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9. What is the relation between the project and its own community? Did you start it to offer a tool/solution to an existing community, or rather with the goal of gathering people around a new idea?

Yes, Dialstation was very much concieved as being a product that is needed by both my immediate community as well as my general community of artists, activists, translocal and informal producers.


10. Do you know of other projects offering similar services as yours?

There are certainly other worker owner companies, though the fact that Telekommunisten is as much an art project as a company makes it somewhat unique, other collective commercial organisations do not often incorporate political advocacy so directly into their work.

Good examples of enterprises with similarities are the Phone Co-op and Motion Twin.


11. Technically, is Dialstation entirely legal in all countries where you operate? If so, how come there's not a huge offer of similar services in the market when: a) mobile phones (or phones in general) are such a key instrument in our day-to day communications flow, and b) projects such as Skype, that provide a means for more affordable ways to make phone calls on a computer, have proved to be quite successful and have a large user base?

Yes, it is entirely legal a far as I know, however calling cards seem to the normal product in this space, thus our approach is seen as complex and hard to sell.


12. What sort of funding have you received for the project, how long will it last, and what will happen at the end of the funding? What long-term plans do you have for economic sustainability?

We have no funding of any sort, we make all our money from providing services, currently
mostly business services, but eventually consumer services.


13. Have you teamed up with institutions or private partners, either for funding or for other aspects of the project's development?

Institutions or provide organisations hire us for consulting or pay us to use our network for their own services.


14. You mention in your InfoEnclosure 2.0 article that "The mission of Internet Investment Boom 1.0 was to destroy the independent service provider and put large, well financed, corporations back in the driving seat." Do you feel (or have you felt) threatened by large telecommunications companies?

No, exactly because our main selling point is our political identity not features or price exclusively, thus they can not compete with us among people who share our political beliefs.


15. You also talk about how important marketing and over-hype strategies are for Web 2.0 enterprises. How do you approach the marketing, publicity and communication of your company? Dialstation has 2 different public websites, one being purely informative and the other more geared toward the ethics/theory behind the project. Is that part of a conscious communicative plan?

Being such a potentially universally-appealing service, it seems like the only thing in between "failure" and "success" is getting the message across.


16. You have encouraged promotion of Dialstation in blogs etc. in exchange for credit. What other alternative strategies have you used?

Yes, this is the major area we must improve in, the idea of two websites, one for the collective and one for each of the products is intentional and will be kept, however both have a long way to go to effectively communicating our message. Attracting more writers, designers and organising promotional strategy will be the major challenge starting with the next development phase and over the next year.

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