Want to start your own phone company? - Village Telco and OpenBTS Networks: Technology Overview and Challenges

The below article by Steve Song (formely with the Connectivity Africa research group and now a fellow with Shuttleworth Foundation) talks about how anyone "with some expertise and comparatively modest resources should be able to start their own phone company", and discusses two different technology solutions that make this possible.
He gives a useful summary of both and then explains the challenges that each face.
Bottom line: "Telephone networks don't need to be run by top-down command and control organisations"!



To read the article, follow this link

For an very useful introductory course on one of the solutions, and guidance on how to set up such a telephone network using The Village Telco approach, see this link

You can also read the following question and answer session with Steve Song, to find out what new technologies inspire him, what advice he has for entrepreneurs, what project he is currently working on, and why he is a reluctant Facebook user…