Slashdot Mirror
Mexican Village Creates Its Own Mobile Phone Service
Dave_Minsky writes "The small indigenous village of Villa Talea de Castro (pop. 2,500) in the state of Oaxaca is showing the world that it doesn't have to rely on major cellular telecommunications providers for service. With the help from indigenous groups, civil organizations and universities, village residents put up an antenna on a rooftop, installed radio and computer equipment, and created its own micro provider called Red Celular de Talea. Service costs only 15 pesos ($1.2) per month and a few pennies per minute to make calls to the United States. However, there is one catch: calls are limited to a maximum of five minutes to prevent saturation of lines."
Is it bad that I would pay extra to have this 5min rule on voice calls?
It is just as unfair to assume everyone in Mexico is involved in the drug cartels as it is to assume everyone in America is a spy for the NSA and supports what they do.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
However, there is one catch: calls are limited to a maximum of five minutes to prevent saturation of lines."
Every married man knows this is not a catch but a feature
---
Remember that the NSA is a tax-founded government agency, thus it's much more likely to assume that indeed everyone in America (I take it that you mean the United States version of America?) support what they do. At least most people voted for it, considering both parties are equally eager to keep NSA running.
You don't honestly believe that Americans have granular control over what our tax dollars are spent on, do you?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
(I would move to Canada if it were warmer). .
Just give it a few years..
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Where did they get the frequency allocation? If it was here in the USA, all available channels would have been put out for bid by the FCC and snapped up by the incumbents. Running a system on "their" channels would be frowned upon.
Hypothetical question: If everyone in the US came together and built such a system, would there be any way to stop us? Short of putting the entire population in jail, anyway.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Where did they get the frequency allocation? If it was here in the USA, all available channels would have been put out for bid by the FCC and snapped up by the incumbents. Running a system on "their" channels would be frowned upon.
The US doesn't care about negative publicity, plus cell companies/The FCC actually does give certain licenses for special events. See OpenBTS at Burning Man.
This isn't the US, so the rules are different. I would love it if the US had a rule along the lines of "You have first choice to this spectrum, but if you aren't servicing the area then anyone can be granted a license for that locale. If you want to use that frequency there, then you have 6 months to set up towers."
First come first served has disadvantages, but it's much more fair than the current auction system. Right now, the largest cause of the small number of cell providers is government regulation. For example, despite what I said in the first paragraph, this would never work in the US.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Mainly because these are indigenous people, are already known for being people of few words and some might actually decide to kill you if you keep calling them mexican.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Where did they get the frequency allocation? If it was here in the USA, all available channels would have been put out for bid by the FCC and snapped up by the incumbents. Running a system on "their" channels would be frowned upon.
Two words for you, Junior: "pirate radio". Now get off my lawn and learn about Mexico's long and noble history of giving the finger to the FCC and other reguladores.
I've thrown stuff together with a wireless access point, some SIP phones and a computer running asterisk. One of those would probably meet all the necessary requirements to work. Put a few of 'em around a city with call routing between the various asterisk nodes and it'd probably start to get pretty spiffy in no time. If you prefer a smart phone to the default SIP phone solution you can do that, as long as can install a SIP dialer on it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I came in to read what people thought about what Oaxaca did...instead I just found people laughing about it or about the language, geography or whatever. Meh. Let me explain, since most people either don't read TFA or don't educate themselves further. These people asked all three cellular networks to put a tower in their village, they all said no. TONS of times. So, they took the matter into their own hands. Now all three cellular networks are asking if they can help (Read: Get a piece of the pie) I am SO happy they are the ones that are now saying NO. It's interesting what us Mexicans are able to do when we're told no. We are a stubborn bunch.