CuTEL's going to Electromagnetic Field 2024

Hello, we’re delighted to announce we’ll once again be providing telephony services at Electromagnetic Field (EMF) - “A non-profit UK camping festival for those with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, artists, geeks, crafters, scientists, and engineers”. It’s being held at Eastnor Castle in Ledbury between May 30th - June 2nd 2024 and we’ll be bringing our full range of services including POTS, faxing, 56k dial up internet and maybe even some DSL!

Preparation began at the start of the year with the construction of our new R&D laboratory, made up of a couple of Cisco VG202s (The venerable VG224s smaller sibling) and a Cisco SPA8800 that comes bristling with FXS and FXO ports, allowing us to patch different configurations together and simplify testing.

But it’s not just us that have been busy preparing. Other EMF attendees have also been working on some Telephony related projects of their own that they’re hoping to show off.

There’s going to be an abundance of public telephones this year - find one on a lighting pole near you! (They’re 48.3mm diameter if you were wondering).

Pioneer has been snapping up all kinds of weird and wonderful devices.

Lex has also been constructing a top secret project, here’s a preview:

balj has been creating EMF’s very own Viewdata service for checking the schedule like it’s 1983 from your retro hardware of choice.

Alex has been doing some serious reseach and interop testing on our VDSL DSLAM

lpbkdotnet has been burning the midnight oil in their shed preparing something rather special.

We’re expecting a record number of subscribers this year so make sure you bring a telephone, fax machine, or other communcations device to join in.

To connect up to the CuTEL network you’ll need a 50m CAT5 cable (CCA is fine) to run between your apparatus and the closest Datenklo, and some kind of adapter to convert between RJ45 and whatever conector is on your device. We’ll have RJ45 couplers and RJ45 <-> BT 431A socket adapters for sale (<£5), or why not make your own out of an old master socket!

For regular updates follow @CuTEL@tacobelllabs.net on Mastodon or @cu_telecom on Twitter