Literacy levels and economic growth however what Internet and communications technologies applications will be used by villagers, said Vishnu-Mohan Calindi, coordinator of development study groups at the ITU.

Kitsong (knowledge) centers at 49 post offices in Botswana offer Internet access as well as services such as fax, photocopying, desktop publishing, printing and digital photography services, the ITU report said. The Kitsong centers, set up by Botswana Post and the Botswana government, also provide local content, such as agricultural information, besides training in the use of computers.

In Bhutan, the ITU has been working on a project with the UPU, and the governments of Bhutan and India, which involved setting up 38 kiosks in post offices across Bhutan to provide information and communications facilities to communities in rural and remote areas of the kingdom.

Telecommunication connectivity for this project was provided by solar-powered VSAT (very small aperture terminal) stations linked to an Indian communications satellite. Among the services introduced was e-post, which scans letters sent by villagers, and delivers them quickly using the Internet to destination post offices.

Bhutan Telecom, one of the agencies involved in the project, is now planning to increase the capacity of the VSAT network and use it as a backhaul network for providing mobile communications to villagers in hilly areas, Calindi said.