The LocustWorld MeshAP now supports standards based Voice over IP, with SIP routing capability at every node. Now the mesh can be used to provide high quality wireless IP telephony, in addition to established wireless broadband services. Meshing allows network operators to provide services over large areas, and these new telephony routing features let operators offer voice services to customers throughout the range of their mesh.
Voice over IP has been a long time coming, but recent developments mean that the waiting is now over. LocustWorld have brought together the latest developments in VOIP using the SIP protocol to deliver a fully workable system with the capacity to cover very large areas.Using SIP on the Mesh users can : - Make and receive calls to any SIP compatible phone service
- Use wired or wireless devices over the mesh for full function telephony services
- Roam all over the mesh, using the same phone number
- Call to other Internet users for no charge Until recently there was a shortage of free SIP client software and cheap hardware devices. Today there are many free client soft-phones for almost every platform and with the industry standard SIP protocol being the most widely supported. Hardware SIP phones are now priced within the reach of most consumers and WiFi based mobile SIP handsets are now entering the market in mass produced numbers. Large numbers of commercial telephone switches support the SIP protocol and a combination of these as well as open source software and regular telephone network interface equipment means that more and more providers of SIP<->PSTN gateways are coming online. Mesh users can access these gateways transparently over the mesh as if they were connected directly to their own broadband connection. Using this system, you can quite literally have a regular telephone number, which when called causes your laptop or PDA soft-phone to ring and answering it allows you to conduct a telephone conversation in excess of the quality you'd expect from a digital mobile phone. Equally you can make outgoing calls to regular telephone numbers. On top of these features, SIP allows you to make and receive internet to internet calls with other users of other providers, or directly to users who are anywhere on the internet. With internet to internet calls there are no calling costs involved. Because this is now fully supported on the mesh, you can roam anywhere within the mesh coverage area and your phone number literally follows the SIP device, which could be your laptop, PDA or a hardware WiFi phone. You can make and receive calls to and from anywhere, whether its another mesh user or someone on the Internet or via a SIP<->PSTN gateway provider. Some VoIP providers have previously attempted to solve these issues by using inefficient or insecure networking techniques or they replaced the SIP protocol with something proprietary to get around the technical problems etc. These approaches are unlikely to be as effective or reach as wide a market as handling the proven and existing SIP protocol correctly. This is why LocustWorld have invested the time and effort to make SIP work. It might not be the perfect protocol, but it is what everyone is using and it is an open and widely implemented standard which can be enjoyed today. If you are using SIP in your network or you provide compatible products or services, LocustWorld would be interested to hear from you and to add your product or service to the list of facilities available to mesh operators. Please contact us: business@locustworld.com
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