Village telco
Encyclopedia
A Village telco is a community based telephone network
. It is based on a suite of open source
applications that enable entrepreneurs to set up and operate a telephone service in a specific area or supporting the needs of a specific community .
The first village telco has been established by Dabba
at Orange Farm, a township near Johannesburg
, South Africa
. Users can make free local calls to other Dabba subscribers, as well as use pay-as-you-go vouchers to make calls to 'phones on other networks .
Technically, a village telco consists of:
These components together comprise an easy-to-use, standards-based, wireless, local, do-it-yourself, telephone company
toolkit. The goal of bringing these together is to make local telephony in developing countries to be so cheap as to be virtually free. This has become possible thanks to advances in open source telephony software and the dramatic decrease in the cost of wireless broadband technology.
Telecommunications network
A telecommunications network is a collection of terminals, links and nodes which connect together to enable telecommunication between users of the terminals. Networks may use circuit switching or message switching. Each terminal in the network must have a unique address so messages or connections...
. It is based on a suite of open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
applications that enable entrepreneurs to set up and operate a telephone service in a specific area or supporting the needs of a specific community .
The first village telco has been established by Dabba
Dabba
Dabba is a South African company that is pioneering the establishment of village telcos. It uses wireless technology to provide voice and data services to under-serviced areas...
at Orange Farm, a township near Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. Users can make free local calls to other Dabba subscribers, as well as use pay-as-you-go vouchers to make calls to 'phones on other networks .
Technically, a village telco consists of:
- a meshMesh networkingMesh networking is a type of networking where each node must not only capture and disseminate its own data, but also serve as a relay for other nodes, that is, it must collaborate to propagate the data in the network....
network made up of Wi-FiWi-FiWi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
mini-routers combined with an analogue telephone adaptor (aka'Mesh Potato' ) - SIPSession Initiation ProtocolThe Session Initiation Protocol is an IETF-defined signaling protocol widely used for controlling communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol . The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party or multiparty sessions...
phones - a pay-as-you-go billing and management system
- a SIP/VOIP server
- least cost routingLeast cost routingIn voice telecommunications, least-cost routing is the process of selecting the path of outbound communications traffic based on cost. Within a telecoms carrier, an LCR team might periodically choose between routes from several or even hundreds of carriers for destinations across the world...
equipment
These components together comprise an easy-to-use, standards-based, wireless, local, do-it-yourself, telephone company
Telephone company
A telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies...
toolkit. The goal of bringing these together is to make local telephony in developing countries to be so cheap as to be virtually free. This has become possible thanks to advances in open source telephony software and the dramatic decrease in the cost of wireless broadband technology.
See also
- Personal Telco ProjectPersonal TelcoThe Personal Telco Project is a wireless community network project in Portland, Oregon. It was founded by Adam Shand in November 2000 after he read a Slashdot article about the Consume The Net project in London....
, which is a wireless community networkWireless community networkWireless community networks or wireless community projects are the organizations that attempt to take a grassroots approach to providing a viable alternative to municipal wireless networks for consumers....
project running in PortlandPortland, OregonPortland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, OregonOregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. - South African wireless community networks: Orange Farm and the Mesh Potato