Ask HN: Anyone have a "sovereign" solution for phone calls?

12 points by kldg 104 days ago | 1 comment

I've been working on an SMTP/email server lately, and while Google and some others imply a lot of frowny-faces and put quotation marks around tests "passing" for not using a corporate relay, does at least let me communicate with the broader ecosystem.

Phone calls, however, seem like a tougher nut to crack. SIP URIs would let me kinda-sorta communicate with the broader ecosystem, but many phones and software seem to have dropped support for it; only a tiny % of those typically using the PSTN (that is, a "normal phone") would be able to call or receive calls to/from my addresses -- but it would be able to be directly and neatly integrated into the email server, which is a big plus.

I will probably still implement SIP URIs and VOIP support into the email server on principle, but I wonder if anyone has any alternatives to consider. Ideally, I would be able to communicate on the PSTN, but this seems like a lost cause.

Also curious about anyone using VOIP for work whether or not they allow or block SIP URIs from external networks. I maintained our VOIP server at work more than a decade ago, but it was a "side-project" due to working at an SMB where I wore many hats and couldn't specialize in anything; I wasn't even aware of SIP URIs at the time.

gethly 102 days ago |

Phones are inherently "unsovereignable" as you cannot become a telephone operator and hook into the telephone network the same as you can become a domain owner and smtp provider. Some people use voip providers that provide real numbers but route them over their voip network, like skype used to do, but that's about it. After all, countries where you can own a sim card anonymously are a rarity nowadays, so it is obvious the system does not want you to be sovereign in any way when it comes to this.