Finding ways to serve rural people is one of the most critical concerns in International communications technology development. Here in South Africa the Government established the Universal Service Agency (USA) to spearhead this effort. In 1997 the USA conceptualised a telecentre pilot project for this purpose. Six pilot telecentres were set up in the Northern Province, Northern Cape, KwaZulu Natal, North West Province, Free State and Eastern Cape provinces. The idea was to learn from this pilot project and hopefully come up with the most appropriate method for serving rural people. The USA was aiming to fine-tune this method of service delivery based on the lessons from the pilot and start with the implementation of about sixty of these telecentres during 1998. Some lessons have now emerged.

The lessons are not only important and relevant to the South African experience but for all people around the world who are involved in this work.

2. Technology

The telecentres in the pilot are connected via the fixed wireline network of the national carrier, Telkom South Africa. Each telecentre has six exchange line connections. One of the lines is dedicated to a fax. One line is dedicated to Internet access. This leaves four lines for voice telephony. The telephone lines are connected to a telephone management system that monitors telephone usage. The system allows the operator to load the phones with money amounts. A photocopier and a scanner are also provided. Telecentres are equipped with an overhead projector.

3. Services

Users can do the following:

• Make and receive telephone calls to and from anywhere in the world,
• Send and receive a fax to and from anywhere in the world,
• Make photocopies,
• Use the computer for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation applications and more.
• Users can have any of these services done for them by the telecentre organisation.
• Send and retrieve electronic mail,
• Search for information on the Internet.

4. Evaluation and results

The telecentres were launched in the following order:

• 19 March 1997 Ga-Seleka, Northern Province
• 01 April Ndevana, Eastern Cape
• 16 April Thaba Nchu, Free State
• 22 April Pescodia, Northern Cape
• 28 April Bamshele, KwaZulu Natal
• 12 May Winterveldt, North West

The starting point is that for telecentres to be a long-term solution, they must be sustainable. Sustainability, as used in this document, means financial sustainability. At the least, a telecentre must pay for its cost.

At best it must generate a surplus that can contribute in local economic development. This means that the test therefore is that first the telecentre should provide quality service to the local community. For example a telephone should be of an acceptable voice quality and work most of the time (functionality). Second the facility must be available for the community at all reasonable times (accessibility). Finally the operator must generate revenue to cover the costs and make a reasonable surplus (sustainability). Other indicative factors are more of a long-term nature (e.g. wider social economic impacts).

4.1 Accessibility

Most telecentres are open from 8.00 till 17.00 on weekdays and from 8.00 till 14.00 on weekends and public holidays. People of all age groups, with younger people dominating, use them. In this sense they are reasonably accessible.

4.2 Functionality

The equipment is working most of the time. Occasionally Internet and email is not working. This is attributable to three things. First the operators' competence in using Internet/email is lacking. So are most users. Second, most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) do not have local points of presence (POPs) and aaccess is relatively expensive. Thirdly the software installed on most computers is inappropriate and of poor quality (crashes most of the time).

4.3 Service usage

The telephone is by far the most commonly used, followed by photocopying, fax, computer work (mainly word processing), and printing. At most telecentres, except Ndevana computers are not optimally used. At Ndevana they are used for training (but not so much for generating revenue for the telecentre). A scanner and overhead projector has never been used at any of the telecentres.

4.4 Sustainability: Operational costs, expenditure and income

The pricing of services is not uniform but varies from centre to centre. Pricing structures and policies do not reflect the cost of provision. They are based more on guesswork and comparison with other similar providers.

Almost all centres have not received Telkom's bills by the end of July 1998 or incurred any expenses. The income generated by the telecentres is quite reasonable. For example, the Ndevana telecentre generated R14 665.25 between 02 April and 27 July 1998 (Note that this is gross income). If this is maintained or even improved through other support mechanisms, the telecentres could be sustainable over time.

Two of the telecentres (Thaba Nchu and Winterveldt) are not operational as of today (17 August 1998). Thaba Nchu does not have grid power. Winterveldt was closed on account of the equipment theft that occurred there.

5. A summary of the main problems and how they can be resolved

A major difficulty of the telecentres is that there is no proper financial systems at most of these telecentres. The operators cannot accurately record transactions. This is clearly a function of their training that they received from the USA. For example, they are not able to generate a shift report from the telephone management system nor from the fax machine. The training was good, but very general. It did not prepare them for the day-to-day activities of running a business.

There is no clear understanding of the responsibilities and obligations.

For example, some telecentre operators think that the USA has to pay their salaries. This is clearly inadequate communication on the part of the USA as well as from the representatives of the telecentre organisation who received the training from USA.

Other areas that need to be clarified relate to salaries, ownership of the telecentre business, the equipment, stocks, payment of expenses.

There is no tariff and pricing guidelines. At one telecentre, for example users are charged R0.30 per page to make a photocopy. And this is way below cost. On the other extreme, to send a fax outside a province, the user pays R7.50. The point here is that the price is not related to costs.

Security is another major concern. When a theft occurred at one telecentre, it was not clear whether or which equipment was ensured.

There is sub-optimal use of the equipment.

In summary, the telecentre organisations are not in a position to properly manage their business. They are unclear about their responsibilities. The USA does not have a management system to monitor the performance of the telecentres and detect misuse or misappropriations should they occur. There may be a need also to clarify the role of the USA as the franchisor.

Before proper management of this investment can be guaranteed, it would not be good acceptable practice to go ahead with the implementation at a large scale.

6. Suggested solutions and wayforward

The USA has a duty to facilitate access to communications technology. It must do so with more clarity as regards management and monitoring. The USA must move ahead from a sound basis. The idea, as was the intention, is to take these lessons very seriously, learn from them, refine the project and move forward. The USA has reached a very important stage of its pilot project: evaluation and refinement.

There has obviously been a delay in the planned implementation programme. In order to make up for lost time, the Universal Service Agency has adopted the 3P (Private/Public Sector Partnership. The partnerships should address the following areas:

1. Develop a management system for the USA and for the telecentre organisation the system should give the USA the capability to monitor developments at the telecentres (monitor use of equipment to advise on expansion when necessary, get a true reflection of income/expenditure of the telecentres). It should enable the telecentre organisation to effectively and efficiently manage the business).

2. Expand on and communicate the responsibilities of the USA and that of the telecentre organisation (clarity on ownership, level of support from USA, complaints handling, etc.)

3. Provide a clear guideline on tariffs and pricing policies.

4. Adopt a modular approach in relation to equipment and services.

Biography:

Fikile Khumalo has been in the telecommunications sector since 1983. The then Department of Posts and Telecommunications trained him as telecom technician. Upon qualifying as an artisan, Fikile was stationed at the Bryanston subscribers' centre where he was involved with the installation and maintenance of residential and business telephone systems including exchange line connections, PABXs, SOR18 carrier systems, BTS, and many more.

During this time Fikile was involved in the efforts to establish the first democratic trade union that organised workers in the telecommunications sector. Because of his involvement in the trade union movement and in other activities of the liberation struggle, he was forced to leave the country after relentless harassment from the Apartheid security forces.

In his years in exile, most of which was spent in parts of Africa and in Europe; Fikile studied and obtained a Bachelors of Arts degree with honours from the University of Kent at Canterbury.

On his return to South Africa Fikile became part of a joint Congress of South African Trade Union/African National Congress (COSATU/ANC) delegation that negotiated the introduction cellular telephony with the then Government and prospective licensees.

When the National Telecommunications Forum (NTF) was established in November 1993, he was appointed its national coordinator. The NTF was largely responsible for the formulation of the telecommunications policy and legislative framework that resulted in the Telecommunications Act 1996

In 1996 Fikile rejoined Telkom's Corporate Customers Business Unit as manager responsible for competitive analysis (market research)

He joined the Universal Service Agency in March 1997 as senior manager (research & analysis). Fikile was appointed by the Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting as Acting Head of the USA in August 1998.