By Alexandra De Cienfuegos
David amongst the Goliaths in the world of global telecommunications.
The small giant.
The Dutch have recently been in an uproar after the giant of telecommunications, the Mexican magnate Carlos Slim, moved in on the the Dutch telecom market, conquering and buying up 70% of one of the country’s national prides, the Royal Dutch Telecom Company, KPN.
The Dutch, who nowadays are known as progressive, liberal and socially aware people, have historically also been known as pioneer merchants in conquering the seas, lands and markets of the New World. It seems that now, again maybe, the time has come that they, or anyone of us in the old world, modern society, can learn something new from the indigenous people they and other Europeans once colonized.
Tired of waiting on the big national telecom companies, the Mexican rural community of Villa Talea de Castro, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, has set up its own mobile telephone network. The network named Red Celular de Talea, RCT, (Talea Mobile Network) was created due to lack of interest on the part of domestic wireless operators in serving the mountain community of 2500 people.
Also the telecom giant America Movil of magnate Carlos Slim, who dominates the Latin American market with 262 million subscribers who pay the highest tariffs in the world, refused to extend its mobile network to the rural community of Talea de Castro, on grounds that it was not profitable.
The RTC network will allow residents to make discounted calls across Mexico and internationally to the USA. RTC subscribers will pay 15 Mexican pesos ($1.15USD) a month for access to text messaging and unlimited calls of up to 5 minutes.
The community has its own mobile infrastructure, including billing and management of the network on their own.
“The neighboring communities are interested in the project so the antennas can be linked in an autonomous community network, ” says Villa de Talea Castros town secretary Alejandro Lopez Canseco.
“The town plans to acquire more equipment and to provide the existing setup to another community,” Lopez Canseco says.
Villa de Talea Castro is a mainly Zapotec indigenous town, located about 115 km from the state capitol Oaxaca city. The inhabitants live off the cultivation of coffee even though many of the young go to the USA in search of the American Dream.
With a loan the town inhabitants were able to obtain a permit for 2 years from the federal commission of telecommunications (Cofetel) to try out the equipment that was provided by the American company Rhizomatica. Rhizomatica aims at providing mobile communications to marginalized areas using GSM system at low cost with free software and VoIp technology (Voice over Ip) which permits the digital transmission of the voice over the Internet.
And so RTC was born. Using the radio frequencies for local calls and the Internet to communicate with the rest of the world. RTC will offer its residents national calls for 20 cents a minute and international calls to the USA for 50 cents a minute. Whereas most of Mexico pays the highest tariffs in the world to magnate Carlos Slim.
Even though none of the giant telecom companies dared venture into his town, hidden a midst the depths of the slopes of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Alejandro can now call his sons on his mobile phone, thanks to the first ever mobile network created by and for indigenous, in the country, and probably in the world.