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Digitized Paper Processes of Trinidad and Tobago

~ Taran ~ 1 Comment

Computerize THIS.It drives me a bit nuts when I have to deal with some things in Trinidad and Tobago. When I signed up for electronic billing for Water (WASA) and for Electricity (T&TEC), not to mention Internet (Amplia), I foolishly expected a process that was not reliant on paper.

How foolish of me. I have to print these bills and take them somewhere to pay them, which isn’t really an electronic transaction at all – it just saves these companies money so that they don’t have to bill me for sending me a paper bill, and also, it allows me independence from the local post (TTPost) from sending me my bills late.

Bureaucracy / Bürokratie IITo add insult to injury, the bills don’t just print on one page – they require… 2 pages. Why? Because it’s the same bill that they used to mail to me… and experimentation has shown that, no, I can’t just go with one page. I require both pages to pay the bill.

I’m sure that there are educated people hiding behind this somewhere, but it does their education a disservice to come up with systems that are hardly intelligent. It’s reminiscent of the United States in the 1990s, when some people would not let their fax machines out of their clenched fists.

PaperworkThis goes beyond bill payment – which, of course, is cursed by lack of online payment options for the masses, causing people to lose hours of productivity so that they can stand in a line to create a paper trail. Nevermind the photocopies of identification that still go on.

On a trip to the bank today to deal with paying some maintenance fees, I half-joked to the teller that trips to the bank were like visiting another country. Stamp! Stamp!

Papers, please. Reason for transaction? What’s your dog’s mother’s maiden name? How long was your stay?

Last week, a woman stood before me, not long ago, modem in hand – trying to return it to bMobile – her 5th attempt, which she had documented well with her phone and envelopes full of paper. Why so much trouble? Did you need to ask?

It should be as simple as returning the modem, which they then check the serial number of – it then becomes clear that you’re no longer using it, or should, and be pretty much the disconnection of your account unless you have another modem you purchased yourself and they are already aware of it. But this is not the process.

All of these are symptomatic of people simply adding technology to a paper process – par for the course of a bureaucracy educated beyond it’s intelligence level.

One day, it may aspire to achieve to mediocrity. We’re waiting.

Net Neutrality and Trinidad and Tobago

~ Taran ~ 2 Comments

Internet Innovation is The Goose That Laid the Golden EggThe global debate on Net Neutrality persists and the consequences are writ large for consumers everywhere.

Yet, there’s almost no interest in the Net Neutrality issues arising lately – I spent my time advocating for it to the uncaring masses who are more intent on other things that they believe are more important.

It is important though. Very important.

David Pogue of Scientific American has a great summarization of the net neutrality debate. I suppose the core of the problems happening over the heads of those in the world – not just the United States – is how the FCC classifies things in an antiquated system rather than create a new classification. The lines between being a provider of telecommunications and providing telecommunication services are said to be blurred, but the reality is that they no longer exist. The people who own the infrastructure are competing with those that don’t.

Businesses that do not own the infrastructure are at a disadvantage. They can be squeezed out by those who do own the infrastructure, effectively monopolizing user services. The end user – us, all of us – doesn’t get the variety that it would otherwise have when those that control the infrastructure can make sure that their services can run faster than their competitors. That’s the core of the issue for users.

The Local Context.

In Trinidad and Tobago and likely throughout the Caribbean, Digicel is cheering the repeal of what was called Network Neutrality (I could say it wasn’t for a variety of reasons). Their premise is actually quite real – they are rolling out infrastructure in the region at a cost, and shouldn’t they get their cost back? Of course they should, why would anyone invest in something that they don’t get paid back for? There is no digital philanthropy here, and Trinidad and Tobago’s National ICT Plans have always pushed broadband penetration, enough so that I’m surprised an over-exuberant feminist hasn’t accused the phrasing of misogyny.

Others in the local context of telecommunications have been relatively silent so far – perhaps wisely so – despite the fact that we’re connected to the U.S. pretty directly economically, through Internet connections, and through other things.

What it means, though, is that applications not owned by local providers – Digicel and bMobile mainly, since the most common data usage is through mobile phones, is that they could create competing applications to… for example… WhatsApp, and make WhatsApp undependable in the same twist. And of course, since these same providers have to report to the government by Law, will give away the encrypted anonymity that seems to only hide poor political commentary and bad pornography. Maybe there’s more to it than that, but I haven’t been added to the LOLCats group (please, don’t invite me).

It means local startup companies will have to get the blessings of those who own the infrastructure and maintain a relationship with them – practically at gunpoint.

Yet Digicel makes a valid point: Why invest in infrastructure if you don’t get paid for it?

The debate is much more nuanced than what is presented – arguably, by design. Show me a Member or Parliament, though, who has taken a stance on network neutrality. They don’t really care too much, and that National ICT plan doesn’t address it in any way. It makes us completely dependent on our own legislation, and our own legislation – despite some bold and debatable efforts by the present government – is not fast, is not as comprehensive as they might like to think, and is going to require more intellectual capital to debate and enforce than anyone seems interested in mustering.

We’re along for the ride in Trinidad and Tobago, hoping for a water taxi but instead getting a ferry to Tobago in a country that should be making strides toward progress… not stagnation. It should be making bold moves – debatable moves – that push the envelope for local talent to strike it’s colours boldly on an infrastructure being built rather than making a mockery of it by making it consumption only with no regard to using it for creating foreign exchange (we can talk about those banks another time, right?).

We could be using our infrastructure to leverage foreign exchange income, subsidizing it’s roll out while diversifying the economy. That’s not what we’re doing, and that’s why Network Neutrality is not even discussed outside of Digicel Press Releases.