Advancing Community Connectivity > Licensing: Frameworks for The 21st Century and Beyond
Licensing: Frameworks for The 21st Century and Beyond
Promote inclusive connectivity with licensing frameworks that support community networks and smaller ISPs. Discover how modernizing regulations can create a more competitive and accessible Internet for all.
Unless they’ve been specifically updated for the Internet era, most countries’ regulatory frameworks are still based on the way things were when just a few telephone companies dominated the landscape. This means that, by default, they tend to favor top-down solutions, and limit who can have a license, sometimes with severe constraints. A licensing framework that considers bottom-up solutions, including licensing for community and smaller networks, can make room for a whole range of players, and this improves the market for everyone.
Licenses for Community-Led Solutions
In some countries, only large players can get a license, or there are only a limited number available. Updating policies to make licensing affordable and accessible can set the stage for community-led connectivity of all kinds.
In areas where there are a lot of illegal networks in operation, allowing them to become licensed makes the networks more sustainable, even just by preventing them from being shut down. It also helps regulators and providers see where and how infrastructure is being deployed—and shows where Internet “dead zones” actually have access, correcting the picture of who’s really unconnected.
Working together with communities and incumbents can lead to a more diverse, competitive market, and a smaller digital divide.
Works Best When: Explicitly legislating for community-level licensing can be especially helpful in areas that may never be profitable for incumbents, or where there are a lot of illegal networks.
Obstacles Can Arise if: If communities don’t know about policy changes, they might stay unconnected, or turn to illegal networks. Policy updates need to be communicated to the people who need connectivity the most.
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Simplified Application Processes
Getting a license is a multi-step process. It can involve registering a new company, dealing with financing, and sourcing information that isn’t readily available.
Making processes simpler and easier to understand can lower barriers—and easier applications are good for everyone. But applicants in underserved or unconnected areas might themselves be unconnected, so it can help to find strategies that don’t rely on online forms and notification systems, where regular Internet access is a must.
A network of physical places that have application materials, or even schedule live, in-person application support makes the process more flexible, and more accessible to those who are trying to connect everyone, including themselves.
Works Best When: Offering physical locations can be especially useful in rural places where people might come to a population center fairly regularly, and can receive and act on information.
Obstacles Can Arise if: If offering a physical space, it needs to be the kind of place people feel safe. A marginalized population won’t always feel comfortable in some municipal or government buildings.
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Designating License-Exempt Spectrum
To use licensed spectrum or set up an ISP, providers need to have a license, pay high fees and expensive equipment, which isn’t always feasible. Designating more spectrum as “unlicensed” or “license-exempt,” to be used by technologies such as Wi-Fi, removes the licensing requirement entirely for smaller community networks and other players, for whom a license and expensive equipment might never be a viable option.
To do this, it’s often possible to free up parts of the spectrum that are no longer being used, like those for defunct military operations or outdated technologies. Where there’s unused or underused spectrum, if it’s not explicitly made license-exempt, that spectrum can end up being licensed back to large telecommunications providers, and it isn’t available as a public benefit.
Works Best When: In countries with low Internet development, having license-exempt spectrum means unlocking opportunities for low-cost, reliable connectivity, which can eventually even grow the market for larger players.
Obstacles Can Arise if: Where large incumbents have paid high fees for exclusive licensing rights, it can be challenging for the regulator to open more spectrum as unlicensed.
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- Costa Rica allocated the full 6Ghz band for Wi-Fi (in Spanish)
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© Christian O’Flaherty/Internet Society, © Elyse Butler, © José Elizeche