[Asterisk-Users] Free WWT (WorldWideTelco): Utopia, or just a matter of organization?

[Marconi Rivello]

I had this idea, and after looking for something like this already in
progress, I found another guy who tried to start it... But I was
unable to contact him, and his project seems to be dead. But, I
believe it is possible, and I wanted to know the opinion of the
experienced... So, let's go:

I got an asterisk server setup to receive free calls from US to
Brazil. The problem is that at my work, the Internet connection is
really good, so I can talk to US, and receive calls from US (through
StanaPhone, and IPKall) without any problems. But, at my home, there's
no broadband. So, I bought an FXO card, put it at my PC at work, and
whenever it gets a call to me, it dials my home number. So I can talk
to US for a local call cost, with sound quality better than the real
phone call from US (I already did, and it's really better through
voip).

I was thinking: we could build an Asterisk network, maybe go even
further and make it P2P like skype (but I believe it's not necessary
at the beginning), and every user would share it's phone line, and be
able to place calls to PSTN through the other users' phone lines. So,
I let Japanese people call my neighbours for free, and an Italian guy
may let me use his phone, so he can use the Indian guy's phone...

In US, local calls are free. So it wouldn't be a problem to make such
a network to get rid of long distance calls. But in other countries
(like here in Brazil) local calls are charged. So there could be some
king of billing (without commercial purposes, just to pay for the
costs), or something...

Asterisk is really powerful, and I believe that at least for a small
initial test, it wouldn't require anything else.

So, any thoughts on this? Critics, suggestions, ideas...

Marconi.