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1st-Mile Statement

The local sphere of telecommunications systems and services deployment and economies must be considered as the "First Mile", not the "Last Mile".

The First Mile

Most telecommunications service providers and government regulators currently refer to the home, office, neighborhoods and communities as the "Last Mile". They indicate that providing "Last Mile" enhanced connectivity, especially in rural areas, is not economically viable. They have their economic models backwards. The greatest source of value in most peoples’ lives is local, derived from self, family and community. In a globally networked and communicative society, local environments have the opportunity to aggregate and generate new economic resources, value and benefits. The local realm must be considered the "First Mile".

The commonly applied term, "Last Mile" represents a supply-side driven concept. It is a top-down, national and corporate, technical and engineering perspective on telecommunications infrastructure deployment and services delivery. It is based on legacy hierarchical thinking, intent and actions.

The "First Mile" is based on a demand-side based understanding. It describes a local geographic orientation for telecommunications infrastructure and services deployment, with a democratic social and economic perspective, that focuses on the difference these systems and services will make in the quality of peoples’ lives. The "First Mile" is rooted in realizations about the newly emerging ‘hyper-archical’ nature of networked economies, local-global relationships, actions and social change; with the provocative intent that the Information Revolution must ultimately be a "people’s revolution".

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1st-Mile Statement