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I've setup a Linux box and Asterisk along with a couple Grandstream IP phones. The quality was as good as a landline phone, and we'll probably be rolling out a test next year sometime, putting phones in all the classrooms (we're a public school). One card in the server to get us an outside line and we're set....

As soon as wireless VOIP phones come down in price, I'll be running my own wireless service for myself. I plan on setting up an Asterix server at home plugged into my landline. I can then use my VOIP phone anywhere in the world to call!

Being able to cheaply setup VOIP using your existing landline at home will decimate cell service as soon as more WIFI hotspots get out. IDT is already looking at this as a replacement for cell services.

At $0.05 a call

This may be true outside North America, but in the United States, both local calls and local minutes are unmetered. Some U.S. phone companies even provide unmetered domestic local, regional, and long distance calls and minutes for a flat fee.

Remember that just a few years ago there was a backbone capacity shortage. ISPs were competing to get their networks to OC12, OC48, and then OC192 - in part to have bragging rights, but mostly to keep up with growing demand. So it made complete sense that a huge amount of fiber would be laid, and anyone with reasonable Excel skills could (and did) predict that some of it would be used right away, and some would be used later.

The comparison with the RR's is valid in part and invalid in part. It's like the railroads in that it cost a lot to lay conduit/fiber, and that investors made incorrect guesses about demand growth. However, it is very different from the railroads in that there's really no incentive to abandon a strand of fiber. Railroads take up land that can be sold to other users. Fiber strands have very low maintenance costs, so owners can just sit on them for years if necessary . Which the smart ones will.

As for the fiber owned by carriers who might go bankrupt, I would love to be a bottom-feeder like IDT right now. There are good assets out there that can be bought way cheap.

a good example of society's attempts to hinder modem usage is idt's choice to drop all dial-up service. this, of course, was done without telling all dial-up customers. that's one way to get people to switch to broadband, i suppose.

a good example of society's attempts to hinder modem usage is idt's choice to drop all dial-up service. this, of course, was done without telling all dial-up customers. that's one way to get people to switch to broadband, i suppose.

The article linked to contains referenced quotes where L Ron advocates concentration camps or quiet disposal for gays, and indeed a wide range of other people as well (like those who criticise scientology) whenever Scientology assumes its rightful place... I think you could accurately call this extremist.

(inline as well as as images)

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