As is pretty clear from recent threads, there are ARIN members who, for
whatever reasons, don't or can't attend the public meetings, but would
like to have some input into ARIN's policies as well as voice their
concerns over the current state of ARIN <-> member interaction.
Since we're a relatively high-tech group, has anyone ever looked into what
it takes to setup virtual attendance? i.e. I'm guessing a good number of
network operators have either participated DoveBid's auctions (getting the
network and office goodies at auction from your failed telecom
competitors) or know people who have. I've personally been to these both
in person and virtually. In virtual mode, you get to listen in on the
auction and speak when necessary (i.e. to bid). With a bit of hardware, I
bet this could even be done with VOIP, removing the need for anyone (ARIN
or the members) to pay for the long distance calls for virtual attenders.
I don't know what hardware/software is involved in this (i.e. what DoveBid
uses), but IIRC, ARIN does have several million in the bank. What better
way to spend our money than to facilitate member participation?
I think this would be a great way to get more member participation at the
meetings...and (for personal reasons) it's the only way I can see myself
getting to a meeting in the near future.
As is pretty clear from recent threads, there are ARIN members who, for
whatever reasons, don't or can't attend the public meetings, but would
like to have some input into ARIN's policies as well as voice their
concerns over the current state of ARIN <-> member interaction.
I would think that would be a good thing. Will it bring about
significant an needed change? I don't know...but I'd be willing to give
it a shot if it seems that the possibility exists.
With the reduced cost of IP telephony devices, the abundance of
bandwidth to (most) of the ARIN region, I think it would make sense
to have some SIP (or if necessary h.323) conference available for
people to remotely join. This could even be done by multicasting
the session live and having a web form for live-questions/feedback.
I know my employer has used a similar method (but via a conf
call) for all associates meetings and it has worked fairly well.
Seems to me someone could setup a PC running *[1] and do the VOIP
conferencing pretty easily. People could participate in ARIN meetings from
their workplace desktops, home, whatever.
To actually use the conferencing functionality in this software
requires that you have the hardware as well. I've not found a free
conferencing solution other than using the Vocal (www.vovida.org)
siph323csgw (sip <->h.323 translator) to talk to the openh323.org
OpenMCU.
The last time I used openh323 openmcu it was not stable. It could hold 2
clients for a few minutes, then it would crash or lock up. Not to mention
that openh323 was a real PITA to install.
Anyway I was told you can just load the zaptel dummy driver and it will
provide the timing the * conferencing requires. (And if it doesnt, the
x100p is only $100)
To actually use the conferencing functionality in this software
requires that you have the hardware as well. I've not found a free
conferencing solution other than using the Vocal (www.vovida.org)
siph323csgw (sip <->h.323 translator) to talk to the openh323.org
OpenMCU.