ICT use can be built, but it takes time, training, and local adaptation. Simple business models are more likely to be successful than complicated ones. The idea of a multipurpose telecenter is ambitious. Without extensive training and support, many of the wider aims of telecenters are difficult to accomplish. Computers by themselves are not an information service.
Few centers use information technology systems to provide information for local use.
The small telecenters have shown there is a greater demand for telephony than had been thought, and a market is growing for ICTs. The larger centers have shown that ICTs can be of use in rural areas, but currently are not economically sustainable. Purely market-driven initiatives are likely to increase the digital divide within Africa, and we do not yet have a model for sustaining community access centers that can provide access for the majority. Externally funded projects will never, by themselves, change the reality for the majority in developing countries. There just isn' t the money, even if there was no problem with the dependency this would create.