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Surf 'N' Turf: Bringing the Internet to San Felipe
by Barbara Belejack
This article was first published in 1996. |
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| After working as a physicist in
San Diego for twenty years, Tony Colleraine decided it was time
to retire to San Felipe, Baja California, where the desert meets
the sea. Located 200 kilometers south of the border, with a
population of 25,000, San Felipe is the kind of place you go
to do some fishing, relax, and enjoy a nice cold beer. The British-born
Colleraine had been traveling to Mexico off and on since 1985
and had built a home in San Felipe where he could get away from
the laboratory "and do some original thinking," as he likes
to say. After retiring he wanted to make sure that he could
keep up with developments in physics. For that he would need
access to the Internet -- but there was no Internet in San Felipe.
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Internet connectivity at the border
-- at Tijuana or Mexicali, for example -- is quite good. But
travel a few miles south along the Baja coast and the situation
changes drastically. Despite some interesting demographics --
a community of about 5,000 Americans, mostly retirees and "snowbirds"
escaping the cold -- and the potential to attract wealthy weekend
visitors from Silicon Valley and the Valley of Mexico, from
an Internet Service Provider's (ISP) point of view, there was
no Internet market in San Felipe. So Colleraine started out
by dialing an ISP in San Diego -- and running up exorbitant
phone bills. He then decided to take on what seemed like a modest
project and bring the Internet to San Felipe. Two years into
retirement, Colleraine is working harder than ever, filled with
ideas about telecommunications, tourism, "intelligent maquiladoras,"
"centers of excellence," and the culture of business.
The first obstacle was convincing officials from Telnor, the
local telephone company, officials that there was sufficient
interest in the Internet in San Felipe to merit an experimental
connection. With the assistance of several university professors
and Telnor engineers, Colleraine organized an informal public
meeting in April 1996. When 3,000 people showed up, Telnor decided
it was worth installing a microwave link to Mexicali. Among
those who showed the most amount of interest in the Internet
were local students intent on learning anything and everything
about computers and information technology and owners of tourism-related
businesses, who were beginning to see an alarming side of the
drug war. Between increased media attention focused on drug-related
violence at the border and the installation of military checkpoints
on the highway south of Mexicali, local tourism was declining
sharply.
Colleraine decided to adopt a matter-of-fact attitude toward
the military checkpoints.. "We have to alert visitors to the
fact that this is what you are to expect. This is going to be
a way of life." If visitors knew what to expect, they wouldn't
be alarmed, he reasoned. Although initially the idea of an Internet
connection appealed to him as a way to keep up with his own
scientific interests, Colleraine was easily sidetracked, seeing
the Net as a vehicle to promote San Felipe, to enable local
businesses to compete with glitzier resorts with big advertising
budgets, and to begin providing an alternative source of employment,
what he refers to as "a new metaphor for doing business with
the United States," -- "an intelligent maquiladora."
Nearly a year after that initial public meeting, San Felipe
has set up a community network and maintains its own web site
(http://www.sanfelipe.com.mx),
produced by a core group of retirees and student volunteers.
The site is designed to walk prospective visitors from the
border to the beach, preparing them for a place that "is at
that stage in its growth that it can still offer the simplicity
of rural Mexican life while having a reasonable range of goods
and services." Among the features offered are detailed road
maps, lists of accommodations ranging from deluxe hotels, Bed
and Breakfasts to RV campgrounds, extensive commentary on nearby
mountains, desert, and cacti, a "photo gallery", and prompt
e-mail response to visitors' questions. Probably the most useful
feature on the site is a section called " Discovering San Felipe
-- A Primer for the First-Time Visitor." Here San Felipe's web
volunteers have put together detailed information directing
visitors to the sole ATM machine in town, to the radio frequency
of National Public Radio in the United States as well as that
of the classical music station of the university in Mexicali,.
They also guide them through the ins and outs of cellular telephone
rental, dollars versus pesos, and that peculiar '90s rite of
passage for tourists driving south from the border: the military
checkpoint. |
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According to the primer, "There
is absolutely nothing to fear from the military checks, they
are part of the U.S.-sponsored attempts to stop the flow of
drugs and weapons in Mexico. The soldiers carry menacing weapons
but they are friendly, very respectful and try hard to speak
English. At each checkpoint you will be required to pull off
the paved road onto the gravel shoulder....The soldiers are
just doing their jobs and will not detain you unnecessarily."
(In an effort to accommodate those who would just as soon dispense
with border hassles, military checkpoints and the five-hour
drive, air shuttle service is scheduled to start between San
Diego and San Felipe later this month.)
Though not without its flaws, the San Felipe site is a remarkable
effort and an example of what Mexico could be doing -- but sadly
isn't -- to promote less well-known, off-the-beaten track ecotourism
destinations. As Colleraine explains, a big budget is hardly
necessary. The web site is a completely volunteer effort that
runs on a combination of beg, borrow and barter. In exchange
for office space, for example, a local hotel receives a web
page that provides free advertising. One of Colleraine's closest
collaborators is a thirteen-year-old who is self-taught and
"speaks fluent HTML," hyper-text mark-up language, the lingua
franca of web page design and construction. While San Felipe
is an example of the potential of community-based Internet networks,
it's not clear that it can be easily replicated elsewhere in
Mexico. Nor is it problem- free.
Despite the great interest, at present there are only 30 computers
in the area with Internet connectivity (including some computer
enthusiasts who rely on fairly expensive cellular phone connections
to send and receive e-mail and surf the Internet). Electric
power is erratic; heat, humidity, dust and sand take their toll
on equipment and software. The average age of a computer mouse,
for example, is just three months. The unique combinations of
software and hardware have presented configuration problems
for Colleraine and his volunteer staff. But still he is optimistic
that mice, sand, and configuration nightmares can eventually
be overcome. "The technology is transferable," he insists. "The
problem is doing it at a cost the community can afford. The
problem is getting the technology in the hands of kids."
A version of this article appeared in the El Financiero
International. |
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