Chennai: Rural cyber café chain company OneRoof Service Pvt Ltd, wholly owned subsidiary of the US-based OneRoof Inc, has decided to expand its network through the franchisee route.

''Our long term plan is to have atleast 1600 franchisees in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka,'' Dwight M Wilson, CEO, OneRoof.

The Indian subsidiary started commercial operations in 2006 setting up its own centres in order to prove the concept that rural cyber cafes can be a good business proposition. Its 10 centres currently earn over Rs25,000 per month

As a policy the OneRoof cyber cafes are located in small towns and villages beyond larger district headquarters towns.

Says Wilson, ''A franchisee would have to bring in around Rs3.5 lakh as initial investment which would go towards buying six computers, three printers, digital camera and other hardware.''

For the Internet access the franchisees have to approach the telecom service provider in his/her area.

The company has connected most of its OneRoof cyber cafes with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited's (BSNL) DSL service.

''In some places the connectivity is from mobile phone companies using CDMA technology,'' adds Eric M Spector, executive vice president.

In order to bring in uniformity and better net access speed OneRoof Services is considering V-Sat access.

''We are considering that option and talks are on with the service providers,'' remarks Wilson.

This apart a franchisee has to pay OneRoof Services a monthly royalty of 8 per cent of the total revenue and take care of the rental expense if any for the centre.

On the revenue side apart from the Internet access charges, a franchisee can earn from offering other services like computer education, computer games, online railway/airline ticket booking, photography and mobile phone recharge.

A typical OneRoof café has around six computers with four connected to the Internet.

The non-web connected computers are used to conduct computer lessons.

According to Deepa Anandakrishnan, chief executive officer, OneRoof Services, the computer course fee linked to the computer usage time which is customer friendly.

Going forward Wilson hopes to tie up with some companies for data entry jobs so that the café computers could be used during the night.

In order to accelerate the pace of franchisee expansion the company is opening up a regional office in Coimbatore.

''Our immediate target is to have atleast 100 franchisees in a year's time,'' remarked Praveen Kumar Prithvi, managing director.

Queried about the kind of people who frequent the centre P Mary Rani, operator of the Madurantakan town café said, ''It is a mix of children, young and old who use our services. For sometime a gypsy boy used to play computer games.''

According to K Shobanbabu operator, Arni centre, there is good revenue from digital photography apart from net access charges.

OneRoof is not one more rural café chain
Though OneRoof Services' business plan and the services it offers looks similar to that of another rural cyber café operator n-Logue Communications Pvt Ltd, there is a difference. (See n-Logue's digital edge to the  rural India)

While n-Logue is also an Internet Service Provider (ISP), OneRoof Services is not.

n-Logue is following a three layered structure. At the apex level is n-Logue which in turn appoints a local service provider (LSP).

The LSP has to invest in hardware and in turn scouts around and locates franchisees.

In the case of OneRoof there is no LSP.

In order to satisfy one of the attributes of branding viz uniformity, OneRoof Services insists its café's should have atleast six computers and it also specifies the café design.

''A rural cyber café would succeed only when there are decent numbers of computers through which an operator can offer varied services,'' says Wilson.