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Railway minister flags off first cyber cafe on Station

web-admin — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 00:00:00 -0700

The Statseman, Kolkotta reports about the Asansol station, for the first time in the history of Eastern Railways, will have a cyber cafe with 2 mpbs Internet broadband and audio-video conferencing

Survey on Mumbai Cyber Cafes - June 2005

admin — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 23:37:43 -0700

ApiAp conducted a sample survey on Cyber Cafes in Mumbai in June 2005. A random 40 cafes in Mumbai - South, Western Suburbs, & Central suburbs participated in the survey.

The primary data collection and survey was done by Mr Anshu Shukla & Shrish Kumar Tiwari , students of the Indian Institute of Information Technology ( IIIT) Allahabad, India.

Summary of the Survey:

The cyber café owners surveyed most of them offered Internet access, print & scan service.
77% of 40 respondents ’s cafe existence is less than 3 years 92.5% claimed they are some what satisfied with business.
80% of cafe own 6 to 10 terminals Most have invested less than Rs 200 thousand.
97% of cafes operate from rented premises.
Almost all access Internet through cable internet (ADSL connection or extended LAN networks using cat5 cables)
Median rate for Internet access fee is Rs 15/- per hour ( USD 0.34 ) Median traffic ranges from 34 - 40 visitors a day This converts into a probable Gross collection of just Rs 350 to 600 a day (USD 8-14)
Most cafes offer a significant discount to regular customers.
While 82% concurred to be their significant source of earning but at the same time 78% claimed other sources of earning too, popular options are PCO, DTP, Training etc.
55% claimed they know most of the customers, 30% claimed they know some of them & only 15% knew none of their customer.
When asked to rank the significant problems faced in operating the business: The number one problem was attributed to Business competition followed by Regulation problem, Hardware maintenance & last managing customers.
Only 43% & 39% of respondents knew the concept of Hacking & Piracy. 65% felt that their cafe can be misused but none could explain how.
95% of those surveyed claim to maintain a register of visitors for sake of business accounting, 15% even ask for proof of identity.
Conclusion: The Cyber café operations are not sustainable; most of the operators are early entrepreneurs. Although many claimed to be satisfied by the opportunity but then a significant 77% of the owners are in the business for less than 3 years, It is worthy to note the industry is over 8 years old. & The café business as hand in hand with the Internet rage had peeked in year 2000 with the burst of Dot COM bubble. Perhaps many have not factored the long-term capital cost recovery in the relative high operating cash flow thus look attractive. The low investment requirement added to low entry barrier & low skill base makes an ideal opportunity for micro entrepreneurs to start a venture. Subsequently Cyber café do not seem to be the main stay of the operator’s livelihood. Net earnings seem just about a bit higher than a salaried job for the same skill set. Most of the visitors frequent the same cafes & operators too are acquainted to them. Further for sake of business accounting most do maintain a rudimentary cross check systems. Thus detection of cyber crime under cover of anonymity offered by cyber café is not very non comprehendible But inferring from their responses on possibility of misuse of cafes, it seems most of them have a hazy understanding on Cyber security issues. It may be possible the café owners can be made gullible into abetting the crime. The whole scale policing of cyber café have proved an ineffective solution but a little support and nurturing of these micro entrepreneur community by way of awareness and recognition can certainly make cyber crime in the cover of anonymity manageable.

Thank you Anshu & Shirish & your other guides , Cyber Cafe operators owe you a lot ! We look forward more researchers like you & Anikar Haseloff take interest in this omni present yet anonymous participants in the ICT4D.

Cyber Cafe Revenue Planner

web-admin — Thu, 04 May 2006 00:00:00 -0700

If your an existing cyber cafe operator or plan to start one. Here is a simple revenue estimator. Click on the link for the worksheet: http://www.icoagh.com/icoagh_cyberguide.xls (MS-Excel 219 KB )
Courtesy: Internet Cafe Operators Association of Ghana

Cyber cafe boom to drive e-commerce craze in India

web-admin — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0800

Economic Times MUMBAI reports : Online commerce is projected to jump more than four times to about Rs 2,300 crore in ‘06-07 as a rapid growth in cyber cafes across the nation spur a craze for internet shopping.

Internet users did online business worth about Rs 570 crore in ‘04-05. The figure is expected to grow to Rs 2,300 crore by ‘06-07, according to a report titled ‘Online activities and e-commerce from cyber cafes’ conducted by the Internet and Mobile Association of India.

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Govt of India plans to roll out 100000 Internet enabled centres in villages

web-admin — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0700

The Govt of India released a draft frame work for roll out of over 100000 common Service centres.

Advances in Information and Communication Technologies have made it possible today to provide a whole range of high-quality and cost-effective services relating to video, voice and data content through a single communication channel using appropriate terminal equipment. This opens up a whole realm of possibilities for provision of e-government, entertainment, education, telemedicine, e-commerce, info-services, etc. ubiquitously. Government of India is committed to leveraging these advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for the benefit of the citizens, especially those in rural and remote areas. It is therefore considered necessary to create a network of access points termed Common Services Centres(CSCs) throughout the country as outlets for such services.

A Common Services Centre is an ICT-enabled Service Delivery outlet providing a range of services to the people in the village / town in which it is located. Various nomenclatures e.g., Common Services Centre, ICT Kiosk, Community Information Centre, e-Community Centre, Rural Service Delivery Points, Village/Rural Knowledge Centre, etc. currently exist in the country for such Integrated Service Delivery Centres, providing similar services to citizens. For the sake of clarity and uniformity, throughout this document, all such Centres are universally termed as Common Services Centres (CSCs).

Download the document : CSCframework.doc ( MS-Word )

Attachment	Size
cscframework.doc	144.5 KB