Sustainability of rural informatization programs in developing countries: A case study of China׳s Sichuan province

• In Sichuan׳s model, carriers serve as both the information aggregator and distributor.
• The model mixes passive fulfillment of political duty and proactive pursuit of business interest.
• The model is at risk of financial, social and institutional sustainability failures.

Traditionally, the role of telecommunications carriers is often limited to providing connections in rural informatization programs. This paper illustrates the case of Sichuan׳s government-carrier cooperative rural informatization model, where the carriers serve as both the information aggregator and distributor. A close historical analysis reveals that this seemingly unprofitable rural informatization service was originally conceived by competing carriers as a marketing strategy to gain a competitive advantage in less lucrative markets. However, when the government decided to promulgate such an informatization program nationwide, the business practice turned into one of the carrier׳s de facto obligations. Thus, Sichuan׳s model is a mixture of the passive fulfillment of political duty and the proactive pursuit of business interests. A sustainability failure analytical framework is applied to test the sustainability of Sichuan׳s model, which is found to be at risk of financial, social and institutional sustainability failures.