to the FederalGovernments set of actions to promote the use of information andcommunications technology (ICT) to improve public services offered to citizens, suppliers and staff (BRASIL,2005). In the case of services provided tocitizens, a report published in 2002 highlighted that, although it still was notenough, the range of internet services offered was expressive, but it would beuseless to provide growing internet services if universal access wereunavailable. Thus, the result of e-govsfirst years of work was the definition of seven goals to guide its next steps.Those goals included stimulating access to internet, especially through accesspoints within public or community institutions.From the initial results, and as a way ofstructuring its actions, the incoming government created eight TechnicalCommittees for the Electronic Government: 1 Free-license Software Implementation;2 Digital Inclusion; 3 SystemsIntegration; 4 Legacy Systems andSoftware Licenses; 5 Sites and Online Services Management; 6 Network Infrastructure;7 Government to Government (G2G); 8 Knowledge Management and Strategic Information.One of the duties of the Digital Inclusion Committeewas to stimulate public policies for digital inclusion,and to promote the establishment of community access points by city and stategovernments, private companies, and society in general. The concept that digital inclusion promotessocial inclusion multiplied initiatives of digital inclusion using differentmethodologies and sponsors. For those who cannot afford to have computers andinternet at home, or even to pay for internet use, the alternative access iscommunity telecenters.A telecenter may be defined as a shared site that provides public access toinformation and communications technologies (PROENZA, 2005). It can becommercial (cyber-cafes), public, ina school, in a non-profit organization, or in a community. The latter is set up and managed by communities, andprovides access even to those who cannot afford the use. Some communitytelecenters choose to charge for some services, but reinvest the profits forits maintenance. After much discussion in the digitalinclusion environment, especially within the government, the common use of theword telecenter is associated to public non-profit locations, offering freeinternet connections to citizens who cannot afford to have their own. It iscommon to find telecenters that have some government support (city, state orfederal), and are maintained by Organized Civil Society, NGOs or other kinds oflocal institutions.This paper is about this specific case ofcommunity telecenters operating in rural areas.1.2 What happens in Rural Areas?By 2007, digitalinclusion in urban areas was already the object of important Federal Governmentactions, such as distance learning programs and telecenters. These actionsinvolve different offices such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry ofCommunication, the National Institute of Information Technology, and theMinistry of Planning. The Digital Inclusion Committee is the place to bringtogether all different initiatives, in order to join efforts to provideefficiency in public policies.Digital inclusion in rural areas wasrestricted to isolated and disconnected initiatives to provide computers andinternet access. With so many difficulties, unfortunately, they deal more withaccess, and less with real digital inclusion. Digital inclusion for rural areasis much more than just having internet access. It is a practice of citizenshipinvolving interaction with the world of information and communication, takinginto account local education and culture.Analyzing data available in the DigitalInclusion National Observatory (Onid) database, we get a better idea of howrural areas are