
	
	
	On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 6:15 AM, Stephane Boyera <boyera@w3.org>
wrote:
	


		Hi Arun,
		great response ! we are in agreement on all points i
believe.
		Some comments 




			There are essentially two aspects that are
getting mixed up here. One is
			the technical feasibility of using SMS, voice
etc., while the other is
			usabiity and practicality of the solution. So, I
agree with Stephane that
			SMS for browsing the web is probably not the way
forward but would like to
			clarify that it is the latter reason rather than
technical feasibility
			being an issue here.
			


		exactly. It is doable technically but would not improve
at all the domain we are tackling (providing development oriented
services towards underprivileged population) 



			Having said that, we may still need to expand
our notion of the Web. For
			instance, the VoiceXML example has come up a
couple of times in this
			thread. And though the argument below that voice
browsers are stuck to a
			page and do not allow browsing the web is
correct, the voice browser need
			not be equated to a Web browser. It is still
very much feasible to have a
			Browser with voice as an interface that can have
an 'address bar' and be
			used for visiting URLs (i.e. phone numbers in
this case) at will. If
			interested, you could glance thru this two page
poster paper
	
(http://www2008.org/papers/pdf/p1121-agarwalA.pdf) that aims to do just
			that. In fact, we recently submitted a more
detailed report on our
			implementation of such a browser and if possible
and if there is interest,
			I shall try to make that report available soon.
You can also read about a
			voice browsable web at (http://
	
www.soi.wide.ad.jp/project/sigcomm2007/pdf/nsdr41.pdf )
			


		thanks for the reference 



			Completely agree here though if the 'transient
phase' is more than few
			years then it might still be worthwhile to
invest if the returns can be
			justified.
			

		agreed. but i believe this is not the case for SMS. 




			That is correct but I have a slight disgreement
to the conclusion that
			seems to be implied here that a regular browser
on the phone is the only
			way forward. 
			


		I don't have this opinion. i believe it will take long
times before would be able to use a generic browser, and search the web.
I believe that we have to go through a phase or service-oriented access
through e.g. widgets. voice is also part of the picture for long time. 



			The first reason is a personal
			observation (in India) that even today few
people towards the lower end are
			able to own a smart phone. However, while they
can sometimes afford such a
			device from a second hand market, they are
unable to afford the service
			cost associated with features that require extra
payment - i.e. their usage
			of the phone is budgeted and they are unable to
afford data connection - at
			least today. 
			


		+1 tough i've the impression that it is a chicken and
eggs problem. I believe that one issue is the return on investment. till
people would have access to services that would really improve their
lives, and increase their income, they would not pay for something (data
access) that has almost no value. So focusing on the content side, is
one way to increase the return on investment. 



			The larger and more important problem however,
is that most of
			these people (again specific to India and maybe
Africa) is that many of
			these are semi-literate/illiterate people and
are not tech-savvy enough to
			be able to use features such as browsing -even
if it was affordable. And
			changing the literacy and education levels of
entire countries may not
			happen soon.
			


		exactly. This is why i believe that one direction W3C
will have to investigate in the future is how to make web content
accessible for illiterate people. There are today multiple directions
that are explored. One coming from the accessibility community, around
having a TTS (text to speech) engine on phones to "read" a web page on
the browser, and accept voice input to forms.
		Another direction is iconic languages.
		There is a whole domain to explore here.
		Voice here again is an interesting option on short term,
because already available. 



			Having said all of the above, I would also like
to state that it is
			probably not at all important to get into a
debate as to what is web and
			what is not. IMHO our goal should probably be
how to make information and
			services (and web being the current de facto
repository of those)
			accessible to the underprivileged whichever best
way (or ways) that come
			up. Mobile Web then becomes the pioneering
effort in that space but taking
			all other solutions along for the benefit of the
society.
			


		+1 !
		
		Cheers
		Steph 



			Hope some of this helps.
			
			thanks and regards
			Arun Kumar
			
			---------------------------
			Research Staff Member,
			IBM India Research Laboratory,
			4, Block - C, Institutional Area, Vasant Kunj,
			New Delhi - 110 070, India,
			Email: kkarun@in.ibm.com
			Tel: +91-11-66192100 / Fax: 91-11-26138889
			http://www.research.ibm.com/people/a/arun
			
			World Wide Telecom Web (aka Spoken Web):
	
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/arun_kumar
..WWTW.html
			
			
			
	
Stephane Boyera
<boyera@w3.org>
Sent by:                                                   To
public-mw4d-reque         Kai Hendry <hendry@iki.fi>
st@w3.org                                                  cc
public-mw4d@w3.org
Subject             11/06/2008 04:32          Re:
PM                        http://www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/p
apers/unicef-w3c-presentation.html

			
			
			
			
			
			

				So VoiceXML has nothing to do with the
browsable Web. And you are
				saying that SMS has also nothing do with
with the browsable Web too?
				


			I've the feeling that we are somehow in a
rathole.
			it all depends on your definition of browsable
Web.
			voice browsers are not generic browser on which
you can get any URI
			existing on the web. A voice browser is attached
to a specific page
			(like you have a home page) but the difference
is that you cannot change
			the uri (no address bar compared to a visual
browser) so your browsable
			web is what you can reach from this home page.
			This is the web but with some limitation.
			It is almost the same concept for widgets
			Same concept i see for SMS
			
			

				Wouldn't it be far simpler if they could
send:
				GET tiempo.bo
				


			well from the user perspective you might be
right for you. this would be
			more powerful for you because you believe that
you can find the right
			uri to put in, with the right parameters.
			But if you have never experienced the web, or if
you cannot use anything
			else to retrieve the information about this URI
and its parameter, then
			no it is not more powerful, neither it is
easier. I would prefer sending
			an sms with "temperature cochamba" and get the
info rather than "GET
			tiempo.bo?type=temperature&location=cochamba"
			
			That said, nothing prevent anybody to develop
such a service.
			There are very few chances that this would work
based on the limitation
			of sms and the issues i mentionned above. for
voice, i did myself wrote
			such an application being able to enter with
keypad any uri, and then
			translate the content at the uri in voicexml. I
let you imagine what
			kind of output you get, and how usable it is.
			
			

				Else if people get used to some
proprietary text service, how are they
				to know the source of their information
when they go to the Web on a
				desktop?
				


			errr. that's all the point. this is about
delivering services in places
			where there is no web-enable phone nor internet
cafe or similar
			telecenter. So this is not for the case that
people are in front of
			their desktop from time to time or with their
phone.
			
			

				this will never happen.
				neither will happen the development of a
very lightweight (text-only)
				browser, something i believed in for a
while, mostly because this would
				

			mean
			

				investing in a direction that is not the
trend. The trend is 2g, 3g 4g
				networks, and full mobile browser.
				

				I don't quite understand your argument.
				
				So SMS text responses of URI requests
won't happen because people
				expect the Web to be of the full sort?
				


			What i meant is that you will find nobody to
invest money/time/resource
			in developing and setting up something that are
just here to solve a
			transient problem. All forecast for now is that
by 2015-2020 all phones
			will have a browser, and 3g available everywhere
for the price of gsm
			today. So sms would not be a service platform
anymore
			
			Steph
			
			
			--
			Stephane Boyera
stephane@w3.org
			W3C
+33 (0) 5 61 86 13 08
			BP 93
fax: +33 (0) 4 92 38 78 22
			F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
			France
			
			
			
			
			
			


		-- 
		
		Stephane Boyera         stephane@w3.org
		W3C                             +33 (0) 5 61 86 13 08
		BP 93                           fax: +33 (0) 4 92 38 78
22
		F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,         
		France