[Syd-Wireless] RE: [MLB-WIRELESS] Is Melbourne Wireless dead?

[Tony Langdon (ATC)]

> *BUT* and it's a big but, to be involved with community wireless you 
> need to gain a lot more hardware (which does cost money) 
> which you may 
> not have been planning to get and basically people aren't going to go 
> the last mile without a good reason, and this is why Perth took off 
> initially, they had the high ground and people willing to 
> spend time and 
> effort to care for it's expansion, but that hasn't happened in most 
> other places that I know of.

I can see where you're coming from too.  You're taking what could be called
a "realist" approach.  I tend to lean a bit more towards the ideal side of
things, because I'm the kind of person that will find a use for an AP stuck
up in the air, and if someone else comes along for the ride, that's a bonus.
If not, well, it's still going to serve my uses.  

> That's fine and good, but on one hand you are trying to get people to 
> spend money on equipment on the other hand you are telling 
> them if they 
> do buy it, you could have wasted a bunch of money and time 
> for nothing 
> and that doesn't fly with most people they simply won't commit to it. 
> Again this is where software development differs greatly, 
> people already 
> use the internet they already use their PCs and if they're developing

It depends on the person.  Sure, 99.9% of the population just want something
that works - guaranteed, or free/cheap/etc.  But for me, that kind of stuff
gets, well, boring, unless I can play with the guts of the thing.  

> Basically companies want to be found and especially if they have 1800 
> numbers because every minute someone is using their internet link to 
> talk to them rather then PSTN it's saving them in real money terms.

That makes sense.  I was just looking at e164 last night.
> 
> I talk to friends in Melbourne, Canada, and other places using their 
> normal numbers and it doesn't cost me a cent because asterisk 
> routes the 
> calls automatically between voip, voip providers and pstn, so that 
> others using my phone don't know or care how the call gets to 
> the other 
> end all they had to do was dial the number.

Neat.  I'd like to do this, but have to make sure that Asterisk is _totally_
transparent (i.e. users in the house dialling out don't see any difference).
> 
> For examples of dialling plans, enum config etc have a look at 
> http://www.asterisk.net.au which I whipped up out of 
> frustration at how 
> crap the asterisk documentation is.

Tell me about it!  I'll be reading with interest.  Might even get Asterisk
working properly very soon, though plans are for an IP only installation at
this stage - incorporating real PSTN has a few more hurdles of the human
variety to overcome.... :-/

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