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... Thanks to my choice (VoIP + WiFi on my "smart" linux enabled (maemo) hand set) my total cost of ownership (TCO) is less than $100 per year. ... $24 per year for SkhypeIn (with SkhypePro) + $3.00 per month for unlimited calling...

Huh, if all you need is calling while next to a WiFi hotspot, "less than $100/y" remains way overpriced IMHO.
I use VoIP from my cellphone for maybe $10 to $20/y with SIPdroid + IPkall DID + JustVoip (or others) + optional: Asterisk, SIPBroker and E164. But all this is mostly irrelevant as my reason for having a cell is to call from places other than home or work = often without WiFi.

Back on topic: VMware stuff is IMO like that VoIP/WiFi stuff: sure cool, appealing to geeks. Good for PR / publicity. But otherwise limited practical usefulness, esp for non-techies...

I guess you could say that they have a monopoly on their patent, because that is exactly what patents do. They do NOT have a monopoly on DVR's because they license their technology to anyone that wants to pay for it.

Frankly, while I wouldn't be thrilled at the idea, I could see paying $10 for the right to use tivo technology in Mythtv, much like I pay $10 / channel for the g729 codec used in Asterisk. Not happy, but such is life. Now if Tivo demanded that Myth cease to exist, or "monthly payments", I would be quite upset.

You can get wall-mount mini racks that would work for something small like this.

Something more appropriate is the Leviton Integrated Networks system that has a panel and modules that are DESIGNED for smart-home systems. Reading comments further down I'm hearing "go wireless" - my answer is that there are MANY other things you can run over cat 5 - like an IR repeater system, digital AV senders, intercom, cameras, digital volume control for whole house sound systems, etc. - you should think outside the box.

When I did some major rewiring of my house, I actually put in 2 sets of jacks in bedrooms allowing for easy reconfiguration. That puts 4 RG6U and 4 Cat5e in each bedroom. For the main entertainment system, I ran 8 Cat5e and 8 RG6U to the back panel of which most is already used. The leviton boxes I felt were a little limiting, but some of the components were useful such as the IR and AV modules. The little 8 port switch was not enough - I use an HP Procurve 2400 24 port switch that I got on ebay for $200 (new). I ALSO use wireless, but limit the use to laptops. 802.11g is pokey in certain cases - I do network backup to a server with an autoloader DLT drive, but still use the server for most storage.

One thing I reccomend is putting a 4'x4' 3/4" plywood on the wall behind everything (in my case 4x8). Makes attaching stuff easier - not everything rack mounts nicely. For the few bits of rackmount equipment I have, I built a simple frame out of 2x2's, glued and screwed (and even some angle blackets) and used some door hinges to make it swing out from the wall. Total cost was about $10 compared to several hundred for a commercial wall mount rack system.

OK, I admit it, this is over the top, but I'm a geek. Wife thinks I'm nuts but also doesn't complain about the whole house audio, being able to watch her soaps that she has tivo record (which is in the basement) on any TV in the house, etc. Oh yeah, did I mention the Asterisk VoIP phone system? She likes that too - no more telemarketers. Power bill is a little high though :-)

I live in a town of about 50K, and there is only ONE local station. I live on the top of a hill and can see Mount Washington 60 miles away, yet I can't get ANYTHING on my TV with an in-house antenna - If I want to receive any stations (including the "local" one,) I need a big roof-top antenna with a rotor. Needless to say, I don't bother and use DirecTV which is supposed to carry local channels in my area starting sometime this or next month. I would love to beam my DSL (soon to be fiber) and internal LAN to my lake house (which I can see with a telescope.) I use asterisk for my phone system, so theoretically I should be able to work from my boat with a laptop, relayed through the lake house to my main house :-)

If I can get 768K bandwidth, that would be enough! Current wifi seems a little too low-powered, and has too much competition in the 2.4G band. I didn't want to spend the $$$ on a wireless link unless I was pretty sure it was going to work.
Between me and the lake house, there is a cell tower and most of "downtown." The new bands may be just the ticket once equipment is available...

There are the "telezapper" products that may help, but they are kinda lame. I use a linux-based asterisk phone system. If your caller ID is not on the (mysql based) white list, you need to navigate the menu. Numbers I dial are automatically added to the white list, and I also have a web-based management tool for it.

There is also a Telemarketer Torture script for asterisk someone came up with... :-)

The Skinny/SCCP protocol has some support in Asterisk 0.7.x now. I haven't had a chance to test it myself as there is no way I'm paying that much for a portable phone with very limited coverage at the moment :)

Use Asterisk. If everyone starts to use asterisk then how are they going to keep track.

This may not be the best answer given the criteria in the article, but when I have this need I use a $5 phone (which I bought at a drugstore on the way to the airport one time) plugged into a Cisco ATA-186 box that is in turn connected to a Linux laptop running Asterisk. The laptop connects using IAX-over-SSH to a server back here in Washington that in turn connects to the office phone system. From there the calls get routed to local extensions, out to POTS, or to other Asterisk systems, as required.

In addition to being reasonably secure, it saves a lot of money. Hotels usually charge a flat daily rate for broadband in the room. For that amount I can make and receive all the international calls I want.

"Make free phone calls - all over the world!"

I saw nothing in their website with regards to IP->POTS or POTS->IP transversal. Therefore I don't see where I can make free phone calls all over the world in the traditional sense. "Hey, I wanna call you, but you need to have a computer with broadband and this computer -- oh, and I can't call you from my phone; I must use a computer too."

So isn't this just a hyped up distributed/proxied Voice-chat program? Doesn't Yahoo and ICQ (VIRC and others too) provide similar functionality?

I think I'll stick with Asterisk PBX and use hardware from Digium. Yes, it requires additional hardware for POTS/PSTN stuff, but you can do almost anything you want with it. SIP clients can make phone calls very well through firewalls (receiving takes an extra step or two) and many of the free clients give you a choice of what codecs to use (GSM, iLBC, G711u, G711a). Another option you get with asterisk is using their IAX protocol which is more forgiving around firewalls IMHO.

Just my 2cents

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This is just as completely unrelated to OpenLindows.org, but Asterisk PBX is an open-source Linux-based PABX with IP support that is at a stage where it does useful things, as opposed to the sourceforge-project-with-Index-of-page stage.

Several Open Source projects are nicely funded doing the same thing. Take for instance the OSS telephone project Asterisk. The software is made available to enable more people to buy and use a particular telephone line interface card. Other cards are supported in the software, but the sponsoring company's is obviously supported first.

So, one avenue is to partner with a hardware maker, in the case of the PC to PDA sync, partner with an up-and-coming desktop hardware manufacturer, or a similar PDA maker.

Standard Disclaimer: I am not employed by Multitech nor do I have any financial interests in them.

Hardly!
I'm constantly connected via gnophone (using IAX, another VoIP protocol) to an Asterisk PBX (GPLed) on a DSL connection in FL. I shopw up as an extension, just like any of the other 20 VoIP desksets (phones) in the office. We all share a couple analog lines connected to X100P cards from Digium (look on the asterisk hardware page).
This stuff works great!

The real bear in getting this to work was finding a modem suitable for use with vgetty; vgetty's docs list some voice modems known to work, but most of these are 5+ years old and $300 and up, if you can even find them for sale.

Clued in by a Usenet post, I found a modern modem that works: the 3Com 2976 Voice/Fax/Data modem. It sells in online stores for around $50. (Note that not all modems which purport to have voice functionality are supported, and controllerless "winmodems" are not likely to work.)

I also tried using Asterisk, but it wasn't really suitable for my voicemail needs. As I recall it did not handle disconnect detection very well, potentially leaving the phone off the hook for a long time. There was also a pronounced lack of any HOWTOs or detailed documentation available either with the program, with the PBX card I purchased from them to run the program, or on the Internet in general.

My sense is that Asterisk's creator actively discourages freely available documentation, in order to have people avail themselves of paid support. To his credit you do get one month of free support for the software and the card when you purchase the latter, and he was helpful in IRC when I spoke with him.

Open Source: Data, Analog voice, VOIP, PBX... here.

There's an excellent open-source PBX called Asterisk. Among other things, it provides an MMX-optimized echo-canceller. Look here

Definitely check them out! Rob and Mark are turbo studly and they smell good too. Don't forget to hassle Mark about when Asterisk is going to go into production. :-)