Adventures into Mexican Markets, Part 5: Anarchist Internet Service Provider

About a month ago, after living up here for more than 5 months with no internet access save for a shitty phone connection, we finally got internet.  This article is honestly long overdue, as we've had working internet for a month now, through a system that's pretty cool.  Our internet provider is a friend within the community, the guy behind Guero Networks and it's wireless.  He saw that many people in Acapulco (mostly up the mountain) were experiencing a lack of internet service to their neighborhood, us included.  With his know how of networks and the use of line of sight propagation, he stepped in with some equipment, filling the need and starting himself his own ISP business in the process. 

Awhile back we shared what we use to make our posts on Steemit happen.  At the time and up until a month ago, we were using a slow cell phone connection for internet for posting and promoting our articles.  What should have taken an hour took close to 2 or three depending on conditions.  As our finances changed, we finally got ourselves into a position where we could afford to get internet.  We also had a friend moving to Acapulco, who planned on staying with us, and we wanted to do whatever we could to get internet before he got here.

As with some things in Mexico, it's not always as easy as it seems.  When we first moved here, we found out the internet provider we had at the apartment, izzi, doesn't provide to our neighborhood.  We always figured there was internet of some sort available, as the house at the end of the street was selling internet access to people in the neighborhood for ten pesos an hour, or about 50 cents USD.  When the shooting happened (sadly the woman shot lived at the house with the internet), the family picked up and left the neighborhood before we could ask them about their provider.  We had seen Telmex vehicles, another popular provider, lower on our hill so we assumed that we would eventually be able to get service from them.

With the help of our mexican best friend, we went to Telmex in an attempt to get a hookup scheduled.  After trying in vain to explain where we lived, they determined they could not figure out our location.  They told us that if Telmex provides to our neighborhood, we would be able to find a wooden pole with Telmex and a number on it.  As we drove around our neighborhood later that day, it became clear that there was no Telmex connection available to us. We visited the property of the family that had just moved, to find out that their internet came through a company called Axtel.  In our ventures around the city, we had noticed the red and black vehicles advertising Axtel and had kept it at the back of our minds as another option.  

We asked our friend to contact them for us after receiving a phone number from a neighbor that pays for their telephone service, with no results.  Ironically enough, we stopped seeing Axtel cars around, which made getting ahold of them even harder.  We looked for an office but found none.

Our only option left was through Guero Networks, which required specific circumstances for it to work for us.  The wireless internet service provider needed direct line of sight between us and someone with internet, willing to share.  Using routers and dishes, you can establish a link between the two places so long as they are in sight of each other, even if they are on different sides of the city. 

We didn't immediately look to Guero Networks because of what we thought was a lack of friends in line of sight.  To work, you need direct line of sight access to the internet connection.  The people who live in the community in Acapulco, the main bay area, were just out of sight of us, for the most part. We drove around the city previously looking to be able to see our house from the spots that mattered, and we couldn't. Or so we thought.

We evidently forgot to try one friends house, and John thought of it as we drove near his place one day, running errands.  On a whim, he drove up to the apartment complex of our friend and there it was, plain as day.  We could see our house from the parking lot and our friend has the top floor.  All it would take is some messages and we could finally get the ball rolling for internet!

So we contacted our friend and let him know he's in line of sight.  We offered to split his bill to allow us to beam his internet to our place.  Without hesitation, as he wanted to help our internet situation while paying less, he agreed and we contacted our other friend, Ryan to get a hookup scheduled.

We worked out the terms for renting the equipment from him and set up a day to get internet.  We picked Ryan up, and stopped at the home depot for some materials to get the job done.  Next we headed to our friends house, the one who is sharing the internet with is.  He got to work and set up a small dish facing in the general direction of my house. He ran cable that went to the router, which established the internet connection.  After making sure the settings were correct with the help of his laptop, we packed up and moved on to our house. 

Once here, we determined where to mount the dish, and did so with hose clamps.  John ran the cable through the top of the bars on the house, leading it to the far side of the house, where we set up the router, out of the weather of course. After some work on the laptop once again, he established the connection and got the internet working. We chose our network name and password.  After testing our devices, we finally had a decent internet connection. 

Our experience with Guero Networks has been very good.  The only time we haven't had internet is when we haven't had power, which isn't his fault.  We've reset the router a few times, but that's part of using any wireless router.  The time it takes to publish and promote my articles is now much less, which leaves more time for other things.  We also have the luxury of using the internet as a tool once again, which is extremely helpful to us as farmers. 

These same types of networks are used all over the world, generally in rural places.  Acapulco is an interesting city because it has highly developed places, really close to places that are considered rural by most standards.  Our neighborhood, for example, is just now getting sewer access put in.  There's no city water to my neighborhood, but we're less than a ten minute drive from Walmart, across the Grand on the Coastera.  It's a developing city and it's obvious.  There are certain areas where the internet companies just haven't expanded to yet, our neighborhood being one of them.  We found out through Ryan that Axtel is using a similar technology to make their system work as he is, which is why they were the only providers available in our neighborhood.  Our friends that happen to have the nicest houses in the community are Ryan's customers, because Telmex, the main most widespread provider, provides terrible service to them at inflated prices. 

When we set up the internet, we discussed plans with Ryan to do something in our neighborhood to help provide low cost internet to the inhabitants of the neighborhood.  He's been working on figuring out the best system to make it both easy to use, affordable for customers while still being profitable for him.  He expressed an interest in doing this all over, as there are a lot of little nooks of Acapulco currently without internet access. He has a vision to provide internet to the people that need it and he's working on getting started making that happen here in the next several weeks. We are looking forward to seeing how things progress, considering the once popular pay-per-hour internet hotspot that was in our neighborhood no longer exists.