The new Constitution of Ecuador, which was passed in October of 2008, now legitimises the use of wireless networks as a way to achieve universal access. In the debate leading up to the new constitution, the wireless networks were able to boast low cost, sustainability and using existing and free waves to the communities and organisations using them. In an attempt to connect paper to practice, APC conducted a study on the possibilities and the political and regulatory context of this type of network, and explore a few success stories that took place over the last few years.

In rural Latin America, women are fed up of hearing that they are “too old” to use computers. “ The lives of many women in Latin America have changed significantly in the past few decades. Rural women in their thirties have at least primary school education and know their rights thanks in many cases to community radio,” says APC’s Dafne Sabanes Plou. “They are ready for a place in today’s networked world.”

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) condemns the precipitated and unilateral decision of the coup government in Honduras to take over management of the .hn domain and affirms our solidarity with the long-time domain administrators, RDS, a pioneer provider of internet services especially oriented to civil society networks in Central America. APC calls for immediate dialogue with all stakeholders towards a positive solution for the Honduran people, prioritising the stability of the domain name system and the stability of the internet.

The Honduran Sustainable Development Network has been running Honduras' .hn domain since the 1990s and is a pioneer in providing internet services in Central America especially oriented to civil society networks. Now they have been ordered to hand over control of .hn in an arbitrary decree made by the current Honduran dictatorship. Find out more and take action.

In Latin America there is still a lack of universal access to telecommunications infrastructure in general and broadband in particuar. Some countries have chosen to develop national and local internet traffic through national access points (NAP) to keep prices down by avoiding international networks. However Venezuela has not yet taken the decision to install a NAP. APC research takes a look at the situation behind the deadlock.

In Peru companies like Claro or Telefónica ignore rules and regulations when the time comes to sign the contract with the end user. Moreover, they reserve the right to block certain types of internet traffic, like voice over internet, infringing on a principle referred to as “net neutrality”. In one of our latest investigations, APC analyses this principle and illustrates it with examples from both Peruvian legislation, as well as the practices of the telecommunications companies in the country.

The Andean region has some of the lowest fixed telephone line, mobile telephony and broadband penetration rates of all Latin America, the continent with the starkest economic disparities in the world. In the 90s, Andean countries adopted new liberalisation and privatisation policies in order to attain universal access. Almost 20 years later, these promises have not been fulfilled. APC studied each country through national reports in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela in order to understand this failure. As the State in countries like Venezuela and Ecuador has begun to play a more pro-active role, the research also analyses their effectiveness and the opportunities and challenges of this renewed involvement.

There aren’t that many options for the deaf in Venezuela, and those who do have full time employment often find it difficult to take time off for other activities like professional courses. But the Cisco Networking Academy found a way to train four men and two women who can not hear, on IT Essentials. This course, an initiative by APC member EsLaRed, was given in Venezuelan sign language and was a great success – not only to those who gained the new skills, but also to the project creators, who believe there is potential to apply the project in other communities worldwide.

In San Ignacio de Moxos, an area located in the Beni region of northern Bolivia, the only internet connection available was an expensive and intermittent telephone connection. Since March 2006, thanks to the local campesino centre and wireless internet, the main institutions in the area have been interconnected, so that the inhabitants can access the internet at a quarter of the price it used to cost them, connecting them to each other, the rest of the nation and the world.

One hundred institutions in rural areas of Paraguay with access to the internet. Poor indigenous communities experiencing contact with the world beyond their local surroundings for the first time ever. These are just a few snapshots of the outcomes achieved by Oportunet, a project launched in 2007 in Paraguay that has demonstrated the potential of the internet as a door to economic and social development in the poorest communities.

Carlos Afonso, Executive director of APC member Information Network for the Third Sector (RITS), has recently been awarded the ARede 2008 award for digital inclusion. Carlos was named Personality of the Year, for his dedication to promoting social inclusion through the internet.

On 19 November 2008, the Internet Society announced that ESLARED (Fundación Escuela Latinoamericana de Redes) was the 2008 recipient of the prestigious Jonathan B. Postel Service Award.

Last year APC and partners trained local technicians, community leaders and telecentre operators from the Andes on the basic principles of setting up wireless internet access in their communities. Now the participants report on the impact once they went back home.

ITeM has been coordinating IFIwatchnet since 2005.

As part of the TRICALCAR project a set of seven new training modules, which the WILAC network is pleased to share with its African counterpart, has been made available. The modules range from WiMax to energy for telecommunications systems, visiting VoIP, long distance wireless links and community, gender and technology on the way. There are even sustainability strategies and network planning modules.

APC’s new member Sulá Batsu is a cooperative operating in Costa Rica since 2005. It sees itself as a collective workspace for social change. It’s experience spans over the sharing of knowledge, social economy and information and communication technologies. APCNews interviewed Margarita Salas of Sulá Batsú in order to grasp the challenges associated with the cooperative model, the opportunities and challenges that the internet represents in the Costa Rican context, the link between gender and technology and her perspective on what is referred to as social economy.

Mobile phones can be the way into the information society for lower income people and less developed regions. Some structural factors help: mobile phones do not require either electricity or special training and the costs of connectivity are much lower than those of landline telephones.

Through an initiative of the Information Network for Civil Society (RITS), Latin American and Caribbean actors met in Rio de Janeiro in November 2007. Why in Rio and what for? To exchange ideas on the issues that were debated at the second Internet Governance Forum. Read the main pointers.

Journalist Miguel Peirano finds that "Many people think that a laptop for every child is a magic solution and that just giving the children a machine will make them happy," in his well-documented opinion piece about the CEIBAL Plan. This Uruguyan adaptation of the One Laptop Per Child project turns this South American nation into the only country in the world that has adopted, as government policy, the proposal to endow every schoolchild with a low-cost laptop connected to the internet.

Education, collaboration and co-operation marry and merge in the Argentine classroom, through a unique volunteer-driven project called GLEducar. This project was innovative enough to earn a special mention from the jury of the first APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize. In this interview, Gleducar secretary Daniel Osvaldo Cardaci explains their logic and concerns.