VoIP and Internet Access in Rural Mexico--Advice, Anecdotes?

I am considering taking a sabbatical in a small, rural town in southern Mexico, a site far outside that country's so-called "golden triangle" of telephony (it's three points are Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara, the nation's 3 largest cities). The thinking is to disconnect myself from the electronic matrix in which I am presently all too enmeshed. If, however, I need to occasionally reconnect to the grid, can anyone advise regarding these questions:

1) What sort of Internet connectivity is there available in Mexico's rural areas--dial up, DSL, WI-FI, satellite? What are the related costs?

2) Assuming I have at least dial-up Internet access, what VoIP service will work in such a narrow-band environment (for terminating calls to the USA)?

3) If there is no VoIP service available, then what alternate means might I use to call back home to Los Angeles, California--cellular, a residential phone line?

4) What might be the costs associated with these last two options?

Any advice on ways to economically make phone calls and gain Internet access from such a remote setting would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

Greetings aapimentel and welcome to VoIPUser forum.

aapimentel :

2) Assuming I have at least dial-up Internet access, what VoIP service will work in such a narrow-band environment (for terminating calls to the USA)?

As long as a 56Kbps dial-up connection can maintain a 40Kbps up/down sustained bandwidth with low to no jitters, I don't see why VoIP won't work with a G723.1 and/or G729 CoDec. I managed to established VoIP connection between two end points using an Aplio/Phone unit at each end without any problem with a G723.1 CoDec. I had used this approach for about three years and am now switched to SIP based ATA devices.

Quote:

G723.1 and/or G729 CoDec

AMR narrow-band would give the best performance in this situation. I heard a rumour that AMR are going to open-source their narrow-band codec at some point this year (unconfirmed rumour).

if your goal will be to each PSTN number in the USA you may find that the rates are about the same(possibly less - even significantly less) to call using a calling card or callback than what you would be paying for the local mexican call to the dial up internet service.

if you are able to get unmetered always on internet than VOIP would certainly make sense as a second phone line with a USA number. personally i do not recommend it as a cost savings outbound only calling method over dial up.

mazilo :

As long as a 56Kbps dial-up connection can maintain a 40Kbps up/down sustained bandwidth with low to no jitters, I don't see why VoIP won't work with a G723.1 and/or G729 CoDec.

v.90 dialup is 56kbps (maximum) download (and in rural areas, often more like 40Kbps), 33.6Kbps (maximum) upload. This won't meat the 40Kbps requirement you cite. v.92, if it's supported by carriers in the area, will permit upload bandwidth in the 40Kbps range but it's not commonly supported (although v.92 modems are backward compatible with v.90).

The GSM protocol (which is identical to that used on GSM mobile phone networks) will work within dialup bandwidth, though, and it's worth a try.