Community Networks in Mexico: For Ourselves, With Our Own Resources

Community Networks are a matter of autonomy, which has been demonstrated by the indigenous communities of Mexico and the world. Like languages, the traditional crop-growing system milpa, the communal land, assembly, and tequio – or community work – it is a tool that addresses the needs of humanity.

Radio, telephony, and community wireless Internet and Intranet networks (local content offline platforms) acquired and operated by the communities themselves, not only respond to the human right to communication and connectivity, but also to the right to exercise it from their own values and principles; to the possibility of discussing and deciding, for example, how it will work, where the infrastructure will be placed, who will be responsible for the maintenance, when it will be used, and how the network that belongs to everyone will be sustained.

The Mexican Constitution recognizes in its Article 2 the system of traditional organization of indigenous communities and the right to establish their own means of communication, in addition to requiring authorities to create the conditions so that they can operate and administer them in accordance with the law. Although the conditions are written on paper, there are persistent legal and bureaucratic obstacles that distance Continue reading