[iDC] The revolution is calling.

[Dmytri Kleiner]

Hello, there has been some talk on this list (and elsewhere) recently 
about Mobile phones, I have  mentioned Telekommunisten and what we are 
doing in brief, but as I have been swamped working on the new product, 
Dialstation, my comments have been brief.

It has already been noted that the mobile phone is quickly becoming the 
world's communication device.

  - Far more people in the world have access to a mobile phone then to 
computers or even regular phones.

  - Telephone credits, calling cards, and vouchers have become a sort of 
currency in remote places, being used as a payment currency in lieu of 
cash, which is often hard to transmit where bank accounts and Internet 
is scarce.

The Telekommunisten are a small Berlin-based worker-owned company 
founded by two Canadians with a history of political activism. We have 
developed a product that we think is consistent with our principals and 
our understanding of the political situation we find ourselves in.

Why a calling product:

   - Communication is important for trans-local communities and the 
growth of the informal economy. Two emerging trends we believe have the 
potential to shift power away from transnational corporations and nation 
states.

  - The historic unbundling of the international telephone system along 
with it's convergence with IP networks allows new calling products to be 
developed with highly skilled labour and relatively little capital.

Other criteria for Dialstation that make it suitable to the periphery:

  - Dialstation can be used with a normal telephone and requires no 
special software, and perhaps no Internet access.

  - Money held in Dialstation accounts can be transfered between 
accounts using the create voucher feature available to all users, this 
opens up the possibility for Dialstation to be used where bank accounts 
and credit cards are scarce to enable both market opportunities and gift 
economies.

Next steps:

  - Test Dialstation under actual international usage and fine-tune 
origination and termination issues. (and fix bugs of course)

  - Extend the voucher system to a full-blown mobile-enabled distributed 
community currency system in partnership with the Ripplepay project.

  - Encourage and support entrepreneurship in making Dialstation 
vouchers available where paypal and bank transfer are not used.

  - Promote usage of Dialstation generally.


If anybody has any questions, please contact us. And please try Dialstation.

Regards,
Dmytri Kleiner

Telekommunisten
c/o bootlab, Berlin

http://www.telekommunisten.net