This piece on boingboing is short, but at the end you will find a link to a longer article with more information…
Mexican indigenous groups form co-op phone company to serve 356 municipalities
Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias A.C. — a nonprofit telcoms company operated by and for indigenous groups in Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, and Veracruz — has received a license to operate cellular services in at least 356 municipalities. It's the first time the Mexican telcoms regulator has given a operations license to an indigenous social group. TIC is the sequel to a network created by Rhizomatica, who installed internet-based telephony in remote communities serviced only by expensive payphones, lowering the cost of calls by as much as 98%.
Phi Beta Iota: What really matters here is the 2% cost of open source (they are using OpenBTS – Base Transceiver Station with one or more $10,000 units for each municipality). The extractive profit model protected by corrupt legislators is on its way out. Africa and the Americas will be the first to be liberated. This should be but is not yet part of China's strategy.
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