Abstract
Cultural values frame architectures, and architectures motivate infrastructures-by which we mean the foundational telecommunications and Internet access services that software applications depend on. Design is the social process that realizes architectural elements in an infrastructure. This process is often a conflicted one where transformative visions confront the realities of entrenched power, where innovation confronts pressure from institutionalized interests and practices working to resist change and reproduce the status quo in the design outcome. We use this viewpoint to discuss design aspects of the Urban-net, a broadband civic networking case. Civic networks are embodiments of distinctive technological configurations and forms of social order. In choosing some technological configurations over others, designers are favoring some social structural configurations over alternatives. To the extent that a civic network sets out to reconfigure the prevailing social order (as was the case in the Urban-net project considered here), the design process becomes the arena where challengers of the prevailing order encounter its defenders. In this case the defenders prevailed, and the design that emerged was conservative and reproduced the status quo. What steps can stakeholders take so that the project’s future development is in line with the original aim of structural change? We outline two strategies. We argue the importance of articulating cultural desiderata in an architecture that stakeholders can use to open up the infrastructure to new constituents and incremental change. Next, we argue the importance of designing the conditions of design. The climate in which social interactions occur can powerfully shape design outcomes, but this does not usually figure in stakeholders’ design concerns.
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Notes
Broadband, according to the US Federal Communications Commission’s use of the term “advanced telecommunications capabilities”, refers to “services and facilities with an upstream (customer-to-provider) and downstream (provider-to-customer) transmission speed exceeding 200 kilobits per second” (McGarty and Bhagavan 2002, p. 4).
Moyers (2006), for example, notes disparities in broadband access inside the US and comparatively between the US and other nations in the “New Digital Divide”.
“Economically disadvantaged areas means zip codes within Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA’s) and cities, towns and villages outside SMSA’s that are within the operating territory for (the Telco) in New York State...Median household incomes for the listed zip codes, cities, towns and villages are below 75% of the statewide median household income” (New York State Advanced Telecommunications Program 1996, First Round RFP). Underserved zip codes were defined as those “where the percentage of households without telephone service is at least 50% above the statewide average...” (New York State Advanced Telecommunications Program 1996, First Round RFP).
Apropos, access to certain services by populations with special needs is presently covered under the provisions of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, as noted, for example, by a New York State Department of Health press release from 2005: “Currently, federal Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and state regulations require hospitals to provide interpretation services to patients with difficulty speaking English or who have disabilities affecting their communication”. (New York State Department of Health 2005 Press Release, September 16, 2005)
The SRA presents a sketch of Urban-net specifications. It could be further developed by adding more detail. It could, for example, list current applications by name, as well as client/server hardware and wiring specifications. In addition to technical specifications at each layer, projected future changes could also be documented, as in “Market changes may move supported file/printer server platform away from X to the Linux operating system” and provide a timeframe for the anticipated migration, as in “eventually Protocol X will be phased out as the Internet Protocol under platforms Y and Z becomes more prevalent across the enterprise. We project that Protocol X will be dropped in the next two to three years (confidence 0.80)”.
Referred to as “Application” in a previous version of the SRA. Changed to “Network Management” to avoid confusion with end-user applications such as word processing software.
“H.323 is an umbrella recommendation from the International Telecommunications Union Telecommunication Standardization Section (ITU-T) that defines the protocols to provide audio-visual communication across any packet network” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, accessed October 25, 2006).
At this writing, the Urban-net’s governing body is exploring the possibility of new infrastructural service providers connecting to the meet point to serve users with Layer 2 and Internet access services.
Cooper (2004) lists principles of openness identified with reference to the Open Data Network (ODN) as follows: open to users, open to providers (“provides an open and accessible environment for competing commercial and intellectual interests”), open to network providers (“It makes it possible for any network provider to meet the necessary requirements to attach and become a part of the aggregate of interconnected networks”), and open to change (“It permits the introduction of new applications and services overtime” ...and “It also permits new transmission, switching and control technologies to become available over time”). See the Stockholm Declaration on Open networks (INEC 2006) for a more recent take on this idea.
We recognize that an institutionalist theory of artifact design must consider the design of what we term instruments of institutionalization – e.g., service contracts, project by-laws, acceptable use policies – that formalize social relations between the focal artifact, users and the governing body. These are instrumental for producing the routine everyday practices that allow the focal artifact to persist in stabilized state and for fostering institutionalization of that state. Space considerations prohibit analysis of such design objects.
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Venkatesh, M., Chango, M. Architecture, Infrastructure, and Broadband Civic Network Design: An Institutional View. Comput Supported Coop Work 16, 467–499 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-007-9054-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-007-9054-3