[Asterisk-Users] VoIP dialtone?

[Brian Capouch]

Bruce Ferrell wrote:
> Fidonet for phones!  Great idea!
> 
> And I'm serious about that
> 
> Dan Austin wrote:
> 
>> This idea has been floating around in my head.  I don't think the
>> needed 'critical mass' has been reached, but I suspect at some
>> point a co-op style arrangement could be reached.
>>
>> disclaimer:
>>     I have played with *, and am deploying Cisco Call Manager.
>> I don't see any technical reason why the following would not work,
>> but it is open for abuse, so there may be enough socio-political
>> reasons to not even try.
>>
>> Ingredients:
>>     1.  A * server
>>     2.  A friend with an * server in another city/state/country
>>     3.  A way to locate like minded individuals/orginizations
>>     4.  Moderately over-built local PSTN connectivity
>>

I am already doing something that would be described as "in that general 
vein."

I have offices that are served by three different COs in two different 
area codes.  Each has an asterisk server.

The dialplan at each looks at the CO prefix and if it is on one of the 
exchanges that I am "trunking" then it ships the call via IAX to the 
server on that line and then makes the call locally.

Someone I was describing this to the other day said, "Is that legal?"  I 
am imagining it's probably not OK to sell such a thing, but it would 
seem a cooperative or club would be able to do something like that and 
stay on the right side of the FCC.

I haven't yet added the frosting to the cake, through sheer laziness, 
which is to add code at each server that, in the case of the "local" 
user needing the local line and finding it already occupied by a 
partner, simply sends the call out via NuFone.  The number of times such 
a thing would happen, given reasonable channel use design, would be 
reasonably low, and the extra cost of the IAX call would IMO be more 
than offset by the convenience of "extended local dialing."

I am doing all this out in BFE using wireless, and so far the 
performance has been pretty good.  Modulo what I find out about the 
legal aspects, we're thinking about extending this concept and finding 
partners in each of the six little towns we serve hereabouts.

Asterisk rocks.

B.