Telecenters and Community Resource and Information Centers in Pakistan

Written for the World Bank, this 279-page document is a study of telecentres in Pakistan and in different parts of the world, especially India and Sri Lanka, as context for analysis of Pakistan's telecentre development direction. The document also analyses different approaches to creating the actual telecentres and addressing challenges which will be faced, including the
involvement of prospective large-size telecentre operators.
In attempting to support the establishment of telecentres, the document offers spreadsheets for business models and makes a case for the use of free and open-source software (FOSS).

Written in two volumes, the first volume contains a report on Pakistan's telecommunications and impacts of its growth, including suggested regulatory interventions, survey findings, international experiences, models of best practices, enabling structures of support, and business models. The second volume has details of the individual surveys done to support report findings.

The research for this publication indicated the following content and service recommendations for telecentres: electronic payments of various types of bills, like utilities; conversion of static forms to writeable forms that can be electronically submitted; interface with automated police documents like driver's licensing and car registration; and access to telephone networks, fax, printing, typing, basic educations, photocopying, and pictures, as well as telemedicine and agricultural information.

Telecentre models indicated by the research are the following: the public sector model (the Post Office), the public-private model, the private telecommunications company model, the private sector telecom operator-owned model, the development non-governmental organisation (NGO) model, and the private entrepreneurial model.

Four elements of telecentre sustainability are cited in the document:

• Local social and cultural fit is important to reach beyond the basic
  services of telephones and e-mails.
• Financial sustainability is essential for the time when subsidies and
  policy support are withdrawn.
• Political support, which, in the rural areas of Pakistan is a crucial aspect, necessitates early involvement both of the political structure and of civil society.
• Technological choice - the selection of the correct
  combination of hardware and software - can cut capital costs down by a factor of 60%, according to this document.

A section entitled "Pakistan’s Case for Sustainable Development with FOSS" states that hardware suppliers are selling technology with pirated software that cannot be replaced when it expires or malfunctions due to cost, resulting in the flooding of pirated software CDs into large computer hardware vendor markets, creating a culture of using pirated
proprietary software unknowingly.
Because, according to this section, software piracy is not only a crime under international and national copyright law, but it can
also destroy computers and data, the solution promoted by this study is FOSS, for the following reasons:

• Less dependence on imports;
• Lowered cost of purchase;
• Flourishing internet and communication technology (ICT) production with local software development;
• Interoperability; and
• Avoiding multinational vendor lock-ins.

The opportunity, as stated here, exists for a Pakistani "FOSS ecosystem" of learning communities, user groups, civil society ICT foundations, government initiatives, and international support organisations.

The final section puts forth business models with sample calculations using commercial software or FOSS and then
charts of revenues and purchase costs, costs and selling prices of services, and operating costs. Finally, annexes contain resources and references.

In summary, this document supports the following steps:

• a national policy emphasising broadband should be drafted based upon the document's recommendations with consideration of an institutional structure for a complete telecommunications programme and elimination of regulatory obstacles;
• a comprehensive survey for locations of telecentres is needed; broad stakeholder support, and, especially, public - private partnerships are recommended along with a definition of "rural" for Universal Service Funding distributions;
• a risk analysis coupled with a funding methodology should be considered along with using this study and a demand survey for estimating funding requirements; and
• a Telecentre Information Clearing House should be created along with a training infrastructure for centre operators, among other recommendations.