Rural ICT D

Developmentt (RICTD) Intternational Coonference 201

13,
Malacca, M
MALAYSIA, 255 - 27 Jun 20
013

Clou
ud Powereed Rural Telecenter
T
s A Mod
del for Susstainable T
Telecenterrs
1
Osmaan Ghazali1, Baharudin Osman
O
, Azizzah Ahmad1 , Azizi Abas1, Abdul Raazak Rahmaat1,
Moham
med Firdhouss1,2,
1
School of
o Computin
ng, UUM CA
AS, Universitti Utara Mallaysia, Malaaysia.
{osm
man, bahaossman, azie, azizia,
a
arazakk }@uum.eddu.my, mfirdh
dhous@internnetworks.myy
2

Facultyy of informattion Technollogy, Univerrsity of Moraatuwa, Sri Laanka

Mohamed..Firdhous@uuom.lk

Ab
bstract
ICT hass been identifiied as the grea
at equalizer th
hat
can successsfully bridge the gap betw
ween rural an
nd
urban population. Almosst all the goverrnments with th
he
aid of nattional and intternational orrganizations are
engaged in implemen
nting rural ICT projectts.
Telecenters
rs is a common
n feature of all the rural IC
CT
developmeent projects. The telecenteers provide th
he
common pllace for intend
ded users to acccess the services
provided by
b these projeects. Telecenteers all over th
he
world are faced with susstainability isssues due to lacck
of financin
ng and qualifi
fied human ressources to ma
an
them. In this paper, we propose a cloud rurral
telecenterss that effectiveely reduces thee financing an
nd
human ressources requiired to run telecenters.
t
Th
he
paper also
o discusses in detail
d
how the proposed
p
mod
del
would incrrease sustainab
bility of telecen
nters.
puting, Rural IC
CT, Telecenter
Keywordss: Cloud Comp

1. Introd
duction
Informaation and Com
mmunication Teechnology (ICT
T)
has been id
dentified as thee enabling tech
hnology that caan
effectively
y reduce the gaap between the rural and urbaan
population
n (Songan, Haamid, Yeo, Gn
naniah, & Zeen,
2008). Thee gap existing
g between the rural and urbaan
population
n includes the in
nequality expeerienced by these
two groupss in terms of access
a
to educaation, healthcarre,
better marrkets for theirr products and services, an
nd
public serrvices offered
d by the go
overnment. Th
he
situation iss more aggravaated by the factt that majority of
the world population
p
resiide in rural areas. Hence, it caan
be seen thaat the poor people living in th
he rural areas are
a
more affeccted by the ineq
quality than their counter parrts
living in urrban areas. Through the effective use of IC
CT
the effect of these prob
blems can be mitigated to a

greaterr extent (Kangg, 2009). In ordder to provide better

access to ICT for thhe rural popullation, governm
mental
and
have
non-governm
mental
orgganizations
implem
mented severall projects acrosss the world. O
One of
the moost important ccomponents off these projectss is the
telecennters (Soriano, 2007). Teleceenters provide public
access to computerrs and the intternet for gatthering
inform
mation, commuunicating with others and leearning
new skkills. Due to hhigh price of ccomputers andd other
equipm
ment requiredd for accesssing the innternet,
telecennters are the o nly option forr many people living
in ruraal areas to acceess these technnologies. Teleccenters
have eexperienced varrying levels off success and fa
failures
since ttheir establishm
ment in variouus parts of the world
(Baileyy, 2009). The issues identifieed for the failuures of
telecennters include cost of hardwarre and softwaree, lack
of hum
man resources aand lack of financing for conntinued
capitall and operationnal expenditurees.
In tthis paper, wee take an in deepth look at hhow to
improvve the viabbility of rurral telecenterrs by
incorp orating cloud ttechnology. Thhe advantages of the
incorp orating clouud computingg with teleecenter
technoology are innitially investtigated from both
techniccal and finaancial perspeectives. Finallly an
implem
mentation moodel for thhe cloud poowered
telecennters is provideed along with a description oof how
the prroposed modeel addresses thhe issues facced by
traditioonal telecenterrs.

2. Th
he Role of Telecenters in Rural ICT
Devellopment
Moore than 50% of the world population livves in
rural aareas and in deeveloping counntries the propportion
of rurral population far exceeds that of their urban
counteer parts (UN, 2011). The rural populattion is
subjectted to very serrious problemss in terms of pooverty,

Rural ICT Development (RICTD) International Conference 2013, Malacca, 25 - 27 Jun 2013
unemployment, lack of access to markets for their
products and services, inadequate infrastructure,
limited access to basic needs such as clean water,
affordable healthcare, education etc. (Akumiah, 2007).
Compared to their urban counterparts, access to
modern technologies including ICT is also limited in
rural areas (Molawa, 2009). In order for these people to
come out of the current situtation, they must be
empowered with new skills, better opportunities, new
avenues for enhacing their skills and better markets for
their products and services. Since the ICT can be used
to overcome many of the barriers currently faced by
these people, it is considered a great equalizer. ICT can
be used to create new opportunities for the
disadvantaged people by providing better access to
access to information, educational training in
computers and employment opportunities (Kuriyan &
Kitner, 2009). In order to provider better ICT services
to the rural population, both governmental and non
governmental organizations have implemented several
ICT projects throughout the world. One of the most
common aspect of all these projects is the
implementation of telecenters, when the projects are
targetted towards the general population. Telecenters
provide the access to ICT services at a common place
in a selected region that is accessible to a wider range
of the target group. Telecenters have been accepted as
the most promising model for providing equitable
access to ICT services at affordable cost to a larger
audience leading all the development efforts targetted
towards that group (Parkinson & Lauzon, 2008). Even
the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) of
the United Nations has recognized the telecenters as
the best delivery model of achieving universal access
to ICT at the lowest cost (Manner, 2004). The main
features of the telecenters include providing the
physical space and equipment, a supportive staff that
often aims at welcoming to all, regardless of
experience, and by frequently subsidizing the costs of
service provision reducing the financial burdens faced
by potential users. They also try to be more relevant to
the communities they serve by developing informationbased services in response to the needs of the
community (Parkinson & Lauzon, 2008). In this
section, we take an in depth look at various
implementation of telecenters across the world with
special reference to the factors affecting their
sustainability, successes and failures.
Parkinson and Lauzon (2008) have investigated the
impact of internet on local social equity by conducting
a study on a telecenter in Columbia. The main finding
of the study is that the telecenter does not improve the
local social equity through its services. They have also
found that there is no marked difference between the
users of telecenters and other internet users and the

main use of the telecenter was to improve the formal

employment options of the users. As far as the
telecenter was concerned, it was established by a local
non-governmental organization with funding for period
of three years. During the period of operation of the
telecenter, it was observed that though the telecenter is
expected to pay for itself through the generated
income, the total income was not even sufficient to
cover half of the operating expenses let alone expected
capital expenses in the future. The other main issue
affected the operation was the stability of the internet
connection. The internet connection was through a
dial-up phone line, once connected it would be shared
by all computers in the center. The staff manned the
telecenter also lacked the technical skills for managing
services and applications that would enhance the
services provided. The owners/providers of the
telecenter were unable hire better qualified
professionals to operate the center due financial
constraints.
Hedberg (2010) has carried out an in depth study on
how a telecenter can provide meaningful access for its
community using Tunjang telecenter in Kedah,
Malaysia as the case. The telecenter was established by
the National IT Council on the request of the
community for enhancing the IT skills of the students
and members of the community. The telecenter
provided IT training for the students during school
hours and the others during other times. The main
services provided were internet access and the training
on Microsoft application packages. The demand for the
services was overwhelming at times 2-4 persons
sharing a single computer. The internet connectivity
was provided through a slow dial-up connection that
must be shared by all of the 20 computers in the
telecenter. The main shortcoming observed was the
lack of knowledge in maintenance of the computers by
the computer administrators and funding for
continuous improvement of the system to meet the
demand. The specific issue identified included lack of
funding for the replacement of computers at the end of
life span and the renewal of software licenses.
Aguila-Obra, Camara, and Melendez (2002) have
presented
the
economic
and
organizational
characteristics of telecenters. They have carried out an
empirical study on a selected sample of 27 telecenters
across the entire Spain with the aim of studying how
the telecenters were set up. They have identified that
almost all the telecenters were public sector initiatives
as subsidized pilot projects. The main concern raised in
the conclusion of the study is the sustainability of the
telecenters after the expiry of the subsidies. The study
shows that even in developed countries the financial
viability of telecenters in the medium and long run is
an issue in the absence of continuous funding from an

Rural ICT Development (RICTD) International Conference 2013, Malacca, 25 - 27 Jun 2013
external source such as governments or nongovernmental agencies.
Best and Kumar (2008) have studied the
sustainability failures of rural telecenters in Tamil
Nadu, India. The main observation of the study was the
shorter operational life span of the privately operated
telecenters compared to that of the NGO funded ones.
Though both types of telecenters were operated in the
areas with similar characteristics, the privately owned
and operated ones did not enjoy any external funding
and had to raise their own money for both capital and
oprational expenditures from the telecnter operations
themsleves while the NGO supported telecenters had
the donor fundings for initial operations for a fixed
period of times. The other reasons for the failures of
the telecenters other than the lack of funding were lack
of voice telephoney facilities, bad customer support
from the network provider, lack of prior computer
training and the unsatifactory internet connectivity.
The most imporatnt constraints affecting the the
availability and accesibility of ICT in rural
communities in Nigeria include the high cost of
facilities, unavailability or lack of infrastructure, lack
of skills and awareness, lack of information policy and
its implementation, language barriers, little or no
government support and political instability (Ogbomo
& Ogbomo, 2008).
Three main types of factors called enablers,
inhibitors and hygine factors dircetly affect the quality
of service delivery in rural ICT projects (Sewchurran
& Brown, 2011). The enablers are a must for
successful delivery while the inhibitors would
negatively affect the quality of service if present. The
third set of factors, namely the hygine factors plays a
special role in service delivery. Hygine factors may not
play a postive role if present, but will negatively
impact the services if absent. The factors that improve
the quality of service delivery include identified
service uptime and availability along with presence of
a service level agreement (SLA). From a technical
point of view, in order to achieve a ceratin level of
service quality with predictable uptime and availabilty
it is necessary to have sufficient computing, human and
other resources to meet the customer requirements. If
disaster management and mitigation is also taken into
account, it is necessary to duplicate the entire system in
another location. All these would add to the cost of
service delivery. The best way to meet all these
requirement is to collaborate with other service
provider and have a common shared data center where
the applications of multple service providers are
hosted.
From the above discussion, it can be seen that the
telecenter implementations all over the world suffer
from several issues. The main issues, as depicted in

Figure 1, that affect the sustainability of telecenters can

be summarized as lack of finacial resources for capital
and operational expenditure, lack of skilled human
resources for managing the telecnters, and lack of good
internet connection.

Figure 1: Factors affecting sustainability of telecnters

Hence the sustainability of telecenters can be

improved by properly addressing the issues identified
above. In order to address the lack of financing, we
propose to reduce the cost by collocating services and
use low cost equipment where possible. The lack of
qualified staff can also be addressed by colocating the
services and letting only the minimum routine services
to be carried out by the telecenter staff. The telecenter
staff can be easily trained on the routine services. The
internet connection may not be an issue anymore as the
high speed broadband connections at reasonable cost
are becoming very common with the introduction
fourth generation (4G) services all over the world.

Figure 2. Capacity-utlization curve (AWS, 2012)

3. Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has brought a revolutionary
change to distributed computing by delivering
computing resources as services over the Internet
(Buyya, Yeo, & Venugopal, 2008). The cloud
computing not only provides computing resources as
services but also employs a business model where the
resource usage is charged based on utility similar to
electricity, water, gas and telephony. Due the
innovative distribution of resources and charging
model, the users are able to maximize the return on
their investments on computing. Figure 2 shows the
capacity-utilization curve developed by Amazon Web

Rural ICT Development (RICTD) International Conference 2013, Malacca, 25 - 27 Jun 2013
Services that shows the resources allocation pattern
against demand for cloud computing as well as
traditional distributed system.
From Figure 2, it can be seen that the resource
allocation under traditional computing model occurs in
a step wise manner resulting in both under utilization
as well as over utilization of resources. On the other
hand under cloud computing, resource allocation
strictly follows the demand pattern in both short and
long terms. The above resource allocation that closely
follows the demand pattern is made possible due to the
innovative hosting technology employed by cloud
computing systems. Computing resources in cloud
systems are hosted on virtual computers created by a
virtualization software running on the physical
hardware (Bento & Bento, 2011). The virtual
computers can be brought up and removed on demand
on the fly within a short time of the arrival and
departure of customers. A single physical system can
host many virtual computers simultaneosly with
different configurations increasing the utilization of the
entire physical system. The isolation and security
between the parallel virtual systems hosted
simultaneously is provided by the virtualization
software (Li, Li, & Jiang, 2010). The virtual computers
require to hold physical resources only when active.
All the physical resources are released, once a virtual
computer has completed its work and removed from
the system. Hence the service provider can market his
single physical system to many customers increasing
the utilization of the physical system while reducing
the per user cost. Hence virtualization provides
advantages to both cutomers as well as service
providers.
The customers and service providers sign a service
level agreement (SLA) prior to the beginning of
services (Wu & Buyya, 2012). The SLA stipulates the
conditions to be met by both parties, viz the customer
and the service provider. The SLA is a legally
enforceable document making both parties to be bound
to the conditions laid in it and the violators will be
made to compensate the other party for the damages
incurred. Also the SLA formally defines the technical
meanings of performance parameters and the agreed
values for them in terms of maximum, minimum,
average, accaptable and unacceptable in regards of
services provided (Wang, Wang, Wang, Chen, &
Santiago, 2007).

3.2 Cloud Computing Delivery Models

Presently cloud systems have been implemented in
four different ways. They are namely, private clouds,
public clouds, hybrid clouds and community clouds
(Bamiah & Brohi, 2011). Private clouds are

implemented by large corporations for the exclusive

use of their employers, shareholders, customers and
suppliers. The entire cloud system including hardware,
software and other resources are owned by the
organization implementing the system. The main
advantage of private cloud systems is that they can
pool all the resources distributed across many
departments, divisions and locations in one place and
distribute them based on real demands. Private cloud
would also increase the efficiency and utilization of the
physical resources and help apportioning of the cost
based on actual usage.
Public cloud systems are implemented by
commercial cloud service providers and sold their
services to any prospective customer for a charge.
Public clouds help customers outsource their entire
computing requirement to a third party and concentrate
on their core business activities. Also, public cloud
help the customers reduce the cost of computing.
Hybrid cloud system is a combination of both
private and public systems. By setting up a hybrid
cloud, it is possible to reap the advantage of both
public and private cloud systems. An organization may
choose to setup a private system to meet its base
demand and the private cloud system to meet the
demand fluctuations or the private cloud may host its
senstive information and the rest can be hosted in the
public cloud.
A community cloud is a public cloud implemented
collaboratively by a few organizations with similar
interest. The use of community cloud is limited only to
the stakeholders of the organizations that implemented
the system. Many government cloud systems use the
community cloud deployment model due to its
suitability (Marinos & Briscoe, 2009). Also,
community cloud model is suitable for centralizing the
operation of telecenters as they all are bound by the
same objective of enhancing the quality of life of the
rural community and share similar functions.

3.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud

Computing
Several researchers have identified the advantages
and disadvantages of cloud computing from both
customers and service providers perspectives. The
main advantages and disadvantages are summarized
below:
Accoding to (Mirashe & Kalyankar, 2010; Badger,
Grance, Patt-Corner, & Voas, 2012) advantages of
cloud computing are lower-cost computers for users,
improved performance, lower infrastructure costs,
fewer maintenance issues, very modest software tool
footprint, lower software costs and efficient use of

Rural ICT Development (RICTD) International Conference 2013, Malacca, 25 - 27 Jun 2013
software licenses, instant software updates, latest
version availability, increased computing power,
unlimited storage capacity, increased data safety, easier
group collaboration, centralized management and data,
platform responsibilities managed by providers, and
savings in up-front costs.
Accoding to (Mirashe & Kalyankar, 2010)
disadvantages of cloud computing are it requires an
internet connection at reasonable speed, and security
issues.
Table 1 shows the sustainability issues of
telecenters and how cloud computing could be used to
overcome them.
Table 1: Comparison of telecenters with cloud systems
Telecenters issues
Cloud computing answers
Lack of Financing
Low cost computers can be used
Lower software costs
Lower infrastructure costs
Savings in up-front costs
Lack of qualified human Platform
responsibilities
resources
managed by providers
Centralized management
Fewer maintenance issues
Instant software updates by
provider
Lack
of
good
internet Can be accessed with reasonable
connection
internet connection
Broadband access becomes
widespread with 4G systems

that they can be shared by all the users. The cloud data
center would provide the required horse power for all
the telecenter computing requirements along with the
software applications. Figures 3, 4 and 5 show the
typical arrangement of a telecenter, cloud data center
and a combined system.

Figure 3: Typical telecenter architecture

Figure 4: Cloud data center architecture

From Table 1, it can be seen that the issues that

hamper the successful implementation of telecenters
can be easily overcome by deploying cloud powered
telecenters. Section 4 discusses cloud powered
telecenter implementation model in detail.
Figure 5: Distributed cloud powered telecenters

4. Cloud Powered Telecenters

The most appropriate cloud deployment model for
the implementation of telecenters would be community
cloud model. The stakeholders of a community cloud
system is bound by common goals such as serving a
community, and common characteristics including the
type of usage and resources required. Hence all the
resources requirements of the telecenters in a region
can be pooled in a single cloud data center. The data
centers themselves can be implemented using low cost
commodity hardware installed only with the operating
system and a web browser. These computers must be
connected in a low cost local area network which in
turn be connected to the cloud data center via a
broadband connection. The cloud data center is a fully
fledged data center that is installed on state of the art
computers or can be installed on off the shelf
commodity computers connected in a cluster. Also, the
software required by all the telecenters in the region
would also be installed centrally in the data center, so

From Figure 5, it can be seen that in the proposed

model, the telecenters in a given region are connected
to a centralized cloud data center. All the telecenters
will share all the resources in the cloud datacenter.
Sharing of resources including hardware, software and
human resources would increase the effectiveness of
the resources while reducing the cost. Since the high
end operations including the software maintenance are
concentrated at the data center, only a few highly
skilled technical personnel would be required at the
center. At the telecenters only the administration of the
low cost commodity computers and other simple
equipment need to be managed. This can be carried out
by semi-skilled professionals. Also, it should be noted
that it is proposed to interconnect the regional data
centers with high speed connections. This would help
in forwarding connection to other data centers for load
balancing purposes and disaster recovery situation.
Hence the proposed architecture is more rugged and

Rural ICT Development (RICTD) International Conference 2013, Malacca, 25 - 27 Jun 2013
disaster resilient compared to individual stand-alone
telecenters providing better services at lower costs.

5. Conclusions
In this paper, we have taken an in depth look at
problems associated with existing telecenters. The
main problems faced by the telecenters are financial
viability and lack of human resources to manage them.
As a solution for this, we have proposed a cloud
powered telecenter model, where all the processing is
carried out at the centralized cloud data centers, while
the telecenters only provide a user interface on low
cost computers. The proposed model drastically reduce
the per user cost of telecenter operations as most of the
cost is shared by many telecenters operating in the
region and the cost of commodity computers at the
telecenters is very low. Also, the human resource
problem is also solved as each and every telecenter
does not require high skilled professionals. Only the
professionals are required at the data centers which is
only one per region. Also the disaster resileince of the
systems is also increased by interconnecting regional
telecenters together.

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