Community Network Readiness Assessment

What is Community Network Readiness Assessment course?

Community networks help bridge the connectivity gap. Every network deployed and operated by a community to meet its own connectivity needs is another step closer to closing the digital divide.

In the past decade, the community networks movement has proven to be an effective way to help connect the nearly three billion people that are still offline. However, community networks still face many challenges.

To ensure that a community network is as successful and sustainable as possible, we recommend you conduct a readiness assessment before you start.

This training course covers critical aspects of a community network’s deployment and sustainability. It will provide methods to analyze and assess if a community has favorable conditions for deploying and operating a successful network. The course will also share some practical elements related to operating quality and affordable telecommunications services in a given location.

What are the course objectives?

• Understand the function and services of a community network
• Gain a broad understanding of the planning and deployment of a community network
• Learn about the strategic and sustainable organizational structures and partnerships of community networks
• Assess the financial sustainability of establishing a community network
• Assess whether a community will benefit from and be able to sustain a community network.

What are the expected outcomes of this course?

• Explain what a Community Network is, its functions and benefits
• Describe how a community network can impact the community
• Describe the challenges and requirements (technical, legal, social and financial) for developing a community network in a given community
• Understand the different roles of NC stakeholders and, more particularly, the role that the community plays in establishing a community network
• Evaluate and analyze whether a proposed community network is ready for implementation
• Identify and engage potential partners/stakeholders to support the Community Network
• Design and lead the implementation plan to deploy a Community Network

Who should attend this course?

Prerequisites: 

• You must have a good understanding of how community projects are organized.

You should attend this course if you:

• Have a solid understanding of how to plan and deploy a community network in your area
• Understand the social impact objectives of building a community network
• Become a local partner of the Internet Society or support a community to deploy a community network
• Understand the policy and regulatory dynamics involved in building a community network  
• Understand the strategic organizational and operational structure of community networks
• Learn how to make a community network financially viable and sustainable

How do I enroll in a course?

When do I start?

This course lasts six weeks. Registration period opens three weeks prior to the course start date.