A Big Phoney Mesh The Problem Village Telco Mesh Potato Lets make a VT! Status Links Questions
Demo – What you need to know Default IP eth Change Wifi to xxx You MP01's Phone Number is then xxx
The Problem
June 2008 Workshop
Village Telco and Cell Phones Call Cost Community Approach Unlicensed Spectrum Infrastructure cost and availability Cell Phone networks don't scale down Capital (it's not just the handsets) Walled gardens versus the Internet
Mesh Potato POT-ATA USD$60
Mesh Potato Design Low Cost B.A.T.M.A.N mesh routing < 400m between nodes, omni antennas Maximise open hardware and software OpenWRT FXS port & interface Low Power & Africanisation
Challenges Atheros Support CPU Load FXS Port Integration Hardware and a Multi-national team RF, Wifi Calibration, Antenna MAC overheads for small VOIP packets Ease of use
Custom Wifi/VOIP Hardware Not a re-flash of existing hardware Custom, mass market product designed by an open community! Open Hardware (schematic, CPLD, uC firmware) Open Software Very hackable Development blog: villagetelco.org Many 1 st world applications
Status It works! First phone call June 2009 Cool developer community Beta Release Jan 2010 (this week!) Production Q Current Challenges: real world performance (tech and biz) system integration ease of use
Links villagetelco.org Village Telco Google Group rowetel.com