Orientation of proposal

The industrialised countries should install a network of public access points in public spaces, service premises and in public facilities already in existence (administrations, libraries, cultural centres, social centres, district facilities, community organisation premises, etc.).

Urban areas should be equipped with a public access point within a few hundred metres of the houses of each citizen and in neighbourhood public services (schools, town halls, post offices) in rural areas. This installation of a dense grid of public access points is totally dependent on cooperation between the public, private and non-profit sectors. The actors in the non-profit sector can either provide social premises naturally adapted to the installation of a public access point (association premises, telecentres, cultural centres, etc.), or support the creation of innovative contents and uses. Public and private actors should combine forces to finance these spaces, including in the most difficult areas (isolated rural areas, disadvantaged urban areas, etc.).

Context

Active policies carried out by certain authorities related to opening public access points have borne fruit. These experiments should now be extended and generalised. They constitute an initial lever in combating inequality vis-à-vis ICTs.

Community organisation access points, called telecentres in some countries (in Latin America) and community networks in others (in Anglo-Saxon countries), should be given recognition by the public authorities, in particular local ones. This recognition could take the form of concrete partnerships (the provision of municipal premises, specific budget envelopes in municipal budgets, priority access to broadband networks, etc.).

These access points fulfil a social function without equivalent :
  they develop in disadvantaged districts and remote areas ;
  they are most often intended for populations that are potentially the first victims of exclusion by technologies ;
  they combine technological training with other functions (e.g., literacy, vocational training, initiation in the arts, sports activities, etc.) ;
  they are strongly rooted in local life ;
  they constitute places for developing new know-how.

Thus the fruit of their work should be acknowledged and encouraged in order to promote dissemination and interaction with other sectors of society.