asterisk users - Feb 2006 - [CAVPdiscussion] OT: RFC: Canadian Association o f Voice over IP Users (CAVU)

In the latest CAVP conference call, the membership body voted to restrict
membership to VoIP LEC's and to create a seperate membership body for any
other parties interested in contributing to the CAVP's efforts in CRTC
lobbying and providing a unified industry presence in the Canadian telco
industry with a view to VoIP services. Accordingly, I would like to propose
an adjutant association to CAVP: the Canadian Association of Voice over IP
Users. 

CAVU is proposed to be a membership body that Voice over IP users can join
and advise CAVP on issues common to CAVP and CAVU. Since the majority of
CAVP members are also Asterisk users, CAVU is also proposed to be also an
Asterisk-specific user group. 

Membership would be open to any entity or individual that:

	-Is in Canada
	-Uses Asterisk or a Voice over IP platform or product in a
meaningful way
	-Is interested in Voice over IP regulation and interop between the
PSTN, ILEC's, CLEC's, the CAVP membership body, private businesses and
users
	-Is interested in creating Asterisk-specific freely avaliable
solutions that allow implementors to create installations that conform to
future CRTC regulations and 
	specific challenges that Canadian VoIP users face.

Ongoing topic, activity, or working group suggestions may include:

	-Asterisk ENUM compliance according to the CIRA recommendations
	-A working group to define an RPC protocol for an IP enabled 911
PSAP
	-Canadian - specific implementation details for Asterisk
connectivity to Canadian telco and cell networks
	-Hacking on Asterisk for neat-o applications (hooking Canada411.com,
for example)
	-Meets where possible, with interesting demos

Because of the wide geographic nature of Canada, sometimes a physical F2F
user group meeting would not be possible. CAVU would address this with
conference bridges and a PHP-BB type of web based system and / or a mailing
list. Of course, if there's interest enough in a particular geographic
region, CAVU could form regular or non-regular meets to achive our common
goals and maybe share a few laughs and war stories. If anyone's in Edmonton,
for example, let's go down to Whyte for a few beers. 

It is proposed that this association be a loose, ad-hoc association without
too much formal pomp and circumstance. It is further proposed that
meaningful work or recommendations produced by CAVU be forwarded to CAVP for
presentation to regulatory bodies in a formal fashion. 

As this is a "testing the waters" phase, I'm just gaguing
interest. If you
are interested in participating, or have a positive or negative comment, one
way or another, ping me an email at cavu.asterusk.users@gmail.com - who you
are, what your take on this is, and where you are. If there are enough
people to form a group, we can form the (loose) association and begin
working with CAVP in order to define some priorities and flesh out the
mandate of the association. Or we can hack on Asterisk. Whatever. 

More information on the CAVP: http://www.cavp.ca

CAVU contact email: cavu.asterisk.users@gmail.com