How a rural Mexican village built its own phone network

How a rural Mexican village built its own phone network

IN 2013, the world’s news media fell in love with Talea de Castro, a Mexican village (population around 2400) in a remote corner of northern Oaxaca. América Móvil, the telecommunications giant that ostensibly served their area, had refused to provide them with a mobile phone service, so the Taleans built their own.

Imagine it: an embattled, predominantly indigenous community besting and embarrassing Carlos Slim, América Móvil’s owner and the richest person in the world at the time. The full story …