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."

Re:Other private Mexican mobile phone services

[gstoddart]

While I have no doubt that TFA describes a fine public service built by those of the highest integrity, I must confess that my first thought was quite the opposite, given recent history.

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.

Question

[PPH]

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.