If you're offering to organize, create and open-source a conferencing system that does what Zoom does AND SCALES UP, be my guest! You could even apply to us for a grant...
I don't know how wide its coverage is, but here in Europe we have a network of Asterisk PABXes on AMPRnet that have interconnecting trunks between them that allow you to call anyone on the network on their roaming number. Phone numbers are allocated based on the callsign (using a scheme based on the letters printed on DTMF keypads. based on my callsign, my phone number is 713210234253 for "1st letter on key 7, 2nd letter on key 3, digit 1, 3rd letter on key 2, 2nd letter on key 4, 3rd letter on key 5" giving PE1CHL ). The DUNDi trunk protocol distributes the information about the home server for each number across the network, so all Asterisk servers know how to route the calls.
It is easy to host a conference on one or more of the Asterisk servers and have everyone dial in to that. There is such a conference running on my local server where I have my IP phone connected all the time.
I think such systems can do low-bandwidth video as well, but I have never tried that. For audio it works perfectly.
Seriously, this touches on one of my pet topics: IP multicasting. A huge amount of work went into the development of IP multicast protocols in the 1980s and 1990s, yet nearly all of it has been stillborn. It sees use only in walled gardens like AT&T Uverse (an IPTV over VDSL service in the US) and in degenerate form for intra-net resource discovery on LANs.
I agree that would be much more efficient than having the basic star-type structure where everyone gets the same stream from one server. That would be one thing that could be implemented in AMPRnet to show the world that it really has advantages. For phone quality voice and the number of attendees we would expect, running this over AMPRnet in the star configuration should be no issue.
Rob
On 10/11/20 13:58, Rob Janssen via 44Net wrote:
I agree that would be much more efficient than having the basic star-type structure where everyone gets the same stream from one server. That would be one thing that could be implemented in AMPRnet to show the world that it really has advantages.
Exactly my thinking.
Hams (and open source people in general) have a secret weapon: we're willing to work on projects just because we find them technically interesting. We don't have to first convince senior management that they can soon make a lot of money from it. Better yet, we don't have to care if we destroy somebody's existing business model.
Case in point: the Internet. It's actually kind of amazing that I was allowed to spend so much time in the IETF and promoting IP back at Bellcore in the 1980s given that I was really working to destroy my own company. I got strong support from my immediate management, but we were probably lucky in failing to get senior telephone company execs to understand the Internet. When they finally did, in the late 1990s, it was too late. Bellcore's remains are owned by Ericsson (I think) and the building in New Jersey where I worked in the 1980s was sold long ago. The situation was much the same with Xerox PARC (see "Fumbling the Future").
A really good, scalable wide area IP multicast architecture has the potential to destroy a lot of existing business models, including content distribution networks (CDNs), many commercial conferencing services (like Zoom) and maybe even some mega application-level services like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. They've become so huge and successful in part because there are strong economies of scale in the resources needed to throw terabits of fiber and buildings stuffed with computers at the task of centrally replicating and transmitting unicast packets. But if those packets no longer have to be centrally replicated...
For phone quality voice and the number of attendees we would expect, running this over AMPRnet in the star configuration should be no issue.
Well....yes. But that's not the point. We need to show that wide-area multicasting can be done, and that'd be easiest if you start with a light load like voice.
On 10/11/20 4:58 PM, Rob Janssen wrote:
I don't know how wide its coverage is, but here in Europe we have a network of Asterisk PABXes on AMPRnet that have interconnecting trunks between them that allow you to call anyone on the network on their roaming number. Phone numbers are allocated based on the callsign (using a scheme based on the letters printed on DTMF keypads. based on my callsign, my phone number is 713210234253 for "1st letter on key 7, 2nd letter on key 3, digit 1, 3rd letter on key 2, 2nd letter on key 4, 3rd letter on key 5" giving PE1CHL ). The DUNDi trunk protocol distributes the information about the home server for each number across the network, so all Asterisk servers know how to route the calls.
It is easy to host a conference on one or more of the Asterisk servers and have everyone dial in to that. There is such a conference running on my local server where I have my IP phone connected all the time.
I think such systems can do low-bandwidth video as well, but I have never tried that. For audio it works perfectly.
We also have a network of PBX's tied together here in the US but using AREDN Mesh connectivity. Phone numbers are a flat 4-digits for local calling. For wide area calls, the person's (or service) 3-digit area code is prepended to the 4-digit local number. There are around 40 pbx's scattered around the world on this network. There is a White Pages directory to determine a person's (or service) phone number.
It would be interesting to try to connect the two systems together.
73, Mark, N2MH MeshPhone: 973-2111 MeshMail: n2mh@n2mh-mailhub.local.mesh MeshDMR: Talk Group 6374
There is a network on Internet that could be moved -- https://hamshackhotline.com/ Here in Washington State there is a 44-net based system on Hamwan ( hamwan.org) A good project would be to setup an ENUM service to bring them together. https://www.voip-info.org/enum/
On Mon, Oct 12, 2020 at 12:23 PM Mark Herson, N2MH via 44Net < 44net@mailman.ampr.org> wrote:
On 10/11/20 4:58 PM, Rob Janssen wrote:
I don't know how wide its coverage is, but here in Europe we have a
network
of Asterisk PABXes on AMPRnet that have interconnecting trunks between
them
that allow you to call anyone on the network on their roaming number. Phone numbers are allocated based on the callsign (using a scheme based
on
the letters printed on DTMF keypads. based on my callsign, my phone
number
is 713210234253 for "1st letter on key 7, 2nd letter on key 3, digit 1,
3rd
letter on key 2, 2nd letter on key 4, 3rd letter on key 5" giving PE1CHL
).
The DUNDi trunk protocol distributes the information about the home
server
for each number across the network, so all Asterisk servers know how to route the calls.
It is easy to host a conference on one or more of the Asterisk servers
and
have everyone dial in to that. There is such a conference running on my local server where I have my IP phone connected all the time.
I think such systems can do low-bandwidth video as well, but I have never tried that. For audio it works perfectly.
We also have a network of PBX's tied together here in the US but using AREDN Mesh connectivity. Phone numbers are a flat 4-digits for local calling. For wide area calls, the person's (or service) 3-digit area code is prepended to the 4-digit local number. There are around 40 pbx's scattered around the world on this network. There is a White Pages directory to determine a person's (or service) phone number.
It would be interesting to try to connect the two systems together.
73, Mark, N2MH MeshPhone: 973-2111 MeshMail: n2mh@n2mh-mailhub.local.mesh MeshDMR: Talk Group 6374 _________________________________________ 44Net mailing list 44Net@mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
Hi Rob,
Is the European Asterisk/DUNDI/AMPRNet voip network you describe below documented somewhere? I tried to google around but did not find anything.
Can you provide a link?
On 2020-10-11 22:58, Rob Janssen via 44Net wrote:
If you're offering to organize, create and open-source a conferencing system that does what Zoom does AND SCALES UP, be my guest! You could even apply to us for a grant...
I don't know how wide its coverage is, but here in Europe we have a network of Asterisk PABXes on AMPRnet that have interconnecting trunks between them that allow you to call anyone on the network on their roaming number. Phone numbers are allocated based on the callsign (using a scheme based on the letters printed on DTMF keypads. based on my callsign, my phone number is 713210234253 for "1st letter on key 7, 2nd letter on key 3, digit 1, 3rd letter on key 2, 2nd letter on key 4, 3rd letter on key 5" giving PE1CHL ). The DUNDi trunk protocol distributes the information about the home server for each number across the network, so all Asterisk servers know how to route the calls.
It is easy to host a conference on one or more of the Asterisk servers and have everyone dial in to that. There is such a conference running on my local server where I have my IP phone connected all the time.
I think such systems can do low-bandwidth video as well, but I have never tried that. For audio it works perfectly.
Seriously, this touches on one of my pet topics: IP multicasting. A huge amount of work went into the development of IP multicast protocols in the 1980s and 1990s, yet nearly all of it has been stillborn. It sees use only in walled gardens like AT&T Uverse (an IPTV over VDSL service in the US) and in degenerate form for intra-net resource discovery on LANs.
I agree that would be much more efficient than having the basic star-type structure where everyone gets the same stream from one server. That would be one thing that could be implemented in AMPRnet to show the world that it really has advantages. For phone quality voice and the number of attendees we would expect, running this over AMPRnet in the star configuration should be no issue.
Rob
44Net mailing list 44Net@mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
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Rob Janssen