Hello Izumi,
There are many areas and regions where still access is a big problem, many are using only dial-ups and they are expensive.
Even the cost of using dial-up Internet may be lower than the cost of sending a person to the area to conduct a manual survey. Of course, with the help of a local ALS, this obstacle can be reduced even further. Indeed, the function of the ALS as a way to get local public input to ICANN (via ALAC) is critical to the success of the At-Large design. ALS support would also be critical to the success of any ICANN survey intended for public input. Also, one has to be careful in designing a survey so that it is simple, quick to download, and web standards compliant. (Within my ALS, one such test is whether a website is usable with the "links" text-based web browser. -- http://links.sourceforge.net/)
I do not intend to say "keep the status quo" at all, but while AtLarge or ALAC is under the review now, I think it might be good to take some old lessons from the past to create the new future.
I agree completely. - Evan