villagetelco
Channel: FOSDEM
Date: 15/02/2011

By Donatus Onwunumah

An introduction to Village Telco and how it has already been implemented in developing countries.

The Village Telco is an initiative to assemble and/or develop the cheapest, easiest-to-setup, easiest-to-manage, scalable, standards-based, wireless local do-it-yourself telephone company toolkit in the world. We believe this is achievable through the use of Open Source software and low-cost, off-the-shelf, consumer communication technologies. A Village Telco offers affordable voice (and data) services through the provision of WiFi infrastructure and phones.

What makes the Village Telco different from other rural, low-cost WiFi projects, is it's focus on voices services, both from the point of view of making them work as effectively as possible at as low a cost as possible but also from the point of view of creating a sustainable business model for entrepreneurs.


FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Development European Meeting) is a European event centered around Free and Open Source software development. It is aimed at developers and all interested in the Free and Open Source news in the world. Its goals are to enable developers to meet and to promote the awareness and use of free and open source software. More info at http://fosdem.org