Are n't Internet cafes becoming a threat to telecentres?

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Permalink Reply by Ssenabulya James on March 19, 2009 at 7:34am

Sandra and all,

I think this may not really become a big challenge to telecentres, if they well-package their services.
A live example, here in Nakaseke, we have quite a number of secretarial bureaus which do some secretarial services. They are centrally located in the heart of the town, and the telecentre is located some few meters from the town, but we still get clients who come longing for the centre services.

The case of Buwama, these people have the platform to out-compete their former legislator by repackaging their services and make adverts over the community radio, i know if you have a radio station, marketing your services can be very simple and i dont see cafe owners having so much capacity to advertise their services depending on the meagre incomes they might be getting.

Another issue is that not all telecentres have a stable link to the internet, meaning that internet isnt one of the services they provide - so, there is no competition at all.
Some centres like those in villages provide people friendly services, of which some are got free of charge which wouldnt be the case with cafes and may be secretarial bureaus which have to pay rent and other needs - meaning they have to charge whichever service they provide in order for them to be sustainable.

Thank you.

Jimmie

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Permalink Reply by Yacine Khelladi on March 19, 2009 at 8:03am

My 2 cents:
- since 2 years we run a telecentre in a rural municipality (southwast Dominican rep/Caribbean) that has no cyber yet. why? because a cyber can't yet be sustainable: not enough people are willing to pay, high costs of connectivity... once the telecentre will have created the need and habit, and critical mass of people will be willing to invest (pay) in accessing, then cyber will appear and attract most youth (and additionally allow porno download and promote pc games), then we will move from offering access to offering other things as strategic use support, content development, capacity for ICT strategic use.

- we surveyed some 380 gov supported telecentre in 2007 in Dominican republic. we found a very interesting correlation: when the more cyber centre are close/around the telecentre, the more users telecentres have. So there is a positive relation! or it means that there in places were is much more need/demand and use, there is more business for all. Studies are in spanish only: presentation style and full version

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Nassali on March 19, 2009 at 8:13am

wow, this is interesting. Thank you Yacine for your contribution. According to Community Development Telecentre (CDM), ''Cyber cafés frequently offer basic training in how to use e-mail, how to surf the Web, or how to chat, so that their customers will keep coming back. In community telecentres, training goes much further, and involves helping users to understand how digital technologies can contribute to problem solving and to human development.''

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Permalink Reply by Alexander G. Flor on March 19, 2009 at 10:24am

Dear Sandra and everyone else,

With (PPP) public-private partnerships being one of the more prevalent buzzwords in the ICT4D arena, perhaps we should take it more seriously and dismiss the thought that a zero-sum game exists between telecentres and Internet cafes.

I've just attended a UNESCO Information for All workshop in Manila and one of the speakers, Boying Lallana (whom many of you are familiar with) presented among other things, a finding in his research study that the majority of rural users in the Philippines would prefer to go to Internet cafes than telecentres, possibly because of the exact same reasons mentioned in Sandra's posting. However, Boying also suggested that telecentres should not compete with Internet Cafes because it contradicts a major policy statement (in the Philippines at least) that ICT development should be private-sector driven.

Boying's point, if I got it right, is that the spread of Internet Cafes in rural areas is a healthy sign. In the spirit of a free market, it would encourage telecentres to improve its services and facilities. Furthermore, considering the limited resources allotted to the Universal Internet Access initiative, it would make good strategic sense to build telecentres in places without Internet Cafes. In short: telecentres don't compete with the private sector; telecentres are prompted to improve their services standards; and more importantly, we can cover the field more effectively by allowing Internet cafes to thrive and make strategic use of available telecentre resources in unserved or underserved areas.

Sandy

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Permalink Reply by Wangchuk Chungyalpa on March 19, 2009 at 2:59pm

Hi Sandra,

Internet Cafes are a threat to telecentres in that, they offer services that are directly substitutable with those provided by telecentres. I think as you have highlighted, the primary difference between the two is in their objective and their mission. Internet cafe's are profit oriented. The services and the products that they offer are based on profitability and market demand. It is not needs centered. With telecentres, the services are needs centred - focused on the needs of the local community.

For telecentres to be successful, the same concepts that apply to businesses also applies to telecentres - Defining objectives, developing strategies, providing innovative products and services that are relevant, practical and applicable.

I have attached a document - telecentre.org Business Plan. The document was developed by telecentre.org in collaboration with Microsoft and other partners. It provides an excellent background for telecentre operators.

Attachments:

• telecentre-business_plan.pdf, 947 KB

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Permalink Reply by Dean Mulozi on March 19, 2009 at 3:44pm

Hi Sandra, Sara and Felician,
Are n't Internet cafes becoming a threat to telecentres??

Fisrt of all, I stongly believe that Cyber Cafes will never take over the services of the telecenters. Telecenters provide services well beyond that of the Cyber Cafes. There are distincitve characterics of the telecenters that you cannot find in a regular cyber Cafes. I will group these in the following:

1. Community Participation or local inclusiveness Telecenters embrace the local community and enable local needs of the population to be included in the telecenter services while Cyber Cafes do not

2. Telecenters go beyond commercial objetives, they provide an enabling environment for meeting economic and social objectives of the local communitities

3. The issues of service franchising and PP partnerships are also distinctitive advantages over Cyber Cafes.

4. Networking and knowledge sharing among telecenters give an edge over Cyber Cafes, So the services of telecenters are cross cutting and unless telecenter managers are able to know the status of the telecenters and identify add- value sevices, yes telecenters will be comparable to Cyber Cafes.

Again I repeat that telecenters shall remain very important community institutional structures that will stand to drive local development through their inique services. Telecenter Managers and supervisors should be able to know the status and potential value of telecenters to development.

I hope this will provide some input to the discussion


Dean Mulozi,

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Nassali on March 20, 2009 at 3:54am

Hello Dean, Wangchuk, Alexander and all. I really liked Alexander and Wangchuk's responses not because i think that internet cafes are a threat to telecentres but because of the fact that they recognizes the role of cafes from a health competitive business perspective.

I will highlight an example of telecentres that are not multipurpose, those that offer only computer and internet facilities. These hardly stand a chance of getting clients in areas where they co exist with cafes.

Most of you will agree with me that there are a few telecentres with appealing ICT facilities unlike cafes and this is what will attract any ordinary man.

In a one on one discussion with Sarah Mpagi, we argued that though telecentres have other facilities like community out reach programs which cafes do not carry out, these are also done by other organizations like NGOs, Local Government extra.

However, all this does not render our telecentres useless, some are doing a great job out there in their communities BUT only those that apply innovative skills and professional business acumen.

Sandra

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Permalink Reply by Nalwoga Sarah Mpagi on March 20, 2009 at 4:12am

Great! all these ideas are coming up. I have liked Alexander and Wangchuk's discussions as they bring out issues in the real environment. One should know that every competition is healthy and there is not any single place where there is no competition. I stood out to say that cyber cafes and telecentres are close competitors, whether one is socially bound or the other is commercially but, they mostly offer the same services to the people/community because also cyber cafes serve people from within the community.

It is all about innovativeness that we are concerned about most especially with telecentres because, they are socially constructed for the communities. Part of telecentre services is offering social gatherings to the community, as highlighted by Dean Mulozi and yes it is so fine with that.

Now let us look at the other side of issues. Suppose other areas do not have telecentres, because they are not evenly distributed in all rural areas most especially in Africa countries; should we say that other areas that have no telecentres have no access places for their social gatherings? Off course we can not forget that at least schools are spread everywhere whether rural or urban, which provide spaces for that as well. and most especially rural schools provide such spaces for the communities.

Why are we saying all this? Is to make telecentres more innovative so that community members consider them a priority in service provision.

I think those are my two cents. I really enjoy this discussion...

Sarah

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Permalink Reply by Grace wagithi Irungu on March 21, 2009 at 7:25am

If Telecentres are to stay in the business of influencing the community, more people should be reached and educated on importance the of telecentres. This should begin from the lowest to the highest level.The messages should be structed in an enter-educate approach, meaning messages should educate but also have some aspects of entertainment to avoid all people shifting to cyber jank.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Nassali on March 23, 2009 at 3:06am

Hi Jackie, this is good. Thank you for the contribution. I am impressed. Keep this up tight.

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Permalink Reply by Shipra Sharma on March 24, 2009 at 5:18am

Hi Everybody,
Here is a good trail of discussions, so it actually took me some time to go through it all.
Here I am sharing my country specific experience. In India, cyber cafes are largely an urban phenomenon and they still have to make their presence felt in the rural areas. What really offers competition to the telecentres in the rural areas are the Computer Training Centres. I have mentioned about them somewhere else on this site. These are found in abundance in every street and corner. The craze among youth to be computer literate and compete in the new job market has driven people to open such centres. And, they are offering really tough competition to the telecentres in the rural belt.
But Indain telecentres have some advantages over them:
a) The 'social enterprise' adage makes them socially responsible. They monitor the activities of those accessing the Internet , so parents are assured that their children will be learning, not indulging in objectionable activities, like visiting porno sites.
b) Because of their standing in the community (many of them are run by reputed local NGOs), NGOs and local government agencies would always prefer to channel their programs and services through them; not through a Computer Training Centre or cyber cafe.
c) Telecentres with a community owned and managed model also enjoy the support of the community. Cyber cafes or Computer Training Centres, on the other hand, are 'one man shows'.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Nassali on March 24, 2009 at 5:49am

Hi Shipra, was almost looking out for you to give an opinion about this because you always have something knowledgeable to say :-D.

Funny that things differ from one community to another, i did not know that even computer training schools can also be a threat to telecentres.

Polly Gaster (Mozambique),in his reply on the UgaBYTES Initiative mailing list pointed that in his country, it's the government that stands out to be more threatening to telecentres because governments use them as points to pass down their own interests and not those of the community to grassroots.

What do others have to say about this?

Sandra

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