fwdOUT Phone Sharing Network

I stumbled across the new service from Jeff Pulver over the weekend. I'm not sure how I missed the Slashdot article on the story, but I'm glad I stumbled across it. The basic premise is that home Asterisk users 'donate' their outgoing dialtone to internet VoIP users in a Napster-style PTP way. You would get 10 call credits for every 1 call you allow to go out your lines. It could be interesting, but I could see it being a flop if for example I restricted my outbound calls to local only and not a lot of people wanted to call Cleveland - I could be stuck with not having the credits when I need them to call out. I do see the benefit for someone who uses Vontage or a similar VoIP service who has unlimited LD in the US.

There is also some concern about the legality of doing this. Aswath's weblog has an interesting article on it that's worth reading. I scanned my last local phone bill and didn't see anything in it stating that I couldn't share my line - but I wouldn't be surprised to see it added sometime in the near future.