Public action and community telephony for the digital inclusion of indigenous rural communities: the case of San Pedro el Alto, Zimatlán, Oaxaca

In the information society, the core that guarantees equal opportunities and rights is digital inclusion. However, in countries like Mexico, the digital divide prevents the insertion into the digital era of thousands of people from marginalized rural communities, a situation that produces multiple inequalities. The purpose of this document is to disseminate the results of a case study on digital inclusion through community celular telephony (CCT) in San Pedro el Alto, Zimatlan, Oaxaca, a pioneering in this initiative. The research is inserted in the framework of the public action theory, so a mixed method and a methodological triangulation strategy was applied that allowed combining documentary and empirical information to analyze: the enabling factors of the implemented public action model, the community context and the design, implementation and operation of this telephony services. The results show that social participation is the component that has the greatest impact on the implementation and operation of the CCT service. In this regard, it is concluded that this telephony model is an alternative, with political and economic viability, for digital inclusion of rural communities that have been excluded by the telecommunications market.