Awsome Foundation’s May Felloship goes to the VillageTelco’s Mesh Potato, a prototype for a lightweight, low-cost, and low-power unit that is a building block for rolling out your very own decentralized P2P phone network.
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The Mesh Potato is an Open Hardware project to create a wireless Access Point (AP) combined with an Asynchronous Telephony Adapter (ATA). This project is inspired by small mesh-capable wireless APs like the Meraki Mini and the Open-Mesh Accton Router but is designed to address the needs of developing countries. In particular, the delivery of affordable voice is a critical service. Also, the Mesh Potato is being designed for rugged environments so that it can be housed indoors or outdoors and can be easily secured.
The idea for this device was first conceived at a workshop in June 2008 and here is a post that details how it all started.
If you want to get into more detail, here is the
Mesh Potato FAQ and the