3.3.3 Public and community Internet access, telecentres and cybercafés

Community telecentres started in Scandinavia as “telecottages” in the 1980s and have since spread to many other developed and developing countries. A telecentre is a place where the public can access and use telecommunications. The term can mean anything from a single public phone shop to a fully equipped multimedia suite with dozens of individual workstations, office equipment and services, meeting rooms and related facilities. Although some exceptions exist, the term most commonly refers to a facility where the public can access the Internet and ICT services, as opposed to purely voice telephony services.

While phone shops are invariably a potential component of universal access and service (UAS) telephony projects, ICT telecentres have also become part of UAS programmes and finance. Telecentres can be run commercially (often very successfully), primarily as cyber cafés with some non-commercial features, or they can be run primarily for community benefit as non–profit or locally subsidized facilities. In the latter case they are usually known as community telecentres or multi-purpose community telecentres. Telecentres may also be known by many other names, such as nanasala in Sri Lanka, community e-centre in Malaysia, and so on.

This section provides an overview, through the experience and perspectives of several telecentre programmes, and commences with early cases proceeding to current knowledge.

Lessons of the first telecentres in developing countries
Three common lessons from early telecentre experience included problems with:

Gaining sufficient high speed, quality and timely access to a communications circuit that would allow users to have an Internet experience that is relevant, worthwhile and which will engender ongoing interest in ICT and capacity development. This challenge led the planners of Uganda’s rural communications development programme to focus on providing high speed Internet Points of Presence in district centres, where demand is most likely to exist and key users might emerge, ahead of focusing on telecentres. In several places, commercial cyber cafés emerged once Internet access was made available. These businesses could provide the experience as well as technical resources to support community initiatives or assist vanguard institutions such as schools, hospitals, community broadcasters and government offices. The practice of focusing first on Internet POPs has now become standard practice in many of the new generation of Universal Access and Service Funds (UASF) described in Section 3.2.2;
A fundamental lack in the quality of business management and technical skills that are required to identify and understand user demand, run a telecentre facility successfully, keep records, provide service and support users. Development practitioners and policy makers now focus on this problem, along with developmental expertise, to ensure an optimal and complementary response to the availability of both network access and UAS funding; and
Commercially run telecentres, as well as NGO or donor financed telecentres, struggle with sustainability. Often the cost of maintaining, upgrading and replacing equipment is underestimated, while service revenues are over-estimated. ICT services generally have a slower take-up rate than voice services, especially in rural areas and developing countries where more uptake barriers exist, such as general literacy and computer literacy.

Perspectives on how to approach telecentre development
These are issues to consider when developing a telecentre:

Telecentre planning needs to take into consideration a range of possible funding options and models that fulfil sponsors’ objectives [2]; and

Diverse telecentre funding models

Demand-driven models — Many early community telecentres started with over-investment in equipment, services and applications without proven demand; smaller telecentres or cyber cafés—commercial or community and non-profit based—expand and grow from modest beginnings if and when demand and affordability allow this. Good Internet access is essential.
Commercial models — Telecentres planned and run on a commercial basis and managed by local entrepreneurs, are capable of developing business plans and management systems. Commercial operators can establish a network of telecentres through the involvement of national telecommunication firms, Internet players or other technically competent organizations.
UASF funding for telecentres — The prime funding policy instrument can provide smart subsidies (ideally limited to the range USD 15-25,000 on a matching basis) for small, manageable commercial telecentres in rural areas to help offset large start-up costs, or may be used to subsidize telecentres on an ongoing basis in areas that are beyond commercial viability.
Other funding options for telecentres — Small loans and seed finance are two examples of options that international aid agencies and organizations can offer. Small loans (e.g., up to USD 15,000) can be made to local entrepreneurs or phone shop operators wishing to start a telecentre business and purchase computer equipment and other advanced ICT equipment to establish small privately owned and operated telecentres, and seed finance can be provided on a matching basis for qualifying national or regional private sector players wishing to establish or extend a larger-scale telecentre operation into rural areas.
Contracting telecentre facilities — International development NGOs and institutions, and local governments, can be major users of telecentre facilities and services if they involve the telecentre in, for example, educational outreach, rural development, public governance or health programmes. Rather than attempting to implement these facilities themselves, contracting a commercial or semi-commercial telecentre to provide certain public services brings the agencies cost-efficiency gains, while at the same time providing these businesses with additional revenue.
Multi-sector support: International development NGOs or agencies, that focus on any sector’s development which uses ICT, can align themselves with a national telecentre initiative and can sponsor services and applications that are not self-supporting, though developmentally useful, while the profitable services are commercially run and managed.

Source: Commonwealth of Learning, Chapter 1 in Telecentres: case studies and key issues, 2001.

Identify success factors and best-case characteristics of telecentres. The UNESCAP Guidebook, based on the Malaysian experience, provides an example in the box below.

Success factors for community e-centres (CeCs) in Malaysia

Focus on people, organization, content, and processes rather than on the technologies;

Research the actual needs and socio-economic goals of the community;

Provide ICTs and services via the CeCs which are relevant to community needs;

Find local champions who can motivate and mobilize the community;

Community participates capitalizing on local strengths and resources in the development (planning, implementation and operation, evaluation, monitoring) of the CeCs;

Sound business plans and sustainability models ensure CeCs’ continuing existence and growth;

On-going monitoring and evaluation of CeCs’ performance;

Foster and develop smart partnerships (government, industry, NGOs, and community) for strategizing and translating CeCs’ goals into action; and

Continue to train and educate the CeCs’ personnel and community.

Source: Guidebook on Developing Community E-Centres in Rural Areas: Based on the Malaysian experience, UNESCAP, 2006

Lessons from many years of telecentre experience, are condensed into key characteristic of “Telecenter 2.0” (Second Generation, 2.0):

Characteristics of mature telecentres (Telecenter 2.0)

Policy
Government policy recognizes the role of ICTs in poverty reduction. Telecenter 2.0 is an instrument for achieving national e-inclusion, which goes beyond mere access to technology and addresses the underlying socio-economic disparities of the poor and under-served.

Regulations
Telecentre 2.0 operates in a deregulated telecommunications environment, in which increased competition is encouraged and licensing requirements are relaxed. This will significantly contribute to successful telecentres. A Universal Access and Service Fund (UASF) assists with infrastructure development in poor rural areas considered un-commercial.

Partnerships
Telecentre 2.0 is formed and/or operates within a national alliance. Although there is no single dominant model of Telecenter 2.0 ownership or operation, all implementations fall under a form of multi-stakeholder participation that includes government, NGOs, civil society organizations, the business sector, academia and practitioners. Each partner in the national alliance, in conjunction with the communities that they work with, evolves its own model.

Funding
Telecentre 2.0 is funded and sustained by a mix of investment, subsidy and its own revenue. Government pays for services that benefit the poor, just as it does with services that benefit all citizens regardless of income, such as libraries, education, transportation and health care. At the same time, local investors are mobilized by the opportunity to make profits. Telecenter 2.0 is not donor funded.

Content and Services
Telecentre 2.0 provides/handles Internet content that is relevant to local needs and which promotes local development. Content and services are produced largely within the partnership arrangements of the national alliance.

Staff
Telecentre 2.0 is staffed by local people with skills in community development. It is probable that the staff includes women. Local staff members are able to organize community discussions and focus groups that reveal the informational needs of the community, which the telecentre can provide. Local staff is able to promote the use of the telecentre for business development and other schemes that benefit the community.

Evaluation
Telecentre 2.0 programmes are evaluated; the results indicate the extent to which local development has been stimulated, and in which women, the poor and other under-served groups are well represented. The results of the evaluation are used to advise further development of the programme of which it is a part.

Networked
Telecentre 2.0 belongs to a national and/or international network of telecentres, which facilitates the sharing of experiences and resources. Personnel meet regularly at district, regional and/or national gatherings in which they learn from each other and resolve problems of common interest.

Source: adapted from APDIP e-note 14, Roger Harris 2007.

Details on specific telecentre initiatives in developed countries are summarized in the Practice Notes The Western Australian telecentre network and Canada’s Community Access Programme. For experiences in developing countries the Practice Notes Colombia’s Compartel programme and FITEL’s telecentre experience in Peru discuss two examples that involve Universal Access and Service Funds (UASFs).

Previous Page Next Page