Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/fade into you/being there/How To & FAQ's/Packet Radio/PACKET-RADIO-IN-EARTH-AND-SPAC

Internet Message Format | 1994-11-21 | 37KB

Date: 16 Dec 91 15:56:00 EST
From: Volunteers In Tech Assistance <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: garriott paper






          PACKET RADIO IN EARTH AND SPACE ENVIRONMENTS
                   FOR RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT

                     Gary L. Garriott, Ph.D.
              <vita@gmuvax> or <[e-mail]>
                      Director, Informatics

               Volunteers in Technical Assistance
                 1815 N. Lynn Street, Suite 200
                   Arlington, Virginia, 22209


               ABSTRACT

               The history of packet radio in terrestrial
               applications and in low earth orbit
               satellites for humanitarian relief and
               development work is reviewed, with an
               emphasis on Africa. The need to decrease
               the turnaround time" of time-dependent
               technical and management information is
               described, as well as limitations to project
               success when such information is not
               available. Sociological and regulatory concerns
               are overviewed. The paper concludes that packet
               radio systems, in both terrestrial and space
               environments, have the potential to provide
               the "missing link" of reliable and inexpensive
               communications from isolated regions.
               Integration with low-cost landline (telephone)-
               based systems could dramatically increase
               connectivity without significant increases in
               cost.


                      Prepared for Panel on

        Electronic Bulletin Boards and Computer Networks:
        Africa and African Studies in the Information Age

     34th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association
                       St. Louis, Missouri

                      November 23-26, 1991









          Packet Radio in Earth and Space Environments
                   for Relief and Development*


Introduction
     The role of communication in development has been debated and
researched for over thirty years. One of it most prolific
apologists, Wilbur Schramm, stated in the early sixties that
"communication, by its very nature, is always at the very center of
existence for any society, developing or not. It is the basic
social process [and is] about to play a key part in the greatest
social revolution of all time -- the economic and social uplift of
two-thirds of the world's people." (1)  The modernization paradigm,
from which such statements derived, relied and invested  heavily on
diffusionist ("trickle down") theories of mass communications to
break down traditional habits of thinking and behaving, which were
seen as responsible for Third World backwardness. But it didn't
work.
     By the mid-1970's, it was clear to many social scientists that
only those individuals with higher socio-economic status were
listening to mass media messages urging  adoption of new
technologies and processes, thus increasing the gap between rich
and poor. The role of communication as a manipulative product of
corporate power as well as structural barriers in society itself
received more scrutiny instead of only communications variables and
the speed with which innovations were moving through society.
Schramm himself concluded at this time that "things are not as
simple as had been assumed, and the generality sought by the old
paradigm may not now be possible. Back to the old drawing board!"
(2)
     The diffusionist model then underwent some radical surgery,
for the first time embracing such values as equality of
distribution, popular participation, local invention and re-
invention of technology as people-serving tools. This was the
period of the "greening of development communication." But just as
the perception began to change, the new microprocessor-based
information technologies, especially communication satellite
technologies, exploded onto the scene. The seductive appeal of
these technologies together with the human shortcoming of designing
simple strategies for complicated situations seem to have smothered
lessons learned from structural analyses surrounding the older
communication technologies. Comments as the one below are sadly not
uncommon:
          We are moving toward the 21st century with the
          very great goal of building a Computopia on earth,
          the historical monument of which will be only
          several chips one inch square in a small box. But
          that box will store many historical records,
          including the record of how four billion world
          citizens overcame the energy crisis and the
          population explosion; achieved the abolition of
          nuclear weapons and complete disarmament; conquered
          illiteracy; and created a rich symbiosis of god
          and man without the compulsion of power or law,
          but by the voluntary cooperation of citizens to
          put into practice their common global aims. (3)


     Our challenge today, it seems to me, is to learn from the
mistakes and unbridled optimism of the past, including the
"greened" diffusionist theories, which were never completely
implemented because the protagonists not always understood or
adopted for themselves the same technologies they were preaching to
their audiences (a downside to the "appropriate technology
movement," a parallel phenomenon). Today there is a "mother lode"
of new, low-cost but skill intensive information and communication
technologies lending themselves to adoption by the same people and
organizations who promote them to others. It is against this
backdrop that the groundswell of interest in packet radio, packet
radio satellites and low-cost telephone line computer-based
messaging and networking deserves and is receiving widespread
attention.
     The Electronic Networking Component of the Sub-Saharan Africa
Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS) is increasing the awareness of African academic and research
institutions to the potential of these technologies. AAAS is
promoting solutions and dialogue both to the problems of isolation
of research scientists and institutions within Africa as well as to
promote linkages with their institutional and individual
counterparts in Europe and the United States.

Early History - Packet Radio Satellites (1984-1990)
     As is common with many information and communication
technologies (the origin of Apple Computer comes to mind), hobbyist
interest created low-cost packet radio. Amateur radio operators,
notably those connected with the Tuscon Amateur Packet Radio
Association (TAPR), adapted an international packet communications
protocol (X.25) for use over radios. Packet radio is so called
because digital information prepared on a computer is converted to
short, swift audio bursts ("packets") by a "terminal node
controller" or "packet controller," and transmitted through a radio
to another location where a similar station delivers it error-free
to the receiving computer. In this paper, packet radio is given the
most attention because of its ability to handle text and binary
files. However, reference is also made to "digital radio," a more
generic term that includes other non-packet modes such as TOR --
"teleprinting over radio" -- which is essentially upper-case only
telex.
     Another amateur radio special interest group, the Radio
Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), was the first organization
to propose putting packet radio into low earth orbiting (LEO)
satellites. LEO orbits are approximately 500 miles above the earth,
in which satellites traverse the earth in equatorial or polar
trajectories about once every ninety minutes. In October 1981,
AMSAT, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) -- a noncommercial
association of radio amateurs -- and the Amateur Radio Research and
Development Corporation (AMRAD), sponsored the first "ARRL Amateur
Radio Computer Networking Conference" in Washington, DC. At this
meeting, the first public mention of "PACSAT," a proposed LEO
satellite using packet radio technologies for store-and-forward
digital communications among radio hams was made.
     Curiously, at exactly the same time, one of the major
conclusions of a workshop sponsored by the International
Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa on "Computer-Based
Conferencing Systems for Developing Countries" was that the IDRC
support feasibility studies for both "the development of low-cost,
narrow-band ground stations for research institutions" and
"international geostationary satellites for computer-based
conferencing in developing countries." Presenters at that meeting
included S. Ramani (Bombay) and R. Miller (California) who proposed
"a new type of communication satellite needed for computer-based
messaging" in equatorial orbit for developing countries. Digital
methods suggested included radioteletype, telegraphy, and broadcast
videotext. (4)
     Apparently, neither meeting was known to the other. In March
1982, Dr. Yash Pal, an eminent Indian space scientist and
Secretary-General of UNISPACE '82 (Vienna) proposed that an
"orbital postman" using LEO satellites and digital methods be
studied for some of the communication needs of the United Nations
system. (5)
     In early 1983, Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), in
consultation with IDRC, Dr. Pal and others, approached AMSAT for a
"design definition study" of a PACSAT mission. At that time VITA
had accumulated nearly two years of real-time audio
teleconferencing experience over an old NASA satellite, ATS-1, on
the Pacific PEACESAT network providing information on renewable
energy technologies through lessons prepared by its volunteers.
VITA believed that the PACSAT concept could represent an
alternative to the transfer of technical information to isolated
regions presently served by slow or unreliable methods (mule train
mail), if at all. Even PEACESAT had its drawbacks as an information
dissemination tool, namely the difficulty in arranging for user
groups to be present during the pre-arranged conference due to
intervening factors as well as the unavailability of hard copy
records of questions and answers.
     An agreement with AMSAT to jointly pursue development of a
PACSAT mission was reached and in early 1983, with modest funding
from VITA, AMSAT initiated a process which culminated in a Final
Design Meeting near Boston attended by VITA and AMSAT personnel and
volunteers. Participants at the meeting included staff from the
UoSat Spacecraft Engineering Research Unit at the University of
Surrey (Guildford, England). The Surrey team, which had earlier
(1981) constructed and arranged for a NASA launch of UoSat-1, had
successfully demonstrated the highly "sophisticated functions
necessary to support store-and-forward communications services
within very small budgets." (6)  Surrey offered to integrate a
"Digital Communications Experiment" (DCE) into their UoSat-2
spacecraft if it could be readied in less than six months! VITA
hired a consultant to coordinate the technical activities of AMSAT
and VITA volunteers in three countries (UK, Canada, and the U.S.),
and April 1984 UoSat-2 was successfully launched into space. (7)
     Thousands of messages were exchanged on the DCE from 1984 to
1990 among a small number of radio amateurs, including a station
established at VITA headquarters. For reasons more fully discussed
in a future section, these messages could only be of a non-
consequential nature (ie, radio hams talking about their equipment,
location, or the "weather") and could not legally include
development information or activities. But the experience did
vividly illustrate that low-cost messaging from LEO satellites was
technically feasible. The DCE was the first non-military LEO
digital messaging satellite in the world and, while it has fallen
into general disuse because of later satellites, continues to
function normally well beyond its five year design lifetime.

Recent History - VITASAT Program (1990 - present)
     In January 1990 the PACSAT Communication Experiment (PCE) was
launched by Arianespace as part of the UoSat-3 satellite, again
prepared by the University of Surrey. This satellite upgraded the
1984 technology to faster speeds and more on-board memory. It also
contained special transmitters and receivers operating on non-
amateur frequencies so that VITA could begin to conduct real
demonstrations and experiments within a development context.
Amateur radio communication is also supported and at this date has
provided reliable communication to more than a hundred amateurs
from thirty countries.
     VITA's first installation operating through the PCE on the
non-amateur frequencies was for PLAN International in Freetown,
Sierra Leone. While government interference on this frequency
prevented immediate operation, this situation has been recently
rectified. The station is now sending administrative and
programmatic memoranda back to VITA which is then forwarded to PLAN
International Headquarters in Rhode Island via electronic mail.
PLAN sends its messages/files in the reverse direction in a similar
manner. The PLAN-VITA interaction marks the first time ever that
low earth orbit satellites have exchanged development-related
information on non-amateur frequencies.
     VITA is installing as many as fifty PCE groundstations with
institutions having applications in health, education and
environment/energy throughout developing countries, most in Africa.
VITA develops "Memoranda of Understanding" (MOU) with potential
sponsors which outlines the responsibilities of the sponsor and
VITA. One of these is SatelLife, a Boston-based organization which
has launched its own Surrey-built system, also operating on
experimental frequencies, but which is not yet functioning as this
is written. SatelLife expects to install PCE-style groundstations
in a number of East African "ESANET" countries linking medical
schools at national universities in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda,
Zambia, Zimbabwe amd Mozambique.
     At the present time, VITA, through its MOUs, intends to
install and train national African staff on additional PCE stations
in Nigeria, Tanzania, Niger, Somalia, Djibouti, Mali, Ghana, and
Guinea-Bissau.
     While the PCE phase is in the midst of implementation, VITA is
also in the midst of planning for the third phase which will
involve the launch of VITASAT-A and -B, operational satellites that
will accommodate up to 500 ground stations each, operating on
"permanent" (non-experimental) frequencies. There is more on this
in a later section.

Recent History - Terrestrial Packet Radio (1986-present)
     As a spinoff of its LEO satellite activities, VITA  realized
that the continued development and approaching maturity of packet
controller technology would soon make it possible to implement
terrestrial projects employing computer-to-computer communication
via radio without the satellite interface.  In 1986 two VITA
volunteers traveled to Ethiopia supported by corporate and church
donors to conduct a three week demonstration of packet radio
between CARE operations in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, several
hundred kilometers to the north. It was the first known successful
demonstration of terrestrial packet radio for  humanitarian
purposes. Since then VITA has implemented a variety of packet radio
projects in the Sudan, Jamaica, Chad, and the Philippines. Studies
and demonstrations have been performed for groups in Lesotho,
Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Kenya. VITA also
conducts an annual week-long course on digital and packet radio
under the auspices of the United States Telecommunications Training
Institute. Africans have been well represented at the three courses
held so far.
     One of the features of multiple station packet networks, such
as that installed in the Philippines for the Department of Health
(DOH) under grants from the Japanese Government through the World
Bank, is that various  kinds of radio frequencies -- each optimized
for distance and speed -- and even landline (telephone) modems, can
be integrated into a single system. Radio stations and telephone
modems are connected to computers operating special bulletin board
software which then communicate automatically with each other
passing administrative and health data and statistics. In this way,
messages and files are forwarded throughout the network even though
any given station may not be able to directly communicate with
another given station. The DOH project also demonstrated that this
networking capability can be useful during emergencies, and a
portable site at a hospital site was hastily established for
communications during the initial exodus following the Mt. Pinatubo
eruption.
     One of the fascinating technical possibilities is that a
terrestrial packet radio network may find it useful to add some
additional equipment to one of its stations (perhaps the "hub"
station running the bulletin board program) and become a node on
the PCE/VITASAT network. PLAN/Sierra Leone will be the first
organization to pursue this possibility with a three-station
terrestrial network connected to the PCE station in Freetown (the
capital).
     Additional networking power may be realized by linking packet
radio in terrestrial and/or space environments with ordinary dial-
up telephone links using FidoNet and Fido-compatible software
("Fido" refers both to the network of personal computer users as
well as to the original mailer software used on the network). These
systems have been popular among experimenters for many years and
basically involve PCs calling each other up in the middle of the
night when rates are low and passing messages, files and programs.
Routing has become quite sophisticated such that it is now possible
to send messages across the United States for free throughout the
Fido system and to other points worldwide as well. There are some
Fido systems available in Africa, notably Kenya, Zimbabwe, South
Africa, and Senegal. There are also gateways available to public
and commercial networks, such as BITNET, USENET and CompuServe.
Others at this meeting will be able to provide a more complete
overview of Fido technology and network topology. The main point is
that, unlike commercial networks requiring high quality telephone
circuits and main frame or mini-computer hosts and therefore high
cost, Fido style networking is accomplished much more cheaply and
perhaps with more individual enthusiasm than commercial networking.
Highly committed Fido "Johnny Appleseeds"  have goals of
establishing Fido-style systems throughout the world, notably in
Africa. Fido-style mailers can be combined with bulletin board
systems (BBS), allowing the operator to become a node in the true
sense--his/her bulletin board takes messages from anybody else who
happens to dial in, then  the mailer forwards these messages to the
correct computer by dialing it at a pre-determined time (when the
other computer is waiting for the call).
     VITA has been running both a stand-alone BBS and stand-alone
Fido-style mailer for some time, and is now completing an
implementation to integrate the two together ("VITANET"). The
VITANET BBS at present is mostly a repository of information on
technical and commodity assistance available in international
disasters. The VITANET mailer currently links VITA projects in the
Philippines, Australia, Kenya, Pakistan, and Nigeria to U.S.
headquarters. Eventually, the mailer will be automatically
connected via gateway software to the VITASAT groundstation at
headquarters, thus allowing any user in the VITASAT network to
communicate with any user within the VITANET domain (vast, because
the Fido system as well as BITNET/Internet and others are available
through gateways). Mailers have caught the attention of a number of
international organizations, including the IDRC and AAAS.

Some Sociological Concerns

          An answer to a technical problem that takes
          minutes to obtain in Europe can take months
          to obtain in Somalia or Sudan. To give just
          one example, a medical advisor in Mogadishu
          needed background information on excretion of
          antimalarials in breast milk to help him decide
          on the details of a prophylaxis programme for
          about half a million people. The agency funding
          him had no staff in Europe who were themselves
          qualified to make a thorough search for this
          information or who knew who to ask to do it for
          them. The telephone calls necessary to set up and
          pay for a search through a Western information
          centre would have taken weeks, given the communica-
          tion problems at that time. The solution was to get
          a friend who was passing through Nairobi to pay
          himself for a search in Europe, personally photocopy
          the papers concerned, and then to mail the printout
          and copies of papers to Mogadishu. The total time
          needed to get the information on this routine inquiry
          was about four weeks. The programme was already
          underway when the material arrived. Hundreds of highly
          technical decisions affecting huge numbers of people
          are made each month in relief programs with a bare
          minimum of scientific background data.


     So writes R.S. Stephenson in the October 1986 issue of
Disasters. His is a graphic way of stating that the accuracy of
information is an important but insufficient condition for its use,
especially in Africa. In order for most technical and logistical
information to be employed in the execution of a relief operation
or project, it must be timely as well as accurate in content.
Scientists, engineers, physicians and researchers are also keenly
aware of the time dimension to technical information requirements,
amply illustrated by the popularity of BITNET and Internet
activities in the U.S. and some other countries.
     Information which is time-critical to project execution is
time-dependent. This means that the same information, if delivered
after a certain time, has lost much--if not all--of its value. This
is frequently due to the intrinsic value of information itself.
Even more important is the potential loss of human and material
resources that can become inputs to other projects or wasted
altogether if not used when critically needed.
     From the standpoint of planners, projects are sometimes viewed
as objectives compartmentalized into specific activities, all
having discrete beginning and ending points. From the perspective
of field staff, however, it is often more realistic to consider
accomplished objectives as having successfully recognized and
exploited "windows of opportunity." When the window is "open," it
is critical to have the right information available at that time.
When the window is "closed," (e.g., field staff have promised
skeptical village leaders information on a new treatment for
cholera but have not delierved same) it may be twice as difficult
if not impossible to reactivate interest.
     Most useful technical information is the result of multiple
pairs of query-response: each response provides more feedback for
an ever-refined query. This makes the reduction of turnaround time
important and suggests that communication modes that specifically
address reliability and speed, particularly from isolated areas,
can be enormously significant for a variety of rural projects or
activities. Insofar as many members of the African research
community experience such isolation, it is obvious that these
technologies could provide not only a useful research link with
peers scattered worldwide, but also mitigate the loneliness these
young professionals report. In numerous countries, for example,
medical doctors must complete a year of service in a rural or
isolated location before they can earn their degrees.
     The above describes the "last mile" problem in which
communications almost but not quite get to the enduser who is
simply beyond the reach of normal commercial channels. The point is
that commercial circuits will probably never get to these isolated
people -- at least not within our lifetimes and not in most of
Africa -- because the social overhead is too high and return on
investment too low to be justified by the weak demand. The
situation thus lends itself to technology more matched to lower
levels of demand  and cost.
     With all of the obvious advantages, it is sometimes
discouraging that implementation of projects and diffusion of
innovative communications technology is coming about with mixed
velocities, but generally slowly. There are many ways that
technology is "transferred," but generally it is the last element
in a complex process in which institutions or individuals ready
themselves for the technology. Sometimes this is lightning fast or
spontaneous, such as the rapid exploitation of cocoa cultivation
technology by the Ashanti people of southern Ghana which took place
without intervention of agricultural extension agents or foreign
consultants. Sometimes it is time-consuming, such as the
complicated socio-political-religious value shifts required to
implement family planning methods.
     Which will it be for low-cost digital radio networking?  The
jury is still out, but we might well ask ourselves the following
set of questions. You can be assured that the government is asking
many of the same questions!

1. How accessible are present communication media? How and who
controls this access?

2. How is the rural social and economic structure organized and
what control does it exert over individual or project decisions?

3. Who decides whether digital radio systems can be made available
and to whom? Are local people and/or project personnel consulted?

4. Will such systems have any measurable impact on individual or
family welfare? On regional and national development in the short,
medium and long range? Will it tend to increase employment or
unemployment, fixation of the rural population or migration to the
cities, enrichment of the already rich or better income
distribution?

5. Does the adoption of the system have any implications for
modifications of local work habits, practices or even cultural
norms?

6. How technically sound is the technology? What level of
maintenance and problem-solving in the event of difficulties can be
handled by users themselves and what needs to be supplied from the
outside? What kind and levels of training must exist?

7. How frequently are stations checked or monitored? Do local
telecommunications authorities impose any limits to time, duration
and destination of communications? Is there any attempt at blockage
or censorship of communication?

8. How important are local personnel or peer networks in
formulating the questions or topics requiring information as well
as disseminating the results?

9. Do digital radio systems help identify local resources that
users might not have known about previously? Can identification and
use of these resources eventually replace such systems as an
international communication media for far-away information
resources or are packet radio-style communications required in
perpetuity?

10. How much does the PTT think it will lose in revenues if it
permits terrestrial and/or satellite packet radio systems?


     As  applied to digital radio, the problem with the "Johnny
Appleseed" approach to the dissemination of low-cost networking
technology is that these kinds of questions don't usually get asked
before and during implementation. Thus the issues may not be
thought through, and therefore the entire effort is not taken
seriously by officials who must sign off on everything. While such
has been true as well for landline networking in the past, that
situation does seem to be gradually changing in at least some
African countries. But the cautions remain. Outside of South
Africa, almost 100% of the landline networkers are not native-born
Africans, the situation being somewhat better for VITA-assisted
African digital radio projects.
     This has implications for how networking technologies get
disseminated ("transferred"). Affluent, liberal values emphasize
information-sharing, while sharing is anathema in many traditional
societies where information is power and the first to get and act
on it becomes the most powerful. Information in this context is to
be carefully guarded, because sharing it will only give someone
else an advantage. To be sure, sharing does occur in such
societies, but generally only within tightly-bound sub-cultural or
familial groups and friendships. Thus, in an African context, it
might be more natural to see fewer bulletin boards and more peer-
to-peer links. There is, of course, a universal comaraderie among
scientists and scholars that can mitigate somewhat the tendency to
hoard information when the "pieces of the pie" -- whether economic,
academic or whatever -- are perceived to be diminishing rather than
increasing.

Some Regulatory Concerns
     In 1986 it took the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission of
Ethiopia, a government agency, more than a year to acquire
temporary authorization for a three-week demonstration of packet
radio in a CARE food program. After its success (the first of its
kind ever), the government quashed all further experimentation and
a permanent network was never implemented. Similar, though less
dramatic, experiences have been logged in other African and Asian
countries.
     One international agency, while implementing a packet network
in an African country, decided not to request authorization for its
proposed packet radio system, but rather strategized a "fait
accompli" situation under the guise of an existing voice radio
license. When the system was ready for inauguration, all the proper
individuals were invited to a generous reception and any objection
quietly buried. One noteworthy Asian country has a five-tiered
licensing process, which could take years to complete if followed
to the letter. Time and time again, the difficulties and delays in
licensing or obtaining temporary authorizations stymie packet radio
projects in terrestrial and satellite applications alike. Every
country and situation is different.
     This situation has not gone unnoticed by some of the
international organizations concerned with the technology. The IDRC
and VITA have long hoped to hold an international workshop on
digital radio applications which would include direct participation
by African PTT and telecommunications  authorities in an attempt to
educate and promote  more responsive policies. AAAS also plans to
look more generally at regulatory and tariff issues affecting the
diffusion of information technology in Africa. There may some
understandable reasons for xenophobic, seemingly short-sighted
policies. Persistent rumors mention RENAMO in Mozambique using
packet radio technology, likewise the Eritreans in Ethiopia,
Marxist factions in the Philippines, contras in Nicaragua. Anti-
drug packet radio networks operated by the U.S. government function
throughout Latin America. VITA was once approached by a sincere
sounding individual to explore creation of a clandestine packet
radio network operating from Tibet (no further exploration
occurred).
     While acknowledging that some legitimate security concerns
exist, VITA generally relies on the reputation of the sponsor to
mitigate doubts and anxieties of the host government. One  African
country has demanded that special security software be implemented
before authorization to operate a PCE station is provided. The
software will allow telecommunications officials to monitor
transactions with the satellite by arriving unannounced and, using
a secret software key, unlock log files which cannot be operator
altered.
     One major event early in 1992 should improve the regulatory
climate of packet radio LEO satellites. The World Administrative
Radio Conference (WARC) will be held in Spain and for the first
time, partly through VITA's efforts, LEO satellites are on the
agenda. WARCs allocate frequency spectrum internationally, and
VITA's hope is that recognition of the value of a non-profit
humanitarian LEO service and corresponding frequency allocations
will occur at WARC '92. Without a favorable outcome at the WARC,
VITASAT and and other satellite services like it will have to
depend on experimental frequency authorizations on a country-by-
country basis -- an unstable and less desireable situation. Yet the
effort to influence the U.S. position and win international votes
at the WARC as well as pursue national authorizations through the
Federal Communications Commission has thus far cost in excess of
$250,000, not a small amount for a grant-dependent PVO.
      The situation would be considerably simpler if international
amateur radio regulations allowed humanitarian-based
communications, which are generally prohibited except in
emergencies. Modified amateur radio hardware is frequently used in
both terrestrial and space packet radio applications and is usually
20-50% cheaper than its commercial counterparts. Even the
interpretation of what constitutes an "emergency" message varies
widely. In the United States there is a strong tradition of using
amateur radio in the public service, while this is not generally
true in Europe. Since many African countries derive their
administrative apparatus and attitudes from European colonialism,
it is not surprising that similar restrictions may apply to amateur
radio and amateur radio-derived technologies in those countries.

Conclusion
     While the results of a VITA-commissioned demand analysis
clearly identified a niche for humanitarian-based digital
communications, it is still too early to say that LEO store-and-
forward satellites are "here to stay" for relief and development
applications in Africa. As 1991 draws to a close, there is
undeniable widespread interest, echoed in terrestrial packet radio
applications and low-cost landline networking. The potential
contributions that these technologies can make are immense,
however, and collectively have fired the imaginations of many
people who see one or more of these as possible solutions to the
age-old problem of communicating from isolated regions.
     It is likely that none of these technologies alone will have
the kind of impact required to truly make a difference. As
suggested earlier in this paper, technologies alone rarely play
that role. They interact with values, norms and institutions to
produce changes in society -- or maintain the status quo.
     But personal, decentralized networks integrating all three
technologies for problem-solving purposes cut across society. They
can empower people to make changes in their lives, gain new
knowledge through links with others, and ameliorate duplication of
effort. We should remind ourselves that communication technologies
are, after all, mere extensions of our abilities (and frailities)
at manipulating and relaying the data and information we create.
The use of those data and information in the creation of knowledge
depends on people, as individuals, and not on the technologies
themselves.
     If we can maintain a focus on individuals, then it may turn
out that Wilbur Schramm's vision of communication as the "core
social process" helping to alleviate poverty may turn out to have
been right after all.
                           *********


*The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect those of VITA, AAAS, or of any other
organization cited.













                           References

1. Wilbur Schramm, Mass Media and National Development (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1964), pp. 248 and 91.

2. Wilbur Schramm, "End of an Old Paradigm?" in Schramm, Wilbur and
Lerner, Daniel, eds. Communication and Change - The Last Ten Years
- and the Next (Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1976), p.
47.

3. Yoneji Masuda, The Information Society (Bethesda, MD: The World
Future Society, 1981), p. 156.

4. David Balson et al, Computer-Based Conferencing Systems for
Developing Countries. Report of a workshop held in Ottawa, Canada,
26-30 October 1961. Organized by the International Development
Research Centre in cooperation with the International Federation
for Information Processing.

5. Yash Pal, "A Proposal for an 'Orbital Postman' to Meet Some of
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International Round Table on Alternative Space Futures and the
Human Condition, New York, 8-10 March 1982.

6. M.N. Sweeting and J.W. Ward, "Low Cost, Digital satellite
Communications for Rural Areas" at IEE International Conference on
Rural Telecommunications, London, 24 May 1988.

7. Gary Garriott, "The Evolution of a Satellite," VITA News,
Arlington, VA, April 1984, p. 6.