Right, if you don't need any good video or processing intensive stuff then I would go for Dual Core Atom machines or something that uses very little power as that could be one of your potential issues in deep rural areas. For connectivity you will probably need to look at Satellite unless you have stable 3G available (note stable and reliable is key, I did some work in rural areas and the cell tower was often down for up to a week). If you are very lucky there will be a wireless provider (check the WAPA site) who can provide you a better connection.
You will need some software to manage the internet cafe, you might want to decide if you are going the full Windows environment or Linux first as there are some nice OSS packages out there, both free and paid for. There are a number of internet cafe software options out there, do some research and decide what looks good for you. Note Mikrotik have a package and if you are using a WAPA member they can probably assist you on this as many of them use Mikrotik kit.
Just make sure you lock the machines down properly from the start and you manage the bandwidth carefully to get a good user experience, just blocking Youtube will not do for video bandwidth consumption. Think about things like do you want to offer Skype etc.
I highly suggest looking in to additional revenue streams like printing etc and things like cooldrinks, coffee etc which can actually make you more revenue than the internet cafe side itself.
Good luck.
I agree with all the above. I set up an internet cafe, that I had to close down after a year as it was not worthwhile.
Try refurbished pc's and monitors to keep costs down. I bought my pc's through
Rentworks. At the time time the pricing was good, and I fetched them from
Sylvara, who you can also contact directly. Make sure the license sticker is on the PC's you buy.
Most important is to find decent Internet Cafe software as this is one of my biggest mistakes, trusting an employee to be honest.
Also very important is Location, location, location. You want to set up very close to public transport i.e. taxi rank and be easily accessible (not hidden away up staircases in a building, maximum is 1st floor) and have big clear signs to advertise. I had an office in the building complex housing Home Affairs in Wynberg JHB, but it was on 2nd floor, just did not have the feet passing as it was in a different building next to Home Affairs.
Get a proper Black and White copier/fax/printer - copies and faxing are big requirements, beware of premium rate fax numbers (0866 if I remember correctly - make sure you are clear on charges for these number ranges).
You need office software on each machine, lots of people wanting to write/eMail CV's. I found people preferred Microsoft Office as this was what they had been exposed to. I kept watching junkmail for people selling office packages as I wanted to stay legal in case of a visit by Microsoft or cronies (this never happened btw.)
Maybe have 2 machines with MS Office and the rest with openoffice.
Offer a free 30 minute "course" on email, sign people up for free email services, so they come back to check email.
Also make sure to charge for additional services like assisting someone to write a CV.
Also sell Airtime - very low margins but brings the people in - Blue label are the people to contact. You can purchase online and print them yourself. Again just be careful of cost.
Put in a firewall - use an older pc and install endian firewall or clearOS. This allows you to set it up to restrict sites, offer DHCP to pc's, run Antivirus filtering on incoming mail etc. also have a good antivirus on each pc. Use Microsoft Security Essentials (won't install on dodgy windows installations). Make sure the users have only user not administrator logins. Lock down the machines as mentioned earlier.
