Mexican Village Sets Up Its Own Mobile Network For 1/13th The Cost Of A Major Network

One telecoms giant didn’t feel they owed anything to a tiny Mexican village, the people asked for mobile coverage and the big guys turned them away. Not being happy with this ruling the people took the matter into their own hands, built their own mobile network and discovered that they can run it 13 times cheaper than the basic plans offered by major telecoms providers in Mexico City… sticking it to the man or what!

Villa Talea de Castro may only have 2500 citizens, but now that it is equipped with its own mobile network, it has earned a great spot in the history books, at least for beating the local major telecoms company, America Movil. Red Celular de Talea (RCT) into the ground 13 times over.

The service was setup thanks to a joint venture between the local universities, civil organizations and indigenous groups, it costs just 15 pesos/USD $1.12 per month to sign up. It runs a 900 Mhz GSM radio tower, with software capable of receiving/transmitting calls, registering phone numbers, billing and bets of all locals can call numbers in the US cheaply thanks to VoIP features.

The only downside is that calls are capped at 5 minutes due to bandwidth issues, but it is a great start and for a population that was cut off from the world of mobile networks it must be liberating to have such connectivity at all.

Will other towns and cities take up their own networks? I certainly hope so and just like people in the UK setting up their own fiber optic broadband this could mark the start of a big shift in the industry.

Thank you Vyralize for providing us with this information.

Image coutesy of Vyralize.