Jingle & the outside world

I've been thinking again about Jingle. Spoke to some Asterisk guys, also met some great guys in the Freeswitch project. Discussed some ideas etc.

I really like Jingle and where this is taking us but I'm left a bit confused about some solutions I need to solve. Currently Jingle is mostly a client to client protocol. But what if we want more. What if the Jabber server has a PBX behind it. I envision something like:

jingle.server.com (supports Jingle Audio/Jingle IAX perhaps)
This allows us to map services such as voicemail@jingle.server.com etc.

What if we just wish to dial 555-5555 and call that real phone number?

I see a world where msn.server.com may gateway Jingle Audio, to MSN audio technology. So how will the client know where to call 5555555?

I think the client should be able to figure this out via Discovery. I don't think all Jingle destinations will be user JID's per say. I may want to dial 5555555@jingle.server.com, but how do I assume this?

Perhaps this is where Discovery comes in. Along with the jingle.server.com service responding to Discovery queries saying it supports jingle, perhaps there needs to be an identifier that says it supports anonymous alphanumeric calls.

This means the client can basically query and figure out "where can I call PSTN?" jingle.server.com replies "with me" then when I want to dial 5555555 I just dial 5555555@jingle.server.com.

That way even if I am on jabber.org, if I am registered with jingle.server.com when I discovery my gateways asking which supports PSTN I can dynamically find one and dial out of it.

A whole other problem though is, what if I have multiple gateways supporting PSTN, how do I give priority to one, or how do I say, well this gateway gives me cheap north american rates, so dial out for these numbers there, but if I dial a China country code go out another gateway because its cheaper.

Jingle seems clear to me client to client, but beyond that I get a bit foggy.

Thanks go out to Tony from Freeswitch for his time discussing ideas.

Please comment :)

I just got news that Peter Millard, long time Jabber client developer has recently passed away. I want to send my respects out to his family, friends and coworkers. I haven't spoken to Peter in several years but every time I did he was very friendly. A link to stpeter's blog says it best.