Telecentre in a Box Concept

"Rural Telecentre in a Box"

Concept & Proposal for

A Robust, Turnkey Telecentre System & Appropriate Utilities/Applications for Rural Telecentres

Date: February, 1999

By Dr. Don Richardson of the TeleCommons Development Group

http://www.telecommons.com

512 Woolwich Street

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

N1H 3X7

Tel: 519-821-5787 x 241 Fax: 519-837-9883

Email: don@tdg.ca

Overview

The "Telecentre in a Box" is a robust, user-friendly, "turnkey" configuration of several networked PCs providing a variety of Internet utilities/applications, instant access to practical e-commerce utilities, easy to use local administration tools, and globally accessible administration and information tracking tools (extremely useful for evaluation purposes). The "telecentre in a Box" is designed for installation and applications in rural areas of developing countries, and can be administered locally by people with basic computer skills.

The "Telecentre in a Box" is also designed to be a product that can be adopted by Internet Service Providers, telecommunication service providers and various entrepreneurs within a country to create profitable rural telecommunication access points. Once tested and proven, development costs can easily be leveraged for installation of hundreds of "Telecentre in a Box" systems throughout the world, providing "instant" telecentre solutions at a per-community cost of between $10,000 - $15,000 USD per 3-terminal telecentre system.

Using a web portal tool, local users will have access to a wide variety of dynamic local web content and resources, e-commerce utilities for small and medium enterprises, as well as internationally relevant resources. The web portal can be administered both locally and remotely (e.g. in a small town in the Philippines and at the World Bank in Washington and at PanAsia in Singapore). Local web tools can include facility for hosting local/regional chat groups, buy & sell advertisements, e-commerce transaction systems, electronic auctions, on-line classified ads, employment database, and agricultural commodity markets.

Local User Utilities

utilities for e-mail ("Hot-mail" style)

remote data storage (no disks – no viruses from disks)

web searching configured for locally relevant content

a mini-web-portal for the region (portal contents can be updated remotely and/or locally via administration tools) including local and international links to:

health information
agricultural information
rural development information
government information
educational resources
development agencies

facility for hosting local e-commerce facilities for small and medium enterprises (simple point&click utilities for marketing products and completing transactions), buy & sell advertisements, electronic auctions, on-line classified ads, employment database, chat groups, and agricultural commodity markets

Administration

Local admin:

customized web-portal for local information, address and contact information, technical support, services and prices, add/update/delete user accounts, security controls, banner advertisement control and billing, e-commerce control and billing, upgrade software and services for all machines, and other basic services as locally required.

Global administration/info gathering:

monitor number of accounts per location, time and volume of use, pages visited, employment and sales success rates, volume of economic activity, aid agency services referenced, push news and information down stream to specific telecentres or regions, modify regional information, links, resources, upgrade software (clients and servers), graphically chart indicators, generate reports on all indicators.

Hardware

Hardware choices are based on ease of use, reliability and local manufacturer support/servicing.

Basic system configuration for a 3 PC network:

web ramp ($500)
three iMacs ($6,000)

Installation Requirements

set up the systems locally

write the mini-portal version 1

write administration utilities version 1

train local administrators in system administration

train local administrators in promotion and marketing of portal applications and telecentre services, including training services based at the telecentre (email, word processing, etc.)

Indicative Budget for 3 separate telecentres within a rural community

Fixed costs:

Hardware – 3 separate 3 PC networked telecentres @ $8K each $24,000

Local setup & training (based on 1 technical person for 2 weeks) 7,000

Training in promotion & marketing (based on 1 person for 2 weeks,

inc. materials and workshop costs) 7,000

Airfare for 1 technical and 1 training person 8,000

Per diem @ $150/day overseas rate x 5 person weeks 5,250

Sub-total fixed costs 44,250

Development costs:

Write the mini-portal version 1 & admin utilities version 1 80,000

One on-site visit (after one month) for updating revision of local apps 14,000

Two years off-site admin. support, updating, info gathering, &

evaluation - $40,000 per year 80,000

Sub-total development costs 174,000

Note

Development costs can be spread out over several telecentre in a box installations in various regions or countries. Based on analysis and evaluations of version 1 of the mini-portal and version 1 of the administration utilities, software can be updated as user demands change, etc. Software updating for additional versions would be in addition to development costs.

Value-added:

Built in evaluation tools – therefore little or no additional cost for evaluation of telecentre equipment use.