How one man is bringing VoIP, Internet access where telecoms fear to tread

When he started getting complaints from relatives back home in Puerto Rico about the lack of reliable phone or Internet service in the mountainous center of the island, Jose Soto took things into his own hands and built his own wireless service—with a little help from his cousins. And with a little elbow grease, a few dollars, and a willing broadband provider, you could do the same. In the mountainous center of Puerto Rico, many cell phone users need to travel 30 to 40 minutes from home to get a reliable cell phone connection, Soto said. And fewer than 25 percent of people in the region have access to the Internet, despite government programs to subsidize networks. That absence of service is largely because of the topography of the area—it’s impractical and too expensive to run cables through the mountains and valleys. Soto is now six months into an effort to change that by creating a wireless ISP and Voice over IP service, with a little help from friends and family.