[wplug] Asterisk Co-Op

[Ryan Brown]

I am wondering if there is enough interest within WPLUG to start an Asterisk
Co-Op. A lot of people have expressed interest in using Asterisk, and now
that the 412 DID (basically a Pittsburgh phone number) is available, I would
like to try to put something together.
 
As many of you are probably wondering, "What is a co-op?". Basically I am
looking for a handful of people to come together and split the cost of
running a centrally hosted Asterisk server.
 
You are now probably wondering, "Why?". Well... VoIP is nice for many
reasons. 1) Cost savings over your traditional home phone service. 2)
Traveling with your phone. 3) Availability of just about any DID (basically
phone number in any city in the US and Canada). For example, if you have a
lot of family in New York city, you can get a NYC phone number so whenever
they call you it would be a local call for them and not long distance.
Currently (and hopefully it will stay this way) VoIP is not taxed and does
not have the outrageous tariffs found with POTS. With a centrally hosted
server, you can take your IP phone wherever you go (assuming the location
has broadband internet), plug it in, and make and receive calls on your
phone number. 
 
Now you may be thinking, "Why don't I host it myself for free?".  VoIP all
comes down to lag and bandwidth. Cable modems and DSL are not fast enough to
be able to connect to your server while you are traveling and make a call
thru it as it will basically be handling 2 calls at once (the inbound call
from you to the server which is using your bandwidth, and then the outbound
call from your server to the termination provider which eats more
bandwidth). Better calling rates would also be available if minutes are
purchased in bulk rather than on an individual basis.
 
You probably are not thinking this, but I will ask the question anyways,
"What is the catch?".  As a co-op, operating at a minimum price to break
even, reliability cannot be guaranteed. Obviously it will have to work the
majority of the time, but I do not want to be getting phone calls at 4 am
when someone might not be able to get an international call to Belgium to
work, etc.
 
Co-Ops are something I learned of from the Cleveland LUG. I believe they run
an asterisk co-op (although I could not find info on it today) and I know
for sure they run a UML co-op (something I will be giving a talk on at the
January GUM so a co-op for this might exist as well assuming there is enough
interest).
 
If you have any interest in this, please contact me via email off the list,
or on IRC in #wplug as "loko".
 
I ask that businesses do not contact me to participate in the co-op, this is
for personal use only.
 
 
 
Kind Regards,
 
Ryan Brown
 <http://www.tblive.com/> 
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