Hi,
thanks for the support.
I cannot tell you yet what the cost of the phone will be.
It won’t be cheap. But as usual the price depends on what you are expecting.
It must be a device that:
1)Acts as a wireless device by itself ( no need of a portable computer, it must work as a phone.)
2) Compresses the voice and sends it on the NET already as ” packets”.
That is done with a chip.
With the usual Sip phones, you use the computers to do most of the job.
The algorithm behind is a new and much better one than the existing software.
That also won’t come cheap.
We are discussing a price around $200, $250.
We started from double, so, it is already a very good price in my opinion.
Only the people who will have a “Hot Spot” will be allowed to use the community. And the “Hot Spot” must be active 24 hours a day.
You do not even need a computer. Just connect the Access point to your line. ( of course you can use the line while you or somebody else is calling, it consumes max. 20k a normal call)
Besides, I was thinking: who will mostly use it?
The people in their own house or when they are on vacation.
The first scenario is of course easily handled, the second one will be.
Offering a Hot Spot to a restaurant or hotel or touristic point will cost less than air conditioning and may be bring more customers.
In a plane you can always use the airline phone ( if you can afford it)
On a train you will have to use a GSM phone (except in Sweden, England or Germany, where they already started to establish the WiFi for the railway).
Regarding the rural areas : in some you will be covered in some not (depending where the people/users installed an Access Point).
I cannot and will not promise you that on the first day you have your IP portable phone, you will be able to use it wherever, however, whenever.
But if you have a girlfriend or a friend or a relative or somebody you want to talk to, with two phones ( and two access points in the case of the portable) you will.
In the early stages, the Internet connection was very expensive, the telephone line too, and the modems were very slow.
Nevertheless the Internet has grown at a speed not comparable with anything else.
Beware. I won’t say that it will happen the same with VOIP.
What I say is:
Most of the people and businesses of today have two lines: a data line and a voice line.
VOIP will cut the need for a voice line. Beginning from few adepts and growing more and more.
My project is just a thought how to be able to use a portable phone in a scenario in which no big company would invest to build a replica of the existing one.
First for the sum involved second for the reduced revenues.
Besides, if somebody invests in infrastructures, they want to have a revenue, and they would have to charge for telephone calls.
This won’t bring us anywhere.
We would have a new Telecom and very little control of it.
The people nowaday are very much used to shut their mouths and open their pocket.
My idea, as utopistic as it can sound, was to do exactly what everybody did when it came to build the Internet.
Everybody put his pages on the Net, connected to it with a modem or whatever and began to communicate.
At that time GSM was something very few people used and wireless was a word many didn’t understand.
Today everybody has one or more portable phone(s) and is kind of addicted to it.
The scenario has changed and the Internet must change.
This is MY OPINION, right or wrong as it can look.
Everybody of course is entitled to have his own.
You can believe in it or not.
It can be succesful, it can fail.
I also see it as a good chance to have a minimum control over a Market where few bigs dictate their laws.
Don’t forget it is the people who make the economy, and the people are the ones who should have power on it.
It is time we begin to understand.
The Internet is the revolution of our century.
Because is the only big, innovative thing that has been born in our time, and it was made mainly by the people on the road.
The big ones ( including Bill Gates) were laughing about it.
( but he soon changed his mind )
Hope I have convinced you, if not, may be somebody else…
Patrizia