VOIP on Bicycle
Inveneo, a nonprofit group of inveterate high-tech adventurers, has developed a bicycle-powered system that brings not just Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) but also e-Mail and Web browsing to remote areas, using a combination of Linux and the Asterisk (Overview, Articles, Company) open source PBX.
It uses Wi-Fi networking to route traffic to a central hub with existing phone infrastructure, with a range as far as 100 miles. The bicycle, mostly used as a backup to solar power, gives the rider one hour on the phone for every 15 minutes of work. In a village, a user might trade pedaling time for phone time or get paid by someone who wants to use the phone but doesn’t want to work so hard.