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<div class=""><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family:
Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal;
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display: inline !important; float: none;" class="">and partly
from the fact that there are parts of the statement I don’t
agree with. Even those parts I do agree with I think raise false
expectations for no purpose other than the political posturing
benefit of the proposers. Did I miss something or how many
trillions of dollars are being allocated to this program in
order to move African internet penetration up from 16% to, um,
30%? I see a lot of feelgood statements about how the world
needs more internet and not a single concrete proposal that
moves us toward that goal, and I just have an inherent tendency
to resist being drawn into these kinds of PR things.</span></div>
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<div>Skepticism can have its advantages. Personally I don’t
think we know enough to be dismissive ex ante about what will
actually be done, but fair point.</div>
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<div>Good to hear more thoughts.</div>
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<div>Cheers</div>
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<div>Bill</div>
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<br>
Of course I am in favor of helpful things. But living since two
years in the countryside in Cambodia, after 23 years in the capital
(where I created the first ISP in the country in 1994), I am quite
frustrated that I am again thrown back to a situation which I had
almost forgotten: low speed, high price, not stable connectivity -
and all this where also in Cambodia - in the center!!! - there is a
lot of talk about how much progress has been achieved by the present
big actors (forgetting the difficult years at the beginning where
NGOs were crucial, a situation once described with appreciation by
an ITU report). Bigger business came in only when there was
substantial money to be made (in the center - where there now is
also 4G) - to make money is the purpose of "business". I am also
told that they are not "charities" so we have to be content with
what we get at the periphery.<br>
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The Global Connect Initiative is NOT based on those business
principles? <br>
<br>
Norbert Klein<br>
Kep/Cambodia<br>
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