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PUSH Services: Autoridades piden de Apple y Google datos sobre los usuarios de aplicaciones de mensajería

9 Dec

Lo siguiente es una rápida traducción de https://netzpolitik.org/2023/push-dienste-behoerden-fragen-apple-und-google-nach-nutzern-von-messenger-apps/ por Andre Meister Las aplicaciones en los “smartphone” envían notificaciones a través de Apple y Google, incluso las applicaciones de mensajería supuestamente seguras. Esto permite a las autoridades solicitar datos de usuarios a las empresas detras de los “smartphone” . Hasta ahora, todas las partes implicadas se […]

Mantenlo análogo: parámetros para una exclusión voluntaria de la conectividad

9 Jun

por Karla Prudencio y Peter Bloom   Introducción Hemos escuchado acerca de la brecha digital por décadas. Su urgencia como parte de una agenda va y viene, pero en el contexto de la pandemia del Covid-19, la conversación acerca del acceso equitativo a las comunicaciones digitales ha tomado un rol protagónico dentro de las agendas […]

Keeping it Analog: A framework for opting out of connectivity

8 Jun

by Karla Prudencio and Peter Bloom Introduction We’ve been hearing about the digital divide for decades—its urgency as an issue ebbs and flows, but in the context of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, conversation about equitable access to digital communications has once again taken center stage as a pressing matter. While connectivity has been immensely important […]

Connected against Covid – how Amazon communities in Brazil and Ecuador are defying the virus

27 Aug

By Nils Brock This piece is adapted from German. Click for original written and audio versions. “Then let them arrest us, we are the evil feminists.” Thousands of combative, good-humored women walk through the streets of Quito on March 8, 2020, singing and dancing. In many places rallies and demonstrations take place in the Ecuadorian […]

The New Normality

27 Aug

By Erick Huerta Velázquez, Institutional Relations Coordinator This piece was originally published in Spanish at https://comunicares.org/2020/06/03/nueva-normalidad/ “The virus is new, but nothing is innovative about this crisis.” -Jean Luc Nancy When checking the news in these pandemic times, especially those regarding the telecommunication sector in which I work, it seems like this post-COVID “new normality” […]

5G – una condición terminal

21 Apr

Mientras que la pandemia del COVID-19 causa estragos en el planeta, la tecnología 5G se ha convertido en una especie de “bestia negra” (bête noire), acusada de debilitar los sistemas inmunes, empeorar la propagación y en algunos casos, de ser ella misma la causa del virus. El internet está actualmente inundada de teorías completamente infundadas […]

5G – a terminal condition

8 Apr

As the COVID-19 pandemic ravages the globe, 5G technology has become something of a bête noire – blamed for weakening immune systems, making the spread worse, and in some cases being the cause of the virus itself. The Internet is currently awash in completely unfounded theories about 5G, taking legitimacy away from more truthful sources […]

El “Destino Manifiesto” de las redes de telecomunicaciones

25 Mar

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-facilitates-wireless-infrastructure-deployment-5gYa que este artículo se ha convertido en una especie de secuela de una reflexión anterior llamada El derecho a la red. Si tienes tiempo, recomendamos su lectura también. El presente es una traducción del inglés. El original se puede encontrar aquí. Los humanos siempre hemos transformado los entornos en que hemos vivido, para bien […]

The Manifest Destiny of telecommunications networks

17 Mar

As this piece evolved it has become somewhat of a companion to an earlier reflection called the Right to the Network. If you have time, it is recommended to read that one as well. Human beings have always transformed the environments in which they live, for better or for worse. In the modern era, this […]

Connectivity for All: Do The Basics Still Apply?

16 Jul

By Erick Huerta Velázquez, Rhizomatica The following are remarks delivered at the 2019 ITU Global Symposium for Regulators In the last ten years telecommunications technology has become more accessible and affordable. We can install a mobile network for $5,000 USD and a WiFi network for a tenth of that or even less. This has allowed […]

“A post-Western wireless ecosystem”: Takeaways from the Defense Innovation Board 5G report

20 Jun

By Peter Bloom In April the Defense Innovation Board released a report entitled “The 5G Ecosystem: Risks & Opportunities for DoD“. For clarity, DoD is the Department of Defense of the USA. The report was authored by two men, one of whom is the vice president of wireless services at Google and the other is […]

El derecho a la red: Sobre capitalismo y redes de próxima generación

17 Jun

Por Peter Bloom Este artículo fue originalmente escrito y publicado en inglés. Un profundo agradecimiento al Colectivo Disonancia en Chile por la traducción de esta pieza al español.   “El problema central en el capitalismo monopólico avanzado no es el de la escasez de recursos chocando contra necesidades innatas e insaciables, sino el de la […]

La tecnología 5G no reducirá la brecha digital y podría incluso empeorarla

17 Jun

Por Peter Bloom Este artículo fue originalmente escrito y publicado en inglés. Un profundo agradecimiento al Colectivo Disonancia en Chile por la traducción de esta pieza al español. Como escribí en un artículo anterior sobre las redes 5G, gran parte de la energía del sector de la telefonía móvil para conectar lo inconectado se está […]

Hablando de mi generación (5º)

15 Jun

Por Peter Bloom Tenga en cuenta que esta pieza fue originalmente investigada y escrita en inglés. La versión original tiene muchos enlaces e imágenes que simplemente no existen en español. Por lo tanto, si está interesado en alguno de los materiales de apoyo, consulte la versión original en inglés. Un sincero agradecimiento a Karla Prudencio […]

The Right to the Network: on capitalism and next generation networks

10 Jun

by Peter Bloom “The central problem in advanced monopoly capitalism is not one of scarce resources clashing against innate, insatiable wants. Rather, it is one of an abundance of production clashing against saturated consumption and investment markets. In order to absorb potential economic output and forestall excess capacity, business interests must continuously search for new […]

5G won’t reduce the digital divide and might even make it worse

18 Apr

By Peter Bloom As laid out in my previous piece about 5G networks, much of the energy from the mobile sector around connecting the unconnected is dissipating. It is not that there are no efforts, for example the Telefonica/Facebook partnership in Peru, Internet para Todos, but simply that they are waning. This shift away from […]

Talkin’ ’bout my (5th) Generation

4 Apr

By Peter Bloom, General Coordinator For the past year and a half, part of my professional duties have included thinking about how to keep community networks relevant in an evolving technological and regulatory landscape. As such, I attended telecom industry conferences, read a lot and spoke with people working on connectivity from different backgrounds and […]

Choosing a low-cost GSM base station

25 Jun

The following is a quick guide to some commercially available options for low-cost GSM BTS. We are only considering options which work in conjunction with the Osmocom open-source software stack. There are some other options like VNL and Range Networks that use their own (in some cases) open-source software, but we have not evaluated these […]

GSMA, please loosen your grip on spectrum

23 Feb

In a few days, Mobile World Congress, “the world’s largest gathering for the mobile industry, organised by the GSMA”, will take place in Barcelona. With that in mind, we’d like to offer up some thoughts and criticisms around the “mobile miracle” and the GSMA in general. The mobile miracle has connected billions of people around […]

Great video about Rede Kalunga in Brazil

9 Jan

Rhizomatica has been working (so far in a very limited way) with a big group of people to help build communications infrastructure in the Kalunga (Quilombola) community in Brazil. The idea is that we will get more involved and help install a community cellular network there later in the year. Watch the video here   […]

Connectivity for the unconnected: a double bind

18 May

During the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this past February, Facebook made an “historic” announcement that they were launching the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) in conjunction with a number of large telecommunications companies and manufacturers. The new initiative takes a page from another Facebook-led industry collaboration called the Open Compute Project [http://www.opencompute.org] and is all […]

The case for social rights for radio spectrum

7 Apr

In the simplest sense, radio spectrum is a way to classify certain electromagnetic frequencies, between about 30Hz and 300Ghz, that are useful for the transmission and reception of information with currently available technology. Radio spectrum is a socially constructed idea insofar as we have created the concept in order to address our ability, through technology, […]

La Red Autonoma – A bulletin of/by/for our network of networks

11 Nov

La Red Autónoma – Noviembre 01 (En Castellano. Haz click para descargar)

Why sites go down

29 Sep

Rhizomatica has recently moved into a phase of critical reflection about what we do. Specifically, we are looking to share not only our successes, but also the challenges we face, how the affect us and what we are trying to do about them. The idea and practice of local or alternative networks is not new, […]

Steve Song rocks!

11 Jun

If you haven’t seen it already, check out our friend Steve Song’s blog post about the potential of new approaches to cellular. We are particularly excited about the fact that the new spectrum rules were published in April and we appear in the Federal Gazette equivalent as the reason for the new law.

Dealing with technical issues

11 Jun

We have 19 networks up and running around Oaxaca now and have decided to take a pause in regards to new installations in order to focus on tightening up our support infrastructure and processes to actually be able to attend to the issues that arise. With all these networks running, we have zeroed in on […]

So much going on!

14 Jan

Some big pieces of news, lately. The first one is that we just installed our 10th site. I am not sure if any of the Rhizomatica team thought we’d actually get to this point. When we started out community cellular we just an idea. There wasn’t really any afforsable hardware that worked well, the software […]

GPRS is Go

19 Aug

First data transmission tests for our GSM networks

HOPE X

23 Jul

Check out the video of our presentation at HOPE X in NYC here Thanks to everyone for coming to our talk and all the kind comments and support we received

New Video of Yaviche

8 Jun

Telefonía Celular Comunitaria en Santa María Yaviche, Oaxaca from Rhizomatica Communications on Vimeo. Oswaldo Martínez, promotor comunitario de la Fundación Santa María en Yaviche nos habla de los usos y beneficios de la Telefonía Celular Comunitaria en su comunidad y nos enseña como funcionan los equipos. Oswaldo Martínez, a community activist with Fundación Santa Maria […]

Movistar’s rural franchising model shows its true colors

3 Jun

Many months back we wrote about Movistar/Telefonica’s rural franchising scheme. Well it has become a reality, and it seems the local franchisee in Oaxaca is intent on following us around and attempting to install wherever we have already established our networks. While on the one hand this is a positive step – these communities have […]

Finally some news

31 May

First off, an apology to folks who have supported us and continue to follow our work for not being more steady with the posts on the site. Lots has happened and we have less and less time to keep the site and social media updated. We are excited about a whole bunch of stuff that […]

Shuttleworth Funded

13 Nov

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the recent support we have received from the Shuttleworth Foundation.

Workshops and Seminars at the Center for Digital Culture

13 Nov

We are organizing a series of public conversations and hands-on workshops at the Center for Digital Culture. Come join us next week in Mexico City! Seminars Workshops

Another fundraising campaign

3 Sep

There has been lots of interest in Rhizomatica in the last couple of weeks, so we decided to launch another campaign to raise funds for our work in Mexico. Please help out if you can!

Photoreport

21 Aug

Comunicación comunitaria autónoma en la Sierra Juárez de Oaxaca

Aclaraciones

21 Aug

Comunicado de Prensa con Relación a la Red de Telefonía Celular Comunitaria de Talea de Castro

Featured on the front page of La Jornada!

18 Aug

Go to La Jornada!

Long-distance is go

16 May

After almost two months of fine-tuning, long-distance service is finally ready to launch. This means folks in the town will be able to call out of the coverage area (only around 5-10km) to any phone, anywhere. Likewise we purchased a few DID numbers which allow people to call a Mexico City, Los Angeles or Seattle […]

A Victory?

12 Mar

Movistar, the Mexican subsidiary of the Spanish telecom company Telefónica, recently announced that they would be starting a franchise-type approach to connect rural areas by sharing responsibility with local entrepreneurs. A few months ago we approached them with this idea, mainly in order to start a dialogue that we hoped would lead to a partnership […]