User guide

A big step towards the dissemination of IP Telephony can be found in the Free Telephony Project, a
community project that has developed an open hardware appliance (IP04) that runs Asterisk in a very
low power processor.
13. Appendix B: The IP04, Open telephony hardware for
developing regions
The Free Telephony Project
13.1 Executive Summary
We have a vision. Anyone should be able to make a phone call to anyone else. Telephony should be
regarded as a human right, not a privilege of the developed world. With the IP04, open hardware, and
minimal capital cost, this vision is now possible.
This document describes the IP04, a low cost open hardware IP-PBX developed by the Free
Telephony Project
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for developing regions. The IP04 is a tiny, full function Asterisk-based IP-PBX with
4 analogue ports. It retails for around $400 but can be potentially be built and deployed to developing
regions for under $100.
The hardware design is free as in speech. Anyone is welcome to copy, modify, and improve the
hardware design, just like open software. Open hardware offers exciting new possibilities, for example
dramatic end-user cost reductions; the potential for local manufacture; customisation to support
developing world conditions such as low power and local languages; and flexibility, for example
integration of solar charge controller and WiFi chip sets.
The IP04 is a mature design that is in volume production today. The next step is to deploy the
technology for field trials to optimise the system and evaluate business models to support viral growth
of the technology.
This document summarizes the IP04 project, including history of the product and key benefits for the
developing world. Finally we present the outline of a plan for the next stage in the roll out of this
technology: beta deployment of the 100 IP04 nodes.
53. Free Telephony Project, http://www.rowetel.com/ucasterisk
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