Since November 2008, Angelos Varvitsiotis, have had a very interesting Open Hardware project going on: A simple USB-to-FXS device.

On February 25th a milestone was reached: A finished "dongle board" was produced. Even if the hardware is "ready", it does not mean that it is working. On top of this, the Asterisk channel driver needs to be written.

Given his non-hardware background - the writeups are understandable even for another software guy like myself. I have learned a lot with regards to DIY electronics.

Even if this is a hobbyist project, there could be really be some real-world usages for the result of the project. I am thinking about making really cheap hardware available for emerging countries. In my opinion, communication is THE single reason for emerging countries to heighten their income per capita. Without means of making communication work - we will still only be patching the problem, not fixing it.

If you have never looked at Angelos' blog, please do.