South Africa Connect

The following presentation was delivered by Karen Wrege of KB Enterprises at a South Africa Connect public seminar on the 21st of October 2009.

Spectrum auctions were first introduced in 1989 in New Zealand and since then dozens of countries have used competitive bidding procedures to award spectrum licenses for commercial services. In many places auctions have become the standard for assigning spectrum in commercial bands. Over the last twenty years, regulators have used various auction designs to assign spectrum and a wealth of white papers have emerged that describe auction successes and failures. The founders of Knowledge Based Enterprises (KBE) developed the auction program in the United States for the Federal Communications Commission. From its inception in 1994 until early 2005, Karen Wrege managed all aspects of the program and supporting software platform that was owned and operated by the US Federal government.

Auctions are a popular assignment method where the demand for the spectrum block(s) exceeds the available supply. Auctions have grown in popularity for several reasons, including recouping a portion of the value of the use of the spectrum and utilizing a more objective market-based approach as opposed to a more subjective administrative mechanism for assigning spectrum licenses.

It is important to note that the assignment phase is a small part of the complete realm of effective spectrum management which is seen as having five major components: allocation, service rules, assignment, monitoring and enforcement. To review briefly, the first step involves dividing (in the frequency dimension) the range of usable spectrum into blocks or bands of frequencies called allocations. These frequency allocations, which are often guided by the International Telecommunications Union’s radio regulations, determine the type of use allowed within that block or band. For example, the allocation might be for television broadcasting, land mobile radio systems, or radio navigation systems. The second step is to develop and impose service rules that are associated with a particular allocation. These may include technical rules that specify, for example, how the band is to be channelized to accommodate individual transmitters and the maximum transmitter power that can be used in such a channel within the band. The rules may also include non-technical constraints such as rules that determine who or what entities are eligible to receive licenses or authorizations to operate in the allocation. The third step involves assignments – granting the authority (e.g., in the form of a license) for a specific individual or entity to operate a transmitter on a specific channel at a specific location under the applicable service rules. The fourth step involves monitoring frequency use and compliance with rules, and the final step involves the enforcement of the rules and regulations established for the allocation.

Each of the steps of spectrum management is important and interrelated to the other steps in the process. In effective spectrum management, it is critical for regulators to first define their goals and objectives and create policies in each step identified above in line with those overall goals and objectives. Although they are market-based mechanisms, a spectrum auction alone cannot create a competitive telecommunications market; it is only through fair, transparent policy decisions throughout the entire spectrum management process that a regulator can hope to foster a competitive market for its consumers.

In the presentation, Ms. Wrege will identify some of the goals and objectives that countries have developed for their spectrum management activities, focusing on spectrum auctions as an assignment mechanism, and will give real world examples of success and failure.

Karen Wrege, co-founder of KB Enterprises LLC and founder of Wrege Associates has twenty years experience in implementing high stakes, complex government auctions of non-tangible assets. Beginning in the early 90’s, she developed the first combinatorial auctions for the US government, selling non-performing loans from defunct savings and loan companies for the Resolution Trust Corporation.

In 1994, Ms. Wrege developed the FCC auction program and supporting software system for the US federal government. She managed dozens of auctions for the FCC that resulted in billions of dollars of revenue to the US Treasury. In early 2005, Ms. Wrege began formed a consultancy specializing in auction software and implementation, and currently advises governments and bidders in auction design, conduct and participation. In addition, Ms. Wrege headed a team of telecommunications experts in conducting a global study of spectrum liberalization and the results of the study will be released at www.KBEauctions.com in September.

High interconnection rates charged by mobile operators have received quite a bit of coverage in the South African media recently, many have also referenced the Namibian Interconnection Benchmarking Study:

• Richard Van Rensburg, ‘Cut These Costs! - Cellphone call charges: Patricia De Lille Wants Authorities to Investigate’, You 06.08.09
• Lower call rates won’t be easy to achieve, My Broadband, 03.08.09
• Patricia De Lille, ‘Calling for action to stop sky-high cellphone costs’ The Sunday Times 02.08.09
• Loyd Gedye, ‘Call it crazy’, The Mail & Guardian 31.07.09
• Icasa agrees to look into high cellphone rates, The Mail and Guardian 31.07.09
• Lesley Stones, ‘Namibia cuts phone fees before SA’, Business Day 28.07.09
  
• John Holdsworth, How to reduce telecom costs, My Broadband 23.07.09
• Sapa, ‘De Lille urges probe into cellphone costs’, The Star 23.07.09
• Michael Hamlyn, Competition chief ’shares De Lille’s concerns’, The Mail & Guardian 23.07.09
• ‘We are not anti-competitive, say cellular operators’, My Broadband 23.07.09

Dr. Christoph Stork’s presentation on Interconnection can be accessed here, and the Namibian interconnection study can be accessed here.

[Download Presentation]

[Download Namibian Interconnection Rate Benchmarking Study]

Regulators across Europe and Africa agree that termination rates should be based on the forward-looking long-run incremental cost (LRIC) of termination of an efficient operator. Termination rates at cost of termination will remove economic distortions witnessed in Europe and Africa today and prepare the markets for a smooth transition to IP-based Next Generation Networks. The presentation reviews the latest developments and trends for interconnection rates and shows how interconnection benchmarking was used in Namibia to set termination rates.  Implementing LRIC is challenging, expensive, time-consuming, and the required information is often not available in developing countries. The benchmarking methodology benchmarks termination rates, termination costs and regulatory best practice.

South Africa Connect, an initiative of Research ICT Africa and the Shuttleworth Foundation to stimulate debate on ICT policy and regulation in South Africa

TIME: Tuesday 28th July at 4pm for 4.30.
VENUE: The Auditorium, Cell C, Rivonia Road, Sandown.
RSVP: In order to establish numbers for refreshment kindly reply to Marie Ndlovu at: mndlovu [at] researchictafrica [dot]  net, or on 011 339 1757.

All input from the March 24th South African National Broadband Forum has been received and compiled into a single document which can be accessed here.

The South African National Broadband Forum invites everyone who believes that affordable broadband access is a national priority to express their support for the development and implementation of a comprehensive National Broadband Strategy for South Africa.

A draft framework has been developed with input from multiple stakeholders at a workshop held on March 24 in Johannesburg. We believe that this framework can serve as a basis for building consensus on a
comprehensive national broadband strategy.

Please participate in the public call for expressions of support for a Comprehensive Broadband Strategy. Visit www.broadband4africa.org.za to to read and endorse the full framework which will be presented the to the new government elected on 22 April 2009 and propose that it be used as a basis for building consensus between all stakeholders on a comprehensive national broadband strategy for South Africa.

All South Africans should have affordable broadband access to the Internet!

The South African National Broadband Forum is an initiative of four organisations which share the goal of cheaper and affordable internet access for South Africa: the Association for Progressive CommunicationsSANGONeT, the Shuttleworth Foundation and South Africa Connect. (APC),

by Paul Vecchiatto [ Cape Town | ITWeb, 15 April 2009 ], originally appearing here.

The path to the creation of an information society is through the rollout of mobile broadband, and SA should acknowledge that government and regulatory intervention is all but irrelevant, says Rohan Samarajiva, a visiting Sri Lankan academic.

Speaking at a public lecture at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business last night, Samarajiva said research into the developing telecommunications markets of South East Asia holds a number of important lessons for SA.

“The poorest people know how to get the best value for their telecommunications costs. It almost doesn’t matter what plans, regulations and incentives governments and large companies place, the poorest will find the least-cost option.”

Samarajiva served as director-general of the Sri Lankan Department of Communications from 1998 to 1999, and is chairman and CEO of regional ICT policy and research organisation LIRNEasia.net. He is delivering lectures for the Connectivity and Convergence Course: Alternative Regulatory Strategies, being conducted by economic development organisation The Edge Institute.

LIRNEasia.net tracks trends and usage of telecommunications within the Indo-Gangetic Plain, which holds the world’s largest concentration of poorest people. The six countries that are researched are Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Thailand.

Samarajiva noted the proliferation of cellular phones has helped improve the lives of literally millions of poor people. This is despite the attempts by governments of those countries to at first restrain the growth of mobile networks and then to try and make money out of them, he explained.

“Licensing grants are often based on corruption rather than on what is needed. It is ironic that corruption has actually freed up the markets and brought the services to the people who need them.”

SA could do well to learn from the lessons of South East Asia, and there are a number of regulatory issues that it could apply, Samarajiva pointed out.

These include allowing for as many players in the market as possible; finding more flexible and creative ways in which to allocate spectrum; having a light market hand, but dealing with competition issues firmly; and generally staying out of the running of the industry.

SA runs the “Alitalia” model of telecommunications as opposed to the “Ryan Air” model that is now prevalent in South East Asia, he noted.

He was referring to an expensive regulatory process that leads to difficult market conditions and prices that stay high and are unlikely to be sustainable in the long-run, as opposed to a no-frills model that allows prices to fall, but quality of service could be spotty.

“You must be very proud of yourselves as a country because your total cost of ownership for a mobile phone is one of the highest in the world at $18 (R190) per month. In Bangladesh, considered one of the worst run countries in the world, this is about $1 per month.”

by Paul Vecchiatto [ Cape Town | ITWeb, 15 April 2009 ], originally appearing here.

On Tuesday 14 April 2008  5.30 for 6.00pm - Dr Rohan Samarajiva  will present the next SA Connect Public Seminar Series:  The path to the information society:  Does it lie through the mobile?  Evidence from Asia and thoughts for Africa.

“A people centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge enabling individuals and communities to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life,” was the common objective agreed upon during the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) process.   This lecture will examine the evidence from representative surveys of teleusers at the Bottom of the Pyramid in six Asian countries, including within them the Indo-Gangetic Plain that is home to the world’s largest concentration of poor people, on whether the path to the information society is likely to be the conventional computer at the end of a broadband connection or a mobile.   The possible contributions of the budget telecom network business model, pioneered in South Asia, will be discussed.  Evidence on awareness and use of the Internet, awareness, trial and use of more-than-voice services on mobiles, and on trust and related factors likely to affect electronic payments will be presented.  Lacunae that must be filled if the bottom of the pyramid is to reach the information society are identified.

Rohan Samarajiva has been active in ICT (including telecom) policy and regulation for over 20 years and is currently  Chair and CEO of LIRNEasia [pronounced Learn Asia – www.lirneasia.net ], a regional ICT policy and regulatory research and capacity building organization, based in Colombo but active across South and Southeast Asia. From 1998-1999, Samarajiva served as Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka at the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka. Currently he serves as senior advisor on ICTs to Sarvodaya (Sri Lanka’s leading Community Based Organization) and on the ICT Subcommittee of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.  He is on the editorial boards of eight academic journals, including the International Journal of Regulation and Governance and Telecommunications Policy and writes a regular column for www.lankabusinessonline.com.  His most recent book was on policy and regulatory roadblocks affecting ICT infrastructure in Asia.  He is Guest Faculty at the TERI University, New Delhi. From 1987 to 2000, he was Assistant and then Associate Professor of Communication and Public Policy and Management at the Ohio State University in Columbus OH, USA.  From 2000-2003, he was Visiting Professor of Economics of Infrastructures at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (2000-2003).

The lecture will be held in Lecture Room 5. UCT Graduate School of Business
Breakwater Campus
Portswood Road
Green Point
Cape Town
South Africa

5:30 for 6:00 pm

RSVP - Light refreshments will be served. For catering purposes please RSVP to Marie Ndlovu at mndlovu@the-edge.org.za or on 011 3391757.

Pictures from the National Broadband Strategy forum can be found on the African Commons flickr stream.

DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION - 18 March 2009

Preamble

The world is in the midst of a global financial crisis which poses a threat to all emerging markets including South Africa. How we respond will shape the next 5 – 10 years of our future. All sectors and stakeholders in South Africa will have to work closely together to turn the impending crisis into an opportunity. Not only is it necessary to mitigate the impact on jobs, our economy and society but it is also critical to stimulate recovery and address a number of development deficits, and job creation, at the same time. Broadband offers one of the ways forward to do this.

Over the last five years, developed countries have taken steps to invest in broadband as a driver of economic development. In South Africa we have pursued a number of strategies to promote affordable broadband. While these have yet to deliver, we are on the cusp of major broadband infrastructure rollout. Seacom, a submarine cable initiative, will link South Africa to India and Europe by mid 2009, breaking the monopoly of Telkom’s SAT3 cable and bring down the cost of international bandwidth. The judgment in the Altech legal challenge opens the way for anyone to build and operate a high speed broadband network further reducing the barriers to deploying broadband internet.

Broadband is not only an issue of high speed networks, it also provides a platform for disruptive Web 2.0 technologies that enable ordinary people to produce and distribute content on the Web – as the success of YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook demonstrate. These technologies are likely to become as ubiquitous on mobile devices as they are on more conventional broadband infrastructure. This poses a challenge for local content industries to generate and distribute content for a broadband world. Content is a critical driver of the demand for broadband infrastructure and services, while broadband provides a new means of content production and distribution.

While many industries are currently facing crises in their service delivery and business models with the growth of the Internet (e.g. print and media industries) and many fear job losses that can come from increased digitization, crises also provide the opportunity to shift to new business and development models if catalytic support can be provided to increase awareness, build skills, invest in content, and explore how to shift to new more sustainable models, since the Internet is here to stay.

Broadband can also help facilitate e-citizenship and e-governance in order to enhance relations between citizens and government to build and strengthen our democracy.

Improved availability of electric power is a necessary component for rolling out broadband, particularly in rural areas. The environmental challenges of our times demand an exploration of alternative sources of energy to sustain broadband infrastructure.

Broadband penetration in South Africa lags behind countries with a similar level of development such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Turkey. South Africa has fallen into fourth place in internet penetration in Africa, which is a shocking position for the continent’s biggest economy to be in. One of the reasons for this is that there hasn’t been a coherent policy framework to guide the development of broadband. The election of a new government provides an opportunity to look at the policy framework with fresh eyes and to consider the inter-related components needed to develop a coherent national broadband strategy.

To stimulate discussion on what would constitute the broad framework for such a national broadband strategy, here are some of the elements that the organizers of the National Broadband Forum felt would be building blocks for a new comprehensive strategy.

Draft Framework

Goal

All South Africans should have affordable broadband access to the Internet.

How to achieve this goal

Supply side objectives: Take steps to maximize fibre and wireless broadband infrastructure in urban and rural areas

Means to do so: All stakeholders should commit themselves to the following approaches:

1. Incentivise the building of more fibre and wireless broadband infrastructure

2. Prepare regulatory frameworks for fair access to and sharing of infrastructure, where appropriate, in the interests of maximizing the network effect of having as many people online as possible.

3. In the construction of municipal broadband network to meet their public administration needs local government should be required on a cost based, non-discriminatory basis to make available their considerable excess capacity to the public either as a public services or for commercial purposes.

4. A strategy to support the roll out of broadband networks to smaller municipalities to ensure equitable access to broadband outside of major centres as part of a public works initiative to create jobs, stimulate private investments, and deliver public services.

5. Government must make the spectrum needed for wireless broadband available – timeously, equitably and affordably - to maximize the rapid deployment of infrastructure across the whole country.

6. Where possible, an integrated approach to stringing cable in cooperation with other infrastructure build-outs should be coordinated, particularly with regard to power lines and roads and in new spatial developments.

7. Research into renewable and alternative energy sources should be undertaken to find ways of powering up broadband connectivity, computers and handsets in areas of low power. All new infrastructure should rely on renewable energy sources from the outset.

Demand side objectives: Take steps to stimulate the provision of content and use by citizens, private sector and consumers for using broadband

Means to do so: All stakeholders should commit themselves to the following approaches:

While the availability of affordable bandwidth will stimulate the development of commercial content and services, strategies to incentivise the production of necessary uneconomic content and services need to be developed, these could include:

1. National, provincial and local governments should prioritise the production of digital content, particularly in local languages, to drive the take up of e-government services which have the potential to improve service delivery in a a broadband environment.

2. Government should support R&D and innovation in content, networks, software and new technologies by creating a non-discriminatory business and regulatory environment that balances the interest of suppliers and users in areas like intellectual property rights, digital rights management and copyright. Government and the private sector should support libraries, archives, and educational institutions to digitize content and make the transition into a broadband environment.

3. Content industries should be incentivised to develop digital broadband content.

e-Governance and e-citizenship objectives: Take steps to enhance e-governance and e-citizenship in a broadband environment.

1. Without compromising existing services, national, provincial and local governments should digitize and distribute public sector information and improve access to public sector content online in anticipation of affordable broadband access for all.

2. The mandate of the Media and Diversity Development Agency should be expanded to support the media to transition to a broadband environment.

3. Universal Service and Access policy should be expanded to support community-based networks.

4. National, provincial, and local governments should prioritise the recruitment of staff who understand broadband technology and the potential of new media.

5. Non-confidential government data, especially geographic data, should be opened up to allow external parties to interface with government in innovative ways.

Education objectives: Steps must be taken to stimulate the adoption and use of advanced broadband connections in order to fully realise the potential of ICTs and digital media to support learning and teaching.

Means to do so: All stakeholders should commit themselves to the following approaches:

1. All South Africans must have access to broadband-enabled ICTs, and know-how to use them effectively.

2. Every school and university student, teacher and lecturer must have ICTs that can connect to the network through high speed broadband connections to be able to communicate, collaborate, and participate in effective learning and teaching practices.

Assessment of progress objectives: The implementation of the national broadband strategy should be monitored according to an agreed set of indicators in order to ensure the goal and objectives are met.

Means to do so: All stakeholders should commit themselves to the following approaches:

Specific timetables and benchmarks should be established to help encourage successful implementation and advancement of national broadband policies, incentives or programs.

1. A system for regular and timely collection and publication of data concerning the deployment, adoption, and use of high-speed broadband should also be instituted to ensure that our national goals and timetables are being met.

2. South African broadband networks should provide South Africans with the network performance, capacity, and connections they need to contribute to the country’s social, cultural and economic development and to compete successfully in the global economy.

This draft framework was authored by Willie Currie of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and developed by the co-conveners of the South African National Broadband Forum, 24 March 2009, http://www.apc.org/en/events/africa/south-african-national-broadband-forum: The Association for Progressive Communications, SANGONeT (Southern African NGO Network), South Africa Connect, and The Shuttleworth Foundation.

The curious approach to the telecommunications sector of the Mbeki era has finally collapsed under its own contradictions. As president, Mbeki regularly complained of the high cost of telecommunications as a drag on the economy. But he failed to see that his own government’s policy of ‘managed liberalisation’ was at the root of the problem. The government was simply unable to introduce competition into the sector to bring down prices because it was too busy protecting its own stakes in the telecom industry – in Telkom, Vodacom, Neotel and Sentech. Altech’s successful challenge in the courts to this government cartel over policy and regulation and the Minister’s capitulation has finally created the conditions for competition in telecoms in the country.

What can the new government learn from this? First, trying to manage the introduction of competition to push down prices in an industry in which you are a major player is over. The government should now take the opportunity to divest its shares in the telecom industry in favour of broad-based black economic empowerment. One simple step could be to transfer its shares in Telkom, Vodacom and Neotel from the Departments of Communication and Public Enterprises to the Public Investment Corporation. The government can return Sentech to the SABC – the experiment of trying to move Sentech beyond its core business as a signal distributor to wireless broadband operator had demonstrably failed. There may be value in retaining Infraco as a public wholesale broadband supplier but its grand plans of building submarine cables to London and Brazil should be scrapped. Seacom and EASSy will shortly be landing their cables in South Africa in 2009/10 and bringing down the cost of international bandwidth dramatically. Initiatives such as Infraco or the development of municipal broadband networks are appropriate ways government can participate in the sector, provided they are structured on open access principles and don’t discriminate against market players.

Second, the new government should develop a simple set of principles for a national broadband strategy and use them to amend the Electronic Communications Act to reflect a fully competitive telecom environment. The government should encourage ICASA to complete the competition regulations in chapter 10 of the ECA as soon as possible. Within a national broadband strategy there are a range of important functions which the government should focus on:

• promoting effective competition in infrastructure, services and applications across different technological platforms
• developing policies to encourage investment in new technological infrastructure, content and applications to stimulate demand for broadband
• developing policies that promote access on fair terms and at competitive prices to all communities
• regulatory frameworks that balance the interests of suppliers and users with regard to access to knowledge and intellectual property rights
• encouraging a holistic approach to broadband availability and diffusion in terms of supply, demand and development
• encouraging research and development in the field of ICT for the development of broadband and enhancing its economic, social and cultural effectiveness.

To do this government should appoint a Chief Technology Officer as a junior minister in a two-tier cabinet who can interface effectively with the planning commission in the Presidency. There is no need for any grand policies – a coherent national broadband strategy will suffice – and government can concentrate on enabling the emergence of a fully competitive sector to expand affordable broadband access for all citizens.

Willie Currie is the Communications and Information Policy Programme Manager of the Association for Progressive Communications

This post is courtesy of our guest blogger, Alex Rosen, Alex works at the Enterprise Division of Google but writes in his personal capacity. Alex also posts on his own blog, www.alexrosen.com.

While the meaning of that title no doubt extends beyond technology, it would be a mistake to not recognize the place that social technology and the Internet played in this man’s campaign. It would be more of a mistake to not look forward to the future and take a look at how Obama is planning to use his new post to transform how American (and the rest of the world) approaches technology policy.

First, a look back. Arianna Huffington, of popular news blog The Huffington Post, perhaps summed it up best at the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, where she commented, “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee.” By building a netroots movement, with an epicenter at my.barackobama.com, Obama’s campaign leveraged a generation of voters who spend more time tapping away at their keyboards and keypads than they do watching CNN checking their “real” mail.

Obama defined himself as a tech-savvy candidate. Photos of him tapping away at his Blackberry, 28,000 followers on popular micro-blogging platform Twitter, and a brilliant iPhone app to rally users to make swing-state calls highlight the savviness that this candidate brought to the first truly Internet run campaign. This was in direct opposition to the older Senator McCain, who just started using email and never seemed to get the power of the web to rally supporters.

Obama’s savviness does not stop here. He’s already put together a tech transition team that reads like a who’s who of Silicon Valley. The team is headed up by Julius Genachowski, formerly of IAC and founder of the startup incubator LunchBox Digital. Genachowski also led the group that advised Obama’s Tech and Innovation plan and included technology experts such as Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. It was this document that originally trumpeted the call for a new cabinet position: Chief Technology Officer. Who will fill this role is now the subject of widespread speculation.

Genachowski is one name. As an early supporter and advisor to Obama, he’d be an obvious choice. But so would others. Perhaps the most high profile is Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, seen standing with Obama as a member of his economic transition team. Schmidt and others, however, have denied the rumor that he’s interested. The usual list of high tech names are also rumored to be up for consideration: Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon, Steve Ballmer Microsoft, and Bill Joy of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins would bring a deep knowledge of the Internet industry to Washington.

But would we really want a Washington outsider in the role? In a post on CNET.com, James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is quoted as saying, “”We’ve seen lots of times where people have brought in gurus from the high-tech community, and they give up after a year because they’re frustrated. Knowing how the government works is important.” The CTO will need to bring a strong understanding technology to help bring Washignton’s systems up to date with the 21st century, but they’ll also inherit a long list of difficult policy questions, including the net neutrality debate, the agenda for the recently opened white space spectrum, and how to increase access to broadband. These are questions that require close collaboration with offices such as the Federal Trade and Communications divisions and therefore a fairly deep knowledge of how things get done in Washington, which can often be different from agile West Coast companies.

No matter who eventually gets slated for the role, it’s clear that they will help define this new role for the United States and possible the rest of the world. Other countries have a laundry list of technology policy issues that need immediate attention, not the least of which is South Africa. I’ll leave the speculation of who could staff this role in South Africa to my local colleagues, but suffice it to say the country would benefit from this role as it figures out how to get Internet into the hands of its citizens and effectively leverage technology to help solve difficult education and health problems.

Naming a CTO, of course, does not guarantee anything will get done. I, for one, hope that Obama will carry and continue the lessons he’s learned from the campaign into a presidency that uses social technology to keep citizens informed of happenings in politics and make their voices heard. Obama and his team still have that list of the millions who signed up at my.barackobama.com. His emails, however, has been noticeably absent since his victory. Sure, it’s only been a week, but who says just because you’re President-Elect, you can’t continue to post updates to Twitter and lead a netroots movement? As we look forward, it will be up to him, as well as the new CTO, to define the appropriate ways to use these technologies from the oval office rather than the campaign trail. I sure hope that Obama’s November 5th tweet won’t be his last.