Smart communities in the information age

Citation

Ryser, J. (1998), "Smart communities in the information age", European Business Review, Vol. 98 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.1998.05498aab.009

Smart communities in the information age

Smart communities in the information age

Judith Ryser

The convergence of telecommunications with other information technologies opens up unparalleled perspectives and growth potential. At rapidly diminishing costs, computing, broadcasting, telephony or telematics (including broadband, fibre optic, cable, digitalised transmission, ISDN, ATM, etc. satellite and mobile communication to a wide variety of terminals, computers, phones, personal organisers, TV sets and other interactive multi-media devices) should be accessible to everyone, everywhere. The liberalisation of telecommunications monopolies alone is bringing unprecedented changes in its wake. It should be remembered though that half of the world's population has no access to a telephone.

Nobody has a clear conception of the information society in the twenty-first century. Will it liberate individuals from chores, akin to what the machine age was expected to do for hard manual labour? Will it bring vertiginous riches to those who dare? Will it create a better society? Entrepreneurs are convinced that the stakes of the race to information space, place and trace are very high indeed. The same goes for risks. And this is where the regulators come in. As custodians of the "public interest" and the "common good", they have to balance technological prowesses with user needs and the public purse. Social responsibility may play a part as well.

What are "smart communities"?

Where does this leave "smart communities"? Public-private and sometimes social partnerships are all the rage in the liberal world of austere governments and shrinking welfare states. At best, they are willing to help citizens to help themselves. Subsidiarity means responsibility and often self-help action of those at the lowest level. Hence the attractiveness of "smart communities".

What are they? The first "Smart Communities Forum" held in Sophia Antipolis, France and Rome, Italy in September 1997 should have shed some light on this. Sociologists, anthropologists, economists, religious groups and others have pondered over the meaning of "community" and found it intractable in the past. Are they territorial, bonded by common interests, beliefs or cultures, motivated by single purposes? Can pursuits such as universal access to information forge communities? And how do they become "smart" in the Information Age?

The forum opted for three necessary albeit not sufficient criteria. Smart communities are guided by ethics expressed in a common value system; they comply with deontological rules such as mutual trust or a charter; they have long-term goals contained in a vision which acknowledges the confining effects of space, time, fields of activities and resources. These broad features leave the door wide open to very different organisations and players, as well as to a host of interpretations. It may be useful, therefore, to explore the context in which this idea has been hatched and who is promoting it.

Who are the players?

The industry

Incumbents ­ privatised, liberalised or re-regulated ­ have undergone a culture shock and are devising strategies for their future in a global market. Concentration and diversification is the name of the game. They are trying to keep their advantages by creating larger conglomerates and branching out into new services. They hang on to restrictive practices and proprietary constraints. The newcomers complain about unfair advantages and demand of the regulators to create a level playing field, at least until they are up and running.

The regulators

The regulators at national and global level, are under pressure to give a free reign to technological innovation and entrepreneurship while protecting consumers by creating fair competition, securing privacy and ensuring sustainability. Despite global bodies such as the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations International Telecommunication Union, regulators are not unified. Other territorial or economic groupings such as the OECD or the European Union defend their own interests, not to speak about nation states or other regional administrations which aim at some autonomy.

The users

The users are a very heterogeneous group. Are they individual users, consumers, customers, clients, citizens, people, or collectivities, such as amenity societies, interest groups, public and parapublic bodies (e.g. universities, libraries, schools, resident associations) or are they corporate bodies, ranging from small and medium size firms to multinationals and parapublic utilities? Not least, the state is a large player itself in the information business as a user of information technology, as well as an information broker and provider.

The intermediaries

Furthermore, players are often acting through intermediaries. They can be private service providers, municipal administrations, amenity societies, other agents of representative procedures. All these intermediaries are also ICT (information and communication technology) consumers in their own right. Moreover, they have privileged access to personal information. Downsizing and outsourcing with its socio-economic consequences has boosted the ranks of what Michel Marié calls "les passeurs" in his studies of large scale developments. These self-employed "consultants" may assist corporate players in their often controversial projects because they have knowledge of the opponents. Conversely, they may represent the latter because they get the ear of the former. Thus, communication and information are the tools of their trade. Hence they are natural players in the information society.

It is clear that even these four categories of players are far from mutually exclusive and have overlapping or conflicting interests supported by very unequal powers and legitimacies. Furthermore, players move freely between these categories, crossfertilising them with complementary expertise.

Judging from the self-appointed "smart communities" which sponsored and presented their experiences at the Forum, "smart communities" encompass all these types of players, albeit with different overt and covert agendas. They were: re-regulated telecom monopolies and large ICT suppliers; regulators such as the European Commission; political and scientific communities, such as the City of Rome and the Sophia Antipolis Foundation attached to the largest science park in Europe; networked territorial interest groups, such as "telecities" or "digital cities"; and intermediaries, in particular ITEMs International, a consultancy which promotes the use of telecommunications in civic society and the World Foundation for Smart Communities.

World Foundation for Smart Communities

Five "road shows" on the application of telecommunications by local communities in Europe, the USA and Japan had preceded the 1997 Smart Communities Forum. They had attracted decision makers from the international telecom industry, governments and those local communities which perceived their competitive future in being wired up. The idea of a World Foundation for Smart Communities (WFSM), capable of harnessing the mutual interests between these major players by attracting international funding for such a worldwide "federate" activity, was hatched in California by a former telecommunications adviser to Nixon and Ford. Acting as a go-between of a multi-billion global information business, potential new markets and their regulators offers excellent prospects. It was not clear though how real or virtual this Foundation was going to be, on whose behalf it was operating, what membership and sponsors it was seeking and to whom it was accountable. Also, the cultural characteristics and communication policies of the USA, Europe and Japan, let alone the developing world, differ too widely to fit under a single global umbrella.

Interplay?

From a societal point of view, the key issue of the information age is how to prevent a deeper gulf in the twenty-first century between the information-poor and the information-rich. Well-intentioned governmental bodies postulate "universal access". However, the divide between information "haves" and information "have nots" already exists globally, within as well as between societies. In particular, a vast number of developing countries are practically excluded from advanced ICT. Thus, even "universal access at affordable prices and within reasonable confines", as postulated by the Smart Communities Forum, needs to be acquired by proaction as the preservation of the status quo will not do. Interconnectivity, for example, is hampered by restrictive practices and electronic commerce is slow because it lacks the necessary insurances of confidentiality and security. This immediately raises the question of who should provide ICT and who should pay for it.

ICT odds

There is a lot of talk about reinventing local government and forging links between business and government to assist industry-led "smart communities" in generating new telecom and ICT demand among local businesses and especially the lay population. Keeping in mind that the turnover of global ICT companies exceeds the GDP of many nation states, the convergence of market and community interests in this transnational industry may erode the principles of local democracy and its checks and balances. Mergers, takeovers, buy-outs, restrictive practices, together with long-term certainty and government guarantees foster cartels, undermine competition and reduce choice. It gives ICT suppliers increasing power of control. However, easily identifiable control points, such as service access gates suit both business and government. Businesses can charge at that point and governments can tax both servers and users if need be. There is already talk about a "bit-tax" for the Internet.

Cross roads

The information business, epitomised by to-day's Internet, is at a cross road between cut-throat empire building and networking with open access for uneven players. The pessimistic view of opportunities in the new information marketplace points to a hard fight between aggressive players, making consumers ultimately foot the bill for their follies. Already firms such as Iridium are seeking global dominance by installing a single access control over the ICT networks which they are putting in place on land and in space. Weak regulations may well encourage their endeavours. For example, the UK Outer Space Act (out of print in the electronic age!) basically says that those who send objects into space should let the government know, keep track of them, control them, be answerable to government for them over the territory where the licence has been granted, dispose of them (without specifying where and how), identify their trajectory at all times, prevent them from doing harm to anyone anywhere, and obey any future laws that will be brought in to decide who is responsible for what and where. Little is known about sanctioning mechanisms or enforcement. However, in the longer term, the business plans of such go-getting entrepreneurs are fraught in two ways. Omitting other potential entrants, they assume that they can maintain their very high charges because of their monopoly position; and taking advantage of the absence of regulations, they are ignoring the environmental costs of disposing of satellites and other redundant infrastructure at the end of their useful life. New players in this global lucrative game, together with post hoc legislation on outer space waste may well change the goalposts of their risk assessments.

"Conduit" ­ "content" dilemma

Even if environmental impacts of ICT installations are regulated before the damage is done and even if the regulators manage to create a level playing field for competition between suppliers of ICT which enables newcomers as well as incumbents to innovate and experiment, the problem of regulating "content" remains. "Conduit", i.e. infrastructure, is not neutral. Even if industry is providing it with an anticipated use in mind, content can evolve separately. The regulators have to find the same delicate balance between fostering innovation and preventing abuse for both "conduit" and "content". Who has ultimate control over content? The free for all World Wide Web is a fabulous tool to connect "smart communities" wherever and whoever they are. But this inclusive and borderless information network may conflict with exclusive vested interests, such as religious mores, cultural values, individual sensitivities.

Censorship and civic protection

Who should be the judge of "content" on the net? Who should be able to use this information, for what purpose and with whose permission? What role should the police or the state play in such information brokerage, control and surveillance? Who should draw political or pecuniary advantage from information which is usually offered free? And how do those who supply information know what is done with it, and whether it may be distorted and finally held against them? Who is protecting and enforcing copyrights, who is ensuring privacy and preventing fraud?

These questions are very topical, now that the information "conduit" is growing at an exponential rate and becoming available in every part of the world. Society needs to agree on the use and misuse of this powerful tool. It is most alarming that the NATO forces in Bosnia should disable transmitters to prevent Bosnian Serbs from misrepresenting their action. They should ask for a right of reply instead which, in turn, should be guaranteed by worldwide freedom of information legislation.

Both information "conduit" and "content" are treated as commodity, asset or power, although Auguste Comte considered that knowledge was power and information a mere contribution to knowledge. His view implies understanding, i.e. transformation of the "raw material" of information. Perhaps the controls, the necessary checks and balances to preserve democracy and freedom of information should focus on the manipulation of information rather than on its status as raw material. This should include guaranteed access for all individuals and corporate bodies to their electronically held files. Similarly, the controls of "conduit" should focus on the gatekeepers and the tolltakers. This is where openness, transparency and equity become relevant. Akin to the democratic separation between legislative, executive and judicial powers, the rules of the information society should provide similar guarantees. It may be less important to preserve competition and diversity for the sake of the market than to sustain civilisation.

Impacts on individuals

The market is not independent of society though. ICT business is steaming ahead more or less unbridled. It lobbies regulators to achieve its ends, gain access to new markets or protect existing ones, create monopolies, oligopolies, cartels, bottlenecks, proprietary restrictions. However, these actions tend to atomise individuals. The very information tools which should bring them closer together throughout the global world isolates them. They are sitting in front of their terminals connected to others only through virtual reality. Voice mail at the end of the line and Internet are replacing human beings, as tamagochis are replacing pets in everyday life. Banks are even introducing charges for service over the counter for customers who prefer human beings to virtual 24 hour telebanking. Which are the "smart communities" of the future: those whose ICT literate members surf in splendid isolation or those who have managed to maintain their skills of direct human communication? There is a limit to what extent capital can substitute for labour. Already, human resources are at a premium in the service industry after having been displaced by information technology. Thus, networking does not simply consist of mastering ICT. It remains a social skill which ICT can and should enhance and complement.

Policy options

Governments have a choice between fostering unfettered information empires or nurturing a networked information society. If they opt for empires they have to engage in fierce competition in order to attract, retain and protect a viable chunk of the globalising corporate information industry. Three information empires remain in the global game. North America is clearly winning the race, with Japan and the "tiger economies" panting in its trail and Europe losing its momentum. These ICT power blocks use their position to negotiate with supranational regulators such as WTO and UN/ITU which lack stringent sanctioning powers and leave decisions to their member governments and industries. Suddenly, the last possessions left from colonial empires may acquire a new worth in this version of the information age. The UK, for example, can and does grant satellite licences in Gibraltar, the Falklands and other colonial islands in the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, etc. which can provide world coverage. But will single member states remain powerful enough to control increasingly large global conglomerates? Already, information systems for defence and government are supplied by a handful of companies from mainly the USA and a dynamic towards hegemony is building up.

Networks instead of empires

Would it not be, therefore, in the self-interest of many member states and "regional" bodies to opt for a networked information society with universal access to both information infrastructure and content? However, even if such an enlightened global ICT policy could be agreed worldwide, it would encounter numerous hurdles. Besides the commercial pressures, it would have to tackle the diversity of languages and hence cultures. Its constitution would have to avoid a judge and jury situation. It would have to protect rights of individuals (based on universal freedom of information and human rights), as well as of collectivities especially in minority positions. It would have to reach global consensus among all players involved in ICT on obligations, sanctions, self regulation, rules of compliance, as well as enforcement agencies and procedures. Provisos would have to include collective responsibility for sustainability, guaranteeing long-term environmental protection and preservation of diversity. "Smart communities" and their worldwide networks could play a crucial part in such a scenario. The question is whether the global commercial players who have joined in ventures with many smart communities would be game.