Project: “Internet Café in Akhaltsikhe”

Dates: July 2002 - June 2003

Budget: 24,700 USD

Donor: Fund for Development of Democracy

                “Internet Café in Akhaltsikhe” is the project, which our organization made an effort to implement form the outset of the establishment. Along years there have been poor communication facilities in the region of Samtskhe-Javakheti and in town of Akhaltsikhe in particular. This negatively impacts on development of the region. Lack of such an effective way of communication and information source, as the Internet is, was felt extremely keenly.

Modern world makes impossible to do business without Internet, because the last is one of the most fast and convenient instrument to receive and distribute information. Availability of it is necessary for a human, acting in whichever field and needing to find business partners and widely distribute information about his dealing.

For this reason our organization had been working towards resolution of this issue from the very day of its establishment (1998). The context of the problem was not only unavailability of Internet connection, but also lack of the technologies in our region, which allow to provide Internet. Namely, we mean fibrous cable line and digital phone station, because without of them provision of Internet is impossible through technologies, which are used e.g. in Tbilisi. The cost for construction of fibrous cable line and digital phone station is immensely high.

Thus, the objective of the "Union of Democrat Meskhs" was to find technology, which allow providing Internet connection to Akhaltsikhe with minimal expenditure. After seeking out we discover a way in which the problem could be solved: particularly, the satellite connection make available to provide cable-less Internet.

Then we got in touch with Fund for Development of Democracy, located in city of Washington, which funded our project. The Fund has no representative in Georgia. Long negotiations for 6-8 months followed in result of which the detailed project was developed.

At the start we desire to provide free Internet service to total population of the town. But the Fund was unable to finance the project in the scale. Thus, final decision was to set up price for the service and found an internet-cafe, where non-governmental organizations and media would have free of charge few hours a day.

As the project outcome, modern communication facilities became available for the population of Akhaltsikhe town, which helps them in solving many problems. Presently about twenty of non-governmental organization and number of media representatives use our service center.