I am not sure if we are all talking about the same thing, but here is what I was thinking ...
First of all, this is business and nobody is in it for charity. Even within the network, profit could be made. But it should not be unecessarily high profits. However, higher profits can be made by selling the routes to other customers that are not part of the network and the low rate agreed upon should not be disclosed under any conditions. Also, let's not think co-op, central servers, common resources or anything that can lead to a situation where people will try to rob each others up. Let me explain what I had in mind. It is very simple. Let's assume that I have one or several T1 lines. Let's also assume that Maoworld has is T1 channels available. Him and myself would cut a deal for low termination rates in our respective calling areas. This means that depending of the cost of the PRI lines, and we do know that PRI costs may be different from one calling area to another one, the rate might be different. I could for instance let him terminate on my network for 0.002 whilst he charges 0.003 on his network, and we will all guarantee the quality as well as CLI, and most importantly we will guarantee that the channels are indeed T1 channels. Also, under no circumstances, I will use a non PRI alternate route in the event that all of my channels are busy. In such case, I will let the partners the honnor
of using their own fail over route which may be PRI or non-PRI at their discretion.
On the other hand, each of us could sell call termination on the same channels at a "Wholesale" and a "Retail" rate depending on the kind of customers that we will be dealing with.
This model will not require any particular contract to be signed and the advantages goes both ways. If you jack you prices up or lower you quality without any good reasons, then all the other partners will kick you off their trunk list and no call will be sent or received from your network. Also, sorry, but good intentions are not enough. Someone cannot just try to jump in because they think that their SIP trunk provider is the best and has CLI, DTMF and a very good call quality. NO, NO, NO and NO. Each and every partner should have HIS OWN T1 channels. This ways, if anything goes wrong, or if any false answer is occuring, or if any CLI or DTMF is not being relayed properly, then we will know who to talk to and we will know that the partner will have all the good reason in the entire universe to reply to emails and to make sure that thinks works well in a timely manner. An excellent SIP trunk is just not enough.
Maybe I am not making any sense. Let me know if I don't.
Cheers