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What will be initial investment for an organisation or individual who wants to start "a sonopia" - that is his own carrier?

Good question. I've clarified.

While I could see this model leapfrogging the sideways-moving MVNOs as an appealing model, there is a great deal of risk involved initially for an organization like the National Wildlife Foundation to turn over billing and CS to Sonopia. Any disputes or negative issues - while handled by Sonopia - will inevitably impact how members view the NWF. Obviously the NWF has evaluated this and determined it an acceptable risk. I also find it interesting Sonopia was able to roll this out for $9m; I have to imagine they will be hitting the VC markets if organizations continue to sign up and require additional billing and CS build-out.

I have read this articel with interest, please please contact me for a talk regarding yours and our products - I think that it could be a something interesting for both parties.

Br. Lasse Larsen

Affinity programs like this were once common among long distance carriers. It's not a bad way to make some money, especially for non profits, but it is hard to get consumers, especially non technical users, to switch from a "name brand" phone company. Still, this is a better model than the big MVNOs which failed to go anywhere. If they keep their costs down, they'll probably do ok.

Why isn't anyone talking about the fact Sonopia's plans cost more than anyone else's?

For example, their plans have no mobile-to-mobile calling. There's a big minus considering all the other carriers offer free in-network calling for $39.95/mo.

To answer Joshua's questoion, Sonopia and its partners offer a wide selection of Preference calling plans with prices that match those of the major US carriers. These plans include both free mobile-to-mobile in network calling and free nights and weekends.

Also offered is a selection of Fair & Square plans that provide a lot more minutes instead of the free calling. These plans are for subscribers that want to know exactly how many minutes they have regardless of when and who they call.

Sonopia's website is really unhelpful.
1)I want to see how much the plans cost and what options you have with them, and also there seems to be debate over whether individuals can make money.
2)If I were to set up my own group (for example, let's say I'm setting up a carrier for people into climbing), would I really make money from it, or does money only go to official groups?

Can anyone help me with the above questions, please?

-Thanks

I send you and your visitors my best greetings.

Team
We would like to ask for your support to build the prototype described below incorporating the concepts your group promotes.

Then we can jointly benefit from selling a systems and associated support to each and every of the 40,000 communities who need it..

We will do all the work and have done the systems design of the Ablery server
software as described below.

Community Web System to Support the Homebound
and Their Caregivers



www.myproviderspace.com


by Janine M Lodato
LodatoClan@aol.com


An elegant statement from www.familycaregiver.org puts it just right:
There are more than 50 million family caregivers in the USA and they provide 80
percent of the long term care services to the 100 million homebound people in need of care.
These uncompensated services provided by the caregivers amount to more than 400 billion dollars
annually.

The combination of the informal caregivers and their care recipients do amount to half of the population of the USA. And it is the same in the other 9 industrialized countries of the G-10 group of nations.

This very large group of caregivers and care recipients need local community support in the form of a Web Server, located in each community, providing Web based collaborative services for

...tele-work
allowing the caregiver can work and give care at the same time

...tele-training
so the caregiver can train for additional services

...tele-medicine
the caregiver can become the one who takes and reports the vital signs of
the care recipient, thus lower the cost of medicine

...virtual group interaction
for bot the care recipient and the caregiver thus improving the quality of their lives
in social Web 2.0 style

...infotainment
a combination of WebTV and the Web

These applications can be offered via the community-based Web server we have developed which we call Ablery server. The Ablery server then can be connected to the end-user via a www.Sonopia.com style
network or a Wi-Max network.

It is imperative that to enable the caregivers to do tele-work from the homes of the people in need of care. These are the so called informal caregivers, family and friends, who work without pay and provide unbelievably valuable service. Then the caregivers and care recipients would tele-campaign for legislation which would provide tax credits to the businesses who allow their employees to perform tele-work style.

There could also be major Federal and State support for this project since it would lower the cost of medicine. It would also allow businesses to receive carbon credits for each day they allow each of their employees to perform tele-work style. Of course then the business could sell these carbon credits which is becoming a very large market.

In addition to allowing the caregivers to earn a living tele-work style from the homes of the care recipients they could also participate in tele-training to improve their abilities. Then they can become field representatives for the assistive technology industry, for alternative energy industry, for independent living home improvement industry and tele-work part time to very efficiently serve these industries and allowing the companies of these industry segments to penetrate markets which would not be available to them otherwise.

The employers of these caregivers would install an open source strong tele-work oriented tele-presence system on their web server or they could use the Ablery server. A team-work oriented collaborative system like the one offered by www.ubuntu.com called Croquet would be installed on the Ablery server..

Recently in a Fortune article Dr. Andy Grove made some very important and eloquent statement regarding the healthcare costs in the USA. His comments relate especially to the cost of care for the people who are in need of home based care: the frail elderly, the chronically ill and the disabled. About a 100 million in the USA alone. Medical spending in the USA is at 16% of the GDP and it is the fastest growing segment. The average American spends 440,000 dollars in his/her lifetime on healthcare. 280,000 of which will be spent after age 65 and approximately 50% of this will be spent on assisted-living facilities and nursing homes. So it stands to reason that if there were a way to keep the people in need of care in there own homes longer we would have a better and lower cost system: we could save $ 300 billion per year.

This community-wide broadband Web connection connected via the Ablery server portal, serving the caregivers, can also help the care recipients, the people in need of care. For this user group a simple voice recognition capable community based Internet server is needed. We have developed such a simple voice capability for the Ablery server.

The Ablery server acts in Web 2.0 style, the social Web similar to MySpace, Facebook, Wikia, etc. The care recipient end user is connected to the Ablery server through a simple laptop such as the reliable, low cost machine from www.Zonbu.com, or a Web enabled TV. This allows the care recipients to participate in virtual group sessions, visit people virtually and in general get involved. This virtual group participation's can also be achieved with the Croquet system.

The caregivers also need political representation as well as non-profit support. They would be a loyal supporter of the Presidential candidate who represents them.

Janine M. Lodato
P.O.Box 838
SAN ANDREAS, CA.
95249-838