Mesh Potatoes on sale

[Steve Song]

Hi all,

Those of you who have pre-ordered, will know that the webstore for
ordering Mesh Potatoes is now open at
http://villagetelco.org/products/ If you're interested in seeing what
the production Mesh Potato finally looks like, I've written a short
post with some pictures at
http://www.villagetelco.org/2010/09/mesh-potatoes-go-on-sale/

For the record, they will be available for the next two weeks at USD89
per unit. Although they are listed on the website as being USD119 per
unit, you can get the $89 price by entering "afinemesh" in the coupon
field on the Checkout page. The MPs will ship by the end of
September.

This is quite a milestone for the Village Telco and I am feeling a
little overcome this afternoon with a deep sense of indebtedness to
everyone who has contributed to making the Mesh Potato a reality.

-Steve

[Antoine van Gelder]

On 03 Sep 2010, at 15:06 , Steve Song wrote:
> This is quite a milestone for the Village Telco and I am feeling a
> little overcome this afternoon with a deep sense of indebtedness to
> everyone who has contributed to making the Mesh Potato a reality.

May it be the first of many!

:-)

- antoine

[Thomas Ziegler]

first: thanks steve!

well, i wanted to order one but realized that the shipping costs to germany are 59$ ... - so how about several in germany share the shipping costs with ONE shipment? are there others in the south of germany?? -am presently around freiburg/breisgau..., thomas

>Hi all,
>Those of you who have pre-ordered, will know that the webstore for

>ordering Mesh Potatoes is now open...

--
der kleine nachhaltige deutsche pilzanbauer \
the small german sustainable mushroomer - http://www.biopilze.de/wir.htm
le petit champignoneur allemand soutenable /

[Corinna Elektra Aichele]

Hello Thomas -

I'll order a couple of units from Atcom. Can forward a parcel to you to
Freiburg.

Cheers,
Elektra

[David Rowe]

Hello List,

I am in Dharamsala, India attending http://extremecom.org. The cost of
a cell phone call here is 1 rupee/minute (about USD$0.02/minute). This
(I think) brings the cost of telephony to a level that the average
person can afford.

So a question for our list members from India - is the Village Telco and
Mesh Potato useful in India?

I also understand that VOIP is not legal here, or that the situation is
cloudy.

Perhaps there are rural areas without cell phone coverage that may
benefit, or other applications that I haven't thought of.

Thanks,

David

[Akshay Mishra]

David,
       Your statement is correct. (VoIP in India is allowed as SIP to SIP but a VoIP origin call in India cannot terminate on a PSTN within India.) So a MP is legal but only to talk within a closed group.

The 1 rupee/minute is further broken down to INR 0.01/second.
The same is now the case for making international calls (few providers have started INR 0.01/second rates. Within 6 months maybe all start to provide this across India for International calls)

This, and the wide penetration of cell phone infrastructure has made any other  technology slightly difficult to realize. Also the expectations here are slightly higher -- My perception from discussions wrt MP -- Only a voice device cannot be sold for more than INR 3000 or about USD60.

-Akshay

[Steve Song]

Hi all,

I think that does make the value proposition more challenging and it
is not limited to India. Three weeks ago, Zain Kenya (recently
acquired by Indian communications giant Bharti-Airtel) dropped their
calling prices to 25% of the previous going rate, bringing local calls
down to about 0.04 USD per minute and about 0.01 USD per SMS. This is
big news.

However, I think there is still something to be said for the power of
offering local call infrastructure. I've written a little bit more
about this at

http://manypossibilities.net/2010/09/the-importance-of-being-local/

H/T to Alexander for pointing me at a revealing Huawei article on
local call among other things.

In terms of the cost of the devices, all I can say is that "we'll get
there". 60USD is doable but it will take us a little while to reach
those economies of scale.

Cheers... Steve

[McTim]

Right, and the other players have followed suit here in KE, some only
temporarily, while Zains offering is permanent.

Has any body crunched the numbers comparing VT vs. mobile carriers at
different price points? If so please post.

If not,I have a VSAT "cashulator" I may be able to adapt for this
purpose, but I'd rather not duplicate existing work.

--
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel

[meshphone]

shipping costs are really horrible....
any ideas 2 change that into a beter way..

meshphone

On 3 Sep., 15:06, Steve Song <steve.s...@shuttleworthfoundation.org>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Those of you who have pre-ordered, will know that the webstore for

> ordering Mesh Potatoes is now open athttp://villagetelco.org/products/ If you're interested in seeing what

> the production Mesh Potato finally looks like, I've written a short

> post with some pictures athttp://www.villagetelco.org/2010/09/mesh-potatoes-go-on-sale/

[Mats Karlsson]

To my knowledge is Indian law prohibiting VoIP technology to
interconnect with PSTN (Public Switched Telephony Networks).

Ref:
http://voipguides.blogspot.com/2006/12/indian-government-to-regulate-voip.html
http://www.nishithdesai.com/telecom-hotline/Telecom-Hotline-May-26-08.htm

Kind regards
Mats

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>

[Steve Song]

For the moment, shipping is a bit expensive. We have yet to achieve
any real economies of scale. We are very open to anyone who would
like to aggregate demand in their region to bring down shipping costs.
It is a simple reality that until we start shipping Mesh Potatoes in
large quantities, our shipping costs are not going to be as low as we
would like them to be. Feel free to contact me if you'd like to make
your own arrangements for shipping or indeed to canvas people on the
list to aggregate demand for your region. Open to suggestion.

Cheers.... Steve

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>

--
Steve Song
Telecommunications Fellow, Shuttleworth Foundation

email:   steve...@shuttleworthfoundation.org
work:    +27 21 970 1220
mobile:  +27 83 482 2088
skype:   steve_l_song
blog:    http://manypossibilities.net
twitter: stevesong

[Raphaël Jacquot]

On 09/05/2010 09:21 PM, Mats Karlsson wrote:
> To my knowledge is Indian law prohibiting VoIP technology to
> interconnect with PSTN (Public Switched Telephony Networks).
>
> Ref:
> http://voipguides.blogspot.com/2006/12/indian-government-to-regulate-voip.html
> http://www.nishithdesai.com/telecom-hotline/Telecom-Hotline-May-26-08.htm

so as to protect the extremely profitable incumbent telco I presume...

[David Rowe]

The shipping costs are only really an issue for samples. For people who
want to deploy real Village Telco networks of 10+ MPs, the shipping
price will work out much cheaper per unit.

- David

[David Rowe]

> so as to protect the extremely profitable incumbent telco I presume...

Actually I think the Indian government has done a great job of giving
their people affordable telephony. Prices we US$1.65/minute in 2001,
now USD$0.02. Eight million cell phones a month are joining the network
and the total number of phone is approaching 1B.

Still some possibility for local call VT in remote areas not covered by
cell networks, but interconnection with the PSTN is an issue due to the
VOIP laws. However there are many other countries who really need VT
for affordable phone calls. That's what this project is all about.

BTW I am sitting on a mountain 2900m high as I write, getting Wifi over
a 3km link from my laptop to an Air Jaldi hotspot in the village below.
They guy next to me is using his cell phone.

- David

[Cody Cooper]

--
Cody Cooper
Student & Website Designer

eMail: co...@codycooper.co.nz
Web: www.codycooper.co.nz
Phone: (06) 328-8707
Mobile: 027-853-9159

This email and attachments: may be confidential; may be protected by
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information system.

[Cody Cooper]

Sorry all about my previous (empty) message, I'm just getting used to
using Lynx.
Anyway, my question is, who is actually shipping the Mesh Potatos?
I have a funny feeling it is FedEx, is it?

--cody

P.S. Yes, gMail does work in a text only browser :D

[edwin]

Hi, Cody,

Except the customers in Africa where Steve may have a low shipping to them,
most of the shipment will be handled from China to save the shipping cost.
we will use DHL or UPS.

Best Regards
Edwin Chen

> -----邮件原件-----
> 发件人: village-...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:village-...@googlegroups.com] 代表 Cody Cooper
> 发送时间: 2010年9月6日星期一 12:30
> 收件人: village-...@googlegroups.com
> 主题: Re: Mesh Potatoes on sale

[Cody Cooper]

Hi there Edwin,

It's just, to ship products over to New Zealand, it tends to cost a lot
more with UPS & DHL than it does with FedEx, for example.

e.g.
FedEx = $150
UPS = $600
DHL = $300
USPS = $149

Will there be any other shipping methods?

Thanks,
Cody Cooper

[edwin]

Hi, Cody,

Fedex has a much higher cost than UPS and DHL in China. DHL and UPS has the
lowest rate here.

Best Regards
Edwin Chen

> -----邮件原件-----
> 发件人: village-...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:village-...@googlegroups.com] 代表 Cody Cooper

> 发送时间: 2010年9月8日星期三 18:23
> 收件人: village-...@googlegroups.com
> 主题: Re: 答复: Mesh Potatoes on sale