[mctavjb9]

Low bit rate codecs with acceptable quality will be a boon for VoIP over satellite. Satellite Internet service is both bandwidth-limited and hideously expensive-- Inmarsat Fleet Broadband for cargo ships, for instance, typically costs $6/MB. The idea would be to set up local phone networks that employ one of the GSM codecs or mu-law (allowing the use of plain vanilla handsets) and then transcode the voice to a more efficient codec like this one upstream/downstream of the satellite connection to the PSTN.

Incidentally, David Rowe is one of the pioneers of the Mesh Potato.

[IgorPartola]

Thanks for the Mesh Potato mention. I haven't seen this project before but am very interested in stuff like this. My question is: what would happen if we overnight got an entire country wired? What kind of social, political and economic consequences would that have? I'm not thinking of the US, which already has a decent infrastructure, even if we want it to be better/faster/more neutral. I am thinking of African countries, a market largely underexposed to the internet. I suppose I can picture a startup trying to do this. Just think how many more Facebook users there could be...

[mctavjb9]

Here are some suggestions for further reading: http://www.villagetelco.org

Steve Song's blog (Telecommunications Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation): http://manypossibilities.net/

http://openmobile.futuretext.com/

There was an article in Linux Journal last December that includes more technical details on the Mesh Potato.

[IgorPartola]

Thank you very much.

[blj0280]

I agree that VoIP does not currently work great over satellite. I also agree that satellite internet has a lot of room for improvement. However, I have to say it is a life saver if your only other option is dial up. I also know that the satellite internet companies are upgrading their network next year to increase bandwidth speed. So, there is definitely hope. There is more information on this topic on my blog at mybluedish.com/blog.

[adbge]

It's been my experience that latency is a bigger issue with VoIP on a satellite connection than bandwidth limitations.