Observations on a visit to three telecentres

By Heloise Emdon: Snr Programme Officer, Acacia Southern Africa

Manhica Telecentre

1. Busy telecentre, five hubbed machines, two-centre administered telephone lines, a fax machine, photocopying, TV&VCR
2. IDRC support to CIEUM has been in terms of technical assistance to establish, equip, develop capacity to manage the center, support the mobilization of community to oversee the telecentre, prepare the centre for self-sustained management and also mobilize other donor support. The IDRC support to the two telecentres (Manhica and Namaacha) ends in December 2002. IDRC research results will be monitoring of the implementation process, the use of the centre, the community management and community selected business solution after indepdence of the IDRC grant.
3. Telecentre is a significant TDM client, but has not achieved “priority” or “corporate client” status with TDM.. Consequently, the high line fault rate that the centre experiences is not matched with client service or concern from the operator.
   • In discussion with both Polly Gastor and centre manager it became evident that the centre was not aware that as a TDM customer it had the right to claim a rebate due to high faults on the line. That if there were no customer satifaction following this route that the mandate of the regulator was customer protection (and as translated by liaison officer: Marielle Rowan, that this is theoretical) it became clear the powerlessness that consumers, even large customers like the telecentre with a monthly bill for the three lines of between M6 000 000 and M8 000 000 (CADS$500 – CAD$650).
   • The effect of this poor quality service is that when the telecentre clients, who are billed US$-1.5 per half hour to browse, have continuous faults and therefore can only start browsing after several attempts, the centre is unable to charge the clients for the failed hits, but must absorb the cost of these failed calls. TDM charges a minimum 3minute setup charge per call, even if there are faults which accounts for one of the contributory issues that make the internet service very expensive, but the centre is not recovering these costs. Nor is the centre aware of its customer rights in relation to both the monopoly fixed line and the regulator, who is appointed to, inter alia, protect consumers of the vagaries of monopoly service providers.
   • Noted the statistics being gathered by the centre regarding attendance of men, women and children. Remark: That the data should also record the time of the visit in  order to ascertain if there are any patterns of attendance, predominance of children at what time, women at what times of the day or week, etc.
   • Remarked that the faults should be recorded manually and request made for itemized billing so that intenet line in particular can be monitored for failed attempts (calls shorter then say 20-30 minutes, the mininum billing period of the centre and especially those of less than 5 minutes should be noted as faults and rebated)

Gondola and Sussundenga Telecentres

(Opened May 2002, Kellogg Foundation funded)

Gondola, about 40kms from Chimoio, has a well-signposted community managed telececentre, funded by Kellogg Foundation. The project was only recently opened in May 2002, also supported by CIEUM under programme management of Polly Gastor is well signposted, just off the main road, and was soon to have had competition from TDMs own internet café. In fact, I met a group of six of TDM marketing group staying in Chimoio who were opening the TDM telecentre in Chimoio’s Shoprite centre the day I was leaving the town. Gondola was the next to be launched, probably within the following week.

Sussendenga, a small town near the forestry reserve about an hours drive Chimanemane was launched around the same time, is small, but seems extremely workable, has a dynamic women manager. The users there mid-morning were a social worker from a government dept to use the PC for typing a report and the community radio journalist whose was working on programme material. Sadly, though the community radio, in the same centre, had inherited equipment, it had not been able to use it since December when lightning struck it. He patiently and persistently continued to volunteer his time and develop programme material especially concerning the camp fire project in the region. There was a young volunteer worker from America accessing emails from home.

The Forestry department regional headquarters in the town is where the forestry researchers live, and the IDRC/Ford was responsible for the email contact between this office and Chimoio. However, the modem was struck by lightning late last year and has never been replaced. There seems no great demand for the use of emails or the internet from the staff at the foresty department in Sussendenga.

The telecentre manager told me that this was typical of people using the telecentre. Only the “immigrants” like myself and the volunteer teacher were interested in the internet and emails. The local community came to learn how to use the PC’s and those who were computer literate came to use the PCs but not the internet. People in the community did not tend to have email addresses, even though the connectivity from this remote town was quiet good.

Recommendation:

The clear lack of consumer awareness could be addressed in the “networking of telecentre” staff which is the next phase of IDRC funding to CIEUM. I would like to recommend that the telecentres not get the opportunity of forming a collective of users, but also have the opportunity of getting consumer awareness, especially since the regulator, INCM, is “theoretically” meant to protect consumers. I would suggest that there be an external facilitator to guide the discussion and that there would be an opportunity for the telecentre managements to meet with both TDM and INCM to not only improve their relationships, but demonstrate that they are serious corporate users of the TDM service.

The networking project should also investigate assisting communities develop email accounts, develop relationships possibly with Brazilian/Angolan/Portuguese counterparts and also get training on how to use the web for research.

The community organizations could also benefit from learning to be more responsive to community need for services later in the evenings. They could workshop ideas around serving their communities better. They could also develop programmes that would address women and youth needs in particular.

Heloise Emdon

Snr Programme Officer

Acacia

Southern Africa

IDRC