Practitioner Perspective. Autonomous Infrastructures: Community Cell phone Networks in Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract

Despite technological advances over the past decade, more than two billion people in the world remain without mobile phone service (International Telecommunications Union. Measuring the Information Society Report, vol. 1. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/publications/misr2018/MISR-2018-Vol-1-E.pdf, 2018). This is due to telecommunications regulatory bodies granting concessions to access mobile radio spectrum only to large companies, restricting access to community microenterprises seeking to provide service in rural areas. It is commonly thought that the only way to communicate through mobile phones is through the services of large transnational mobile phone companies. It is also assumed that profit is the only economic model for the creation and sustainability of these services. This chapter counters these views, presenting a unique, alternative case study concerning free and open mobile communication for Indigenous communities in Oaxaca. Some communities and towns, for example, because of their geographically remote location and low population density and/or self-sustaining economies remain outside of the interest of large telecom companies, are refused mobile services based on not meeting the criteria of profit models. The chapter presents examples that challenge current models of mobile telephone use, as it is taken up by local rural and Indigenous communities.