Key Issues for the Successful Implementation of Rural Telecenters -Success Factors and Misconceptions-

1
Key Issues for the Successful Implementation of
Rural Telecenters-Success Factors and
Misconceptions-

• By
• Kenji Saga
• Chairman, the Digital Divide Study Group
• The Japan Society of Info-communication Research

2
Digital Divide Factors

• Disparity between
• Developed country and developing country
• Urban area and rural/remote area
• Differences caused by
• Income
• Education and job training
• Race
• Gender
• Age
• Disabilities

3
Why Tele-center?

• Because, without communication infrastructure, we
  cannot transform the Digital Divide into Digital
  Opportunity in rural and remote areas of
  developing countries.
• The most cost-effective solution in rural area is
  to share necessary facilities at tele-centers.
• We have various experiences of building
  tele-centers world wide.

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What is Tele-center?

• Tele-centers are public facilities that offer
  shared access to ICT.
• They are public places where people can use
  computers, the Internet, and other media get
  training and often obtain a variety of other
  communication-related services. (Roman and Colle,
  2001)
• In reality, tele-centers are full of varieties.
• Establishment and sustainable operation of
  tele-centers are becoming a important policy
  target to bridge the Digital Divide in rural and
  underserved/unserved areas of developing
  countries.

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Tele-center projects in Asia Pacific

• Community Access Programme (CAP Canada)
• Open Learning Centers (Queensland, Australia)
• Multi-purpose Community Telecenters
• (MCT Thailand, Vietnam, Mongolia, etc.)
• Tambon Net (Thailand)
• Yap SEED (Yap states, FSM)
• People First Net (PFnet Solomon Island)
• Community Tele-service Center (CTC Indonesia)
• Tele-cultural Centers (Vietnam), etc.

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Rural Tele-centers Myths and Realitiesby Dr. H.
E. Hudson (at PTC99)

• Myths (misconceptions)
• Build it and they will come
• One size fits all.
• Rural demand is very limited.
• High costs are unavoidable.
• A carrier of last resort is the best model.
• Infrastructure is all you need.

• Realities
• It is necessary but not sufficient for
  development.
• It should be customized.
• If well designed managed , various needs exist.
• Innovative technologies are reducing costs
  significantly.
• Bidding schemes introduced.
• Training, applications and...

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Factors Hindering Progressby UNDP (lessons from
Solomon Island PFnet, 2003)

• Unavailability of finance for scaling up
• Lack of national ICT strategy
• Need for more coordination on ICT
• High cost of IT
• Lack of IT capacity, right awareness
• Lack of credit for rural enterprises
• Uncertain legal situation for the Internet
• 
  Source http//www.peoplefirst.net.sb

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Key Issues for the Success of Rural
Tele-centers(Part 1) by Kenji Saga at Telecom 99

• Powerful leadership with careful management
• Participation of rural people from initial stage
• Collection of sufficient information at specific
  site
• Identification of needs from initial stage and
  design step by step development of service
  provision
• Small investment and low operational cost at
  initial stage for commercial operation, and
  expandable system design to meet increasing
  needs, and
• Development of human resources and participation
  of rural people in operation (establish
  partnership with NGOs)

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Key Issues for the Success of Rural
Tele-centers(Part 2) by Kenji Saga at Broadband
Workshop 2003

• Three additional success factors
• Strategic approach by government (and/or local
  governments/communities)
• Access is essential, but if possible, Broadband
  access to meet growing and multi-media needs
• Information sharing on success factors and
  factors hindering progress

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Success Factors Strategic approachCase Study 1
Tambon Net (Thailand)

• Integration of National Economic Development Plan
  with National IT Strategy (IT2010)
• One Tambon One Product Initiative ?
  Facilitation of local products and industries
  (SMEs) by National Economic Development Plan
• (Tambon group of villages)
• One Tambon One Product Initiative combined
  with Tambon NET project (IT2010)
• ( Tambon Net One Tambon One Tele-center
  project)

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How to expand Asia Broadband Program into Pacific
IslandersPolicy Recommendationsby Paciific
Island Digital Opportunity (PIDO)Study Committee
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Policy Recommendation (1)Interconnection of
existing HRD networks

• There is great potential in expanding the network
  connections for HRD in the Pacific Islands
  through interconnecting the existing distance
  education/training networks, such as JICA-net,
  PEACESAT, USP-net and others.
• This is more economical way than constructing a
  new HRD related network.
• It will help to raise and maintain the high
  quality and effective use of training content.

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Recent trend for interconnecting HRD networks

• JICA and World Bank Institute have recently
  agreed to link JICA-net and the World Banks
  Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) to
  enhance JICAs training capacity worldwide.
• Interconnection of JICA-net with USP-net and
  PEACESAT will realize expansion of JICA-net to
  Pacific Island nations.
• The important next challenge would be a shared
  use of contents among many projects in the
  Pacific Islands area.

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Policy Recommendation (2)Human Resource
Development Training Courses

• Locally trained and skilled personnel are
  essential for the sustainable operation and
  maintenance of ICT networks.
• The Yap SEED model demonstrates the potential and
  capacity of the Pacific Island communities to
  locally manage their own systems and develop
  local content.
• There are many schools with computer lab which
  have potential to become rural tele-centers.
  Computer lab instructor training (both teachers
  and community volunteers) are essential for the
  successful implementation of rural tele-centers.

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Case Study 2 What is Yap SEED Model

• Yap State Education Enterprising Department (Yap
  SEED) has implemented successful ICT
  infrastructure and related projects.
• Yap SEED excels by implementing innovative
  concepts for delivering education-
• Culturally relevant and grassroots efforts in
  curriculum development,
• Strategic design for distance education and for
  tools to assist students and educators, and
• Local HRD and innovation in maximizing available
  limited resources.

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Lessons Learned from Yap SEED projectby James
Stevenson

• Students are a great resource, and they are only
  limited by the tools and hardware you give them,
  BUT..
• Most teachers are threatened by the abilities of
  the students which make them feel they have lost
  control.
• Teachers need to know Its Okay if the students
  know more than they do about computersIts not a
  loss of control.

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New Realities(Lessons learned from Yap SEED by
James Stevenson)

• High school students produced multi-media
  CD-ROMs for kids in the elementary schools
  showing the differences in Yapese cultures.
• Kids of all ages take to technology like fish to
  water.
• A mix of good educational practices and
  technologies will increase students interest,
  which in turn increases learning.

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Policy Recommendation (3)Establishment of Common
Spectrum Policy

• In order to facilitate grass-roots development of
  rural information infrastructure using wireless
  LAN technology, we would recommend a common
  policy for all Pacific Island countries to
  introduce non-licensing scheme for 2.4GHz and
  5GHz band. (Example Yap SEED project)
• Wireless LAN system is becoming a key technology
  to solve last one mile issue in reducing the
  cost and realizing broadband access.

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Advantages of Wireless LAN in Pacific Island area

• Economic Efficiency
• Compared with wireless equipment installed by
  traditional telecom carriers, construction and
  operation cost are very low. Although reliability
  and stability are reduced somewhat, but
  cost-performance is very high.
• Regionality
• As the Pacific island area has few large cities,
  there is little radio interference.
• Staff Education
• The technological know-how required for wireless
  LAN is not much more than that required for
  amateur radio systems.

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Policy Recommendation (4)Broadband Access to the
Internet

• The most important problem to be solved is
  Broadband access at affordable rates.
• by President of PCC and Yap MCC
• - Present status of international
  connectivity
• Shared access to the Internet through 128kbps
  from 100 computers at Palau Community College
  (PCC)
• Shared access to the Internet through 64kbps from
  20 computers at Yap Campus of Micronesia
  Community College (MCC)

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Wideband vs Narrowband

• High speed download
• High cost? Reduction of cost by competition and
  innovative technology
• Multimedia
• Full use of applications
• E-Learning
• E-Health
• E-Commerce
• E-Government

• Low speed and take time
• Low cost? But depend on deregulation, competition
  and new technology
• Text centric
• Limited use of applications
• However, narrowband tele-center should not be
  ignored

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Policy Recommendation (5)Narrowband access
should not be ignored.Because

• There are many remote, isolated and depopulated
  islands in the Pacific Island area.
• It is essential to have access to information in
  order to bridge the digital divide.
• In some cases, broadband access will become too
  expensive under present situation.
• There are some examples of best practice using HF
  radio systems such as Solomon Island PFnet.

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Case Study 3 PFnet Solomon Island People First
Net

• PFnet is an NGO-Government partnership
  established through the UNDP project.
• Tested model for sustainable, community-owned
  rural access
• Web site portal with rich content
• Facilitated networking for
• Distance learning
• Agriculture and fisheries development
• Indigenous business development
• Rural vocational training
  (by UNDP)
• 
  

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Success Factorsby UNDP (Lessons from Solomon
Islands PFnet)

• Participation of communities
• Holistic approach (training and capacity
  building)
• Small but many (many sites with basic access
  initially)
• Popular applications (opportunities school
  push-outs location in community schools)
• Support from development community

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Success Factors (continued)by UNDP (Lessons from
Solomon Islands PFnet)

• High Frequency (HF) Radio Email
• No per minutes costs
• Range 1000 km without repeaters
• 2kbps with 41 text compression
• Secure (encrypted) closed network
• Simple Operators autonomous after 1 week
• 1 base station capacity for 100 stations
• 80W Solar power supply

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Policy Recommendation (6)Promotion of remote
island tele-center projects

• The Pacific Islands have many characteristics
  (small population, limited resources, the need
  for shared and multipurpose facilities) that
  would imply many benefits from establishing
  tele-center.
• The support needed in this area includes many
  aspects such as financing, planning, development
  of sustainable tele-center operation, and
  sometimes include power generation systems.
• Human resource development is also essential for
  sustainable operation of tele-centers.

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Policy Recommendation (7)Networking among
hospitals, health centers and dispensaries

• The health care communities in the Pacific
  Islands all share the common problem of having
  very little resources to contribute to the
  implementation of ICT networks and services that
  would increase the quality of care on-island,
  decrease the inflated unnecessary off-island
  referral costs by providing videoconferencing
  access to remote specialists.
• Health care providers in the islands need seed
  funds to initiate the planning and implementation
  of ICT networks and applications, and for ICT
  training of physicians, nurses and hospital
  staff.

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Problems to be solved

• How to realize sustainable operations for rural
  tele-centers?
• Wireless LAN technology is the only one solution
  for last one mile issue. Is it reality?
• How to implement cost-effective long distance
  access lines for the global internet access from
  rural and remote areas of island countries in the
  Asia Pacific region?
• I would like to call for discussions on these
  issues.
• Thank you for your attention.