Tremor (APi)'s Journal: JoIP?

I was just thinking, and I'm sure I'm not the first to think it, and, more than likely, it's even already being done. But just in case it isn't, here's my brilliant idea.

I'm a huge Jabber fan. I love it. Decentralized, open-source IM - open source at it's finest.

I'm also a huge VoIP fan. If one network can take the place of many, that reduces costs for consumers, and allows service providers to focus maintenance and R&D dollars on one network, providing greater reliability and new and wonderful services (in theory, of course.)

The problems with VoIP, as with any emerging technology, are many - however, I highly doubt this will stop it from giving the Baby Bells a serious run for their money if they don't hop on the VoIP train real quick. The cell phone companies are already seeing that they need to stay agile in the market, and are working on dual-mode 3G/WiFi phones.

I think the cell companies are taking slightly the wrong tack here, however. If I were a mover and shaker in the cellular tech world, I'd be screaming at the top of my lungs for 3.5G to be straight cellular internet service, with VoIP being one of many services offered over that connection. Instead of having all of these various cellular voice technologies and a half-assed data connection slapped on the side, seperate your technologies and focus your efforts. Build a stable, reliable mediumband wireless connection, and build phones to utilize that connection with a variety of features, which are entirely up to the phone - VoIP, instant messaging, video conferencing, web browsing, and so on. Leave the features up to the phones; just provide a general-use connection for those features to utilize, and make it the best connection you can manage.

But that has nothing to do with my brilliant idea. I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, so I must reel myself back in.

My brilliant idea is a Jabber-style, decentralized, open-source VoIP service, using standard VoIP technologies (*cough*unlikeskype*cough*). Let anyone who wants to set up a VoIP service set one up just like they would a Jabber service; call people on their JoIP address, like you would IM someone at a JID.

Then, just as Jabber servers can install gateways to connect to other networks (AIM/ICQ, MSN, etc.), allow your JoIP server to install a gateway (which would require hardware support, of course) to connect to another network - the PSTN.

Now, here's where business and technology mix, as they so often do. That PSTN gateway requires a phone line, and that phone line costs money. You can restrict it to local calling only, which grants you a fixed, unlimited-use monthly bill. If someone in Florida wants to make a call in California, they make the call, and, like Jabber, their client connects to their server, their server connects to a server in California, and if the person they're calling is at a PSTN number in California, the local server in California connects the call via PSTN gateway.

So how do you cover the costs involved with a PSTN gateway? The JoIP server operator offers free JoIP-to-JoIP service, and if the user wants to make JoIP-to-PSTN calls, they pay a minimal monthly fee. The server operator has agreements with other operators to pay them by the minute for PSTN calls connected from their server. They could charge enough to pay for their PSTN line(s) and still make a profit, and monthly fees could STILL stay FAR below those of services like Vonage. And if you don't want to pay the fee, you don't have to, and you can still communicate with countless JoIP users across the world. And if you want to run a JoIP server with out going through all the hastle of setting up a gateway or setting up agreements with other gateways & charging users monthly fees, you can set up a JoIP-only server and leave it at that.

Maybe it'd work, maybe it wouldn't, but it's an idea, anyway...