Collaboration, competition, connectivity: Q&A with Paul Garnett of Microsoft's Affordable Access Initiative

As the cost of bandwidth on fiber networks comes down, startups are seizing the opportunity to deploy terrestrial wireless networks that can deliver internet access at lower cost and higher quality than satellite, even in remote areas. The approach could help to tackle the “digital divide” — an increasing concern on the global development agenda as communities with poor internet access risk falling further behind, according to a report published on Wednesday. At Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi, for example, the telecommunications company C3 is on the verge of replacing satellite internet with its TV white space and wi-fi network, which is capable of providing high-speed broadband, said Paul Garnett, director of Affordable Access Initiative at Microsoft. “Most markets now have decent fiber optic backhaul networks, and there are companies that would love to be able to leverage that infrastructure to deliver broadband access to small businesses, governments, and of course NGOs and the development community,” Garnett told Devex. “A lot of it is muscle memory,” he added. “A lot of these relief agencies will do what they’ve always done. But I think they need to understand there are other options now available in the markets that they serve.” C3 was one of the 12 winners of the first Microsoft Affordable Access Challenge, one of the ways in which the Seattle-based technology company is supporting new technologies and business models in an effort to reduce the cost, expand the reach and improve the quality of internet access. Garnett spoke to Devex about how Microsoft is working to close the digital divide alongside organizations in the technology industry and the global development community. Here are excerpts of that conversation, edited for length and clarity. Microsoft is one of a range of technology companies working on different solutions to the same problem. At a recent event hosted by New America, you argued that while there are opportunities for collaboration between tech companies, you are ultimately competitors. Can you comment on the state of collaboration or competition on efforts to connect the 4 billion people worldwide without internet access and what might change this? If you look at the major tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others, I think all of us have a shared goal of seeing internet access become more ubiquitous, lower cost and more robust. We certainly can agree on that. From a policy perspective, there’s a lot of collaboration that we do with those companies — for example, in the technology standard space or wi-fi certification. Even in research and development there is definitely some great collaboration that occurs in that area between companies. But at the end of the day, we are competitors in the marketplace, and that’s a good thing. When it comes to partnering up with internet service providers, and through those partnerships... deploying networks and delivering low-cost internet access alongside cloud services, that’s going to be done in the spirit of competition, right? Right. But as a report released this week points out, one of the gaps in the global response for universal internet access is a lack of reliable and comparable data from implementation efforts. Data is a really hard thing. It’s something that’s actually fairly easy to gather at a set point in time, but it’s very hard to track over time. Especially when you’re talking about these kinds of projects in emerging markets. We’ve been involved in monitoring and evaluation efforts. Some of that has been successful and some of that frankly has not been successful, in part because things don’t happen on a schedule… At a high level, some of the key lessons from these projects are certainly something we can and do share with each other… We have to sort of think carefully about what data do we share against a common goal and what data do we keep to ourselves. Microsoft is hosting an event in Washington, D.C., where the findings from the report — from SSG Advisors, the Digital Impact Alliance and the U.S. Agency for International Development — will be discussed. What were the main takeaways for you? Internet access needs to be prioritized as part of any development agenda. It can’t be an afterthought. Given the fact that affordable internet access is essential to social and economic participation in the 21st century economy, I think we can all agree to that. Internet access needs to be mainstreamed from a development perspective… The development community needs to direct more resources to addressing this issue of the digital divide. The first thing is we need entrepreneurs to have access to capital in emerging markets and so it’s really critical that donors like USAID, the U.K.’s Department for International Development and others make funding available for projects that will likely occur at small scale and for the banks — the regional development banks and others — to make bigger funding available to enable companies to scale up their great ideas in emerging markets And what would you add to the report? What I think is critical is that the development community addresses the skill gap that they have as it relates to telecommunications and ICT, whether that’s economists or engineers or lawyers or policy experts, there really needs to be a “skilling up” within the development community of these areas… All too often, what I see is the development community really is in receive mode when it comes to the issues … It is not in a great position to be able to discern between fact and fiction in this space, and of course in the technology industry a lot of hype does happen and so you need to be able to understand what’s real and what’s not real… That’s a critical area that needs to be addressed. At the same time as global development organizations could benefit from increasing their understanding of technology, it seems like technology companies could benefit from increasing their understanding of global development. Do you think this need for one side to learn from the other goes both ways? Absolutely… For Microsoft, we have the advantage of having been in these markets for longer… But the reality is that, in order for us to be successful in these markets, we need to really understand their needs, and also to really understand how these institutions all work. So being able to work with donor organizations like USAID and DfID and others and also with the lender community, as in the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the African Development Bank… and organizations like the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. It’s an area that has traditionally been a bit of an unknown for the tech industry and I think we are getting to know each other better over time. You have said that terrestrial is king, whereas Google and Facebook seem to be pursuing aerial solutions in addition to terrestrial solutions, and new players like SpaceX are just starting to get involved. What do you hope to see from investments in the range of approaches we have? We take a simple and practical approach. We look for opportunities that in our view will deliver the greatest social and economic impact for the least amount of investment. And then with all of our projects we look for commercial viability… From a technology perspective we really do take an anything goes approach. We view the full range of technologies really as a toolkit … What we’ve found in our projects in emerging markets so far is that if we can get close to fiber that’s ideal because fiber delivers very high-capacity connectivity for large populations. But we know that the paved road will end somewhere in most of these markets, even in the U.S. So we will find fiber and then extend that with some sort of terrestrial wireless technology or group of technologies… Now, in situations where fiber is not available, in rural areas or in countries that have not yet successfully deployed decent fiber long haul networks, satellite is certainly a suitable alternative. So in those cases we would look to satellite as a backhaul option… The industry is changing so rapidly and new technologies are coming to market all the time that will reduce cost… So if satellite comes along with a more cost effective solution, then we will certainly look at that and likewise referring back to the Google and Facebook work if balloons and drones provide cost effective solutions we will definitely look into that. Microsoft works internationally as well as domestically on the challenge of affordable internet access. More than half the global population has never been online, and in the U.S., 34 million people lack access to internet. What are the opportunities for cross learning? As someone who has come from the telecom industry, I think conventional wisdom has always been… that new technology and business models will always be developed in developed and urban markets and later adapted and made available in emerging markets and rural areas of developed markets... But the problem is that these technologies have been developed with a particular kind of customer in mind… From a Microsoft perspective, and we have seen this as well from other companies in this space, there is this idea of upending conventional wisdom by developing new technologies and business models simultaneously in both emerging markets and in developed markets. Devex delivers cutting-edge insights and analysis to the leaders shaping and innovating the business of development. Make sure you don't miss out. Become a Devex Executive Member today.