About
The Village Telco is an inspiring succesful African initiative aimed to build low-cost community telephone networks. The Project Challenge
For millions affordable access to communications remains elusive either because they live in remote areas and villages where mobile telecommunication operators cannot reach or because the available access is too expensive. In Africa the average person sp
ends more than 50% of their disposable income on mobile services. Using the latest Open Source telephony software combined with wireless networking technology that we take for granted, is helping connecting communities across Africa connect to the internet, allowing internet access, better education and healthcare services. The successful projects creates the potential for entrepreneurs and service providers to operate their own community phone systems creating a sustainable income and provides a communication service out to the rest of the world. Technical
No mobile phone towers or land lines are needed. The project consists of two principal elements:
Mesh Potato – A low-cost wireless mesh device you can plug a regular phone into. The Mesh Potato is a combination of a low-cost wireless Access Point (AP) running mesh networking software with an Analog Telephony Adapter (ATA). Mesh Potatoes automatically connect with each other, forming a “cloud” of Mesh Potatoes. Each Mesh Potato relays the phone calls for other Mesh Potatoes, greatly extending the range of the network. Plug an ordinary telephone into one Mesh Potato and you can instantly make a phone call to any other Mesh Potato on the network. Based on popular Open Source applications, the Village Telco Entrepreneur (VTE) Server combines network management, upstream voice connectivity, and pay-as-you-go billing management to create a simple system for an entrepreneur or community organization to sustainable deliver voice and Internet services
The Solution
This page is dedicated to the Telco entrepreneurs making a difference in Africa, Like this group to show your support for innovation. I would like to put out the challenge to every IT professional and ICT Company to support community based projects like
For more information please visit www.villagetelco.org
or contact me on www.linkedin.com/in/derekfr
Show your support for non profit innovation projects like this join Facebook group or the linkedIN group http://tinyurl.com/prxsjgy
Thanks for the support
