Remote Communities Services Telecentre

The Remote Community Services Telecentre (RCST) is a shared-use facility (telecentre) that will be implemented in remote communities to provide telelearning, telehealth, small business and rural development, communications and information access services. The RCST concept has been designed to adapt to the telecommunications environment of a community or region, being capable of functioning in either a traditional network (telephone) or wireless (satellite) environment. An RCST would become a shared resource for a community or region, a common point through which a variety of services should be concentrated for cost effective service delivery. The RCST represents a flexible facility model in which a variety of technologies and services would be integrated to meet the specific needs of community or region, and the environment in which it would operate. The initial implementation for a community telecentre will be based upon a set of core telelearning and telehealth applications and services with the ability to add additional applications for the community as required or feasible. This project will encompass the initial design, development and trials of the RCST concept, as well as the TEACH (Telecentres for Education and Community Health) initiative which is intended to focus specifically on the provision of telehealth services and health-related educational services.