# Moving away from Zoom: ColloCall (co-op hosted solution)
**URL:** https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056
**Category:** Technology
**Tags:** software
**Created:** [29 April 2020 16:08 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056 "2020-04-29T16:08:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@yasu](https://community.coops.tech/u/yasu)
#### Post date: [6 May 2020 12:45 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/21 "2020-05-06T12:45:17Z")
I got a highly talented friend of mine in Japan interested - I will not speak for him here (I hope he will say something soon 😄) but I am looking forward to learning a lot from him 😄 and you all from various corners of the world!
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### Author:  [@yasu](https://community.coops.tech/u/yasu)
#### Post date: [7 May 2020 12:43 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/22 "2020-05-07T12:43:05Z")
Just to update, we have started to test existing BBB hosts (many thanks to Hypha Coop!) and are also trying to install one on a test server in Japan. All participants have been very pleased with BBB performance so far. We think this could be practically usable for many worker coops and the likes in Japan 😄
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### Author:  [@Neto](https://community.coops.tech/u/Neto)
#### Post date: [7 May 2020 14:16 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/23 "2020-05-07T14:16:58Z")
Hi!
I leave this here, maybe is interesting for coops who provide some of these services:
> **[Tools for the coop movement](https://patio.ica.coop/t/tools-for-the-coop-movement/382)**
>
> I will write a series of articles for members which would give advice on different tools that they could use to help them, as well as links to IT coops who could help them implement it. I will make a preference for tools that are developed by or for...
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### Author:  [@benhylau](https://community.coops.tech/u/benhylau)
#### Post date: [7 May 2020 16:52 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/24 "2020-05-07T16:52:26Z")
I finally got to try out Jitsi on Safari, and as @shaun said it didn’t work. It indicates that video is not supported, consistent with what I find mentioned online, but my mic input didn’t work either.
I also found [this fairly recent thread](https://community.jitsi.org/t/ie-edge-and-safari-support/15919/11) about Edge & Safari support.
I will be updating Hypha’s covid19 resource with this new information.
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### Author:  [@edmaw](https://community.coops.tech/u/edmaw)
#### Post date: [8 May 2020 00:24 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/25 "2020-05-08T00:24:09Z")
Hi all,
Sorry to have been absent from this thread the last days!
@shaun I’ll get back to you about Ethical Consumer after the weekend, hope that’s ok? They are friends of ours - we are Best Buy for email and broadband, by the way 😉
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### Author:  [@edmaw](https://community.coops.tech/u/edmaw)
#### Post date: [8 May 2020 00:25 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/26 "2020-05-08T00:25:43Z")
There’s an app for Apple though, I beleive?
I don’t know whether it’s any good, but the android/f-droid app is OK.
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### Author:  [@benhylau](https://community.coops.tech/u/benhylau)
#### Post date: [8 May 2020 08:36 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/27 "2020-05-08T08:36:20Z")
For MacOS desktop devices? I know there are mobile apps.
I proposed these changes to our covid19.hypha.coop site [Update videoconferencing section for BBB and Jitsi by benhylau · Pull Request #21 · hyphacoop/remote · GitHub](https://github.com/hyphacoop/remote/pull/21/files) to include mobile and lack of support for Safari on Desktop.
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### Author:  [@decentral1se](https://community.coops.tech/u/decentral1se)
#### Post date: [8 May 2020 09:31 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/28 "2020-05-08T09:31:06Z")
> In april 2020 Conversations [released a new version with support for end-to-end encrypted audio/video calls](https://github.com/iNPUTmice/Conversations/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#version-280), bringing that functionality to one of the most widely used XMPP clients. For A/V calls to work you need to enable server-side support.
Related: just an FYI that XMPP has new special powers if you’re running that infrastructure.
Friends are working on a draft for how to set that up:
> [homebrewserver.club](https://homebrewserver.club/drafts/server-support-for-audio-video-calls.html)
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### Author:  [@edmaw](https://community.coops.tech/u/edmaw)
#### Post date: [11 May 2020 09:35 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/29 "2020-05-11T09:35:10Z")
Ah that’s right i think, it’s only for mobile
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### Author:  [@edmaw](https://community.coops.tech/u/edmaw)
#### Post date: [11 May 2020 14:15 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/30 "2020-05-11T14:15:15Z")
Well, we’re ready for you to add our Jitsi offering to the list @shaun
It should be around £20/month for your own instance, we already have a free one going for GN customers/network
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### Author:  [@shaun](https://community.coops.tech/u/shaun)
#### Post date: [11 May 2020 17:12 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/31 "2020-05-11T17:12:08Z")
Should stress @edmaw that you were not named best buy because Ethical Consumer are your friends 😉
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### Author:  [@shaun](https://community.coops.tech/u/shaun)
#### Post date: [12 May 2020 08:25 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/32 "2020-05-12T08:25:10Z")
Philip @sheldrake at Digital Life Collective just drew attention to this for those that haven’t seen it:
> **[\*Privacy Not Included: A Buyer’s Guide for Connected Products](https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categories/video-call-apps/)**
>
> A review of the privacy features of 21 popular video call apps including Zoom, Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat.
Thanks Philip @sheldrake
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### Author:  [@Strypey](https://community.coops.tech/u/Strypey)
#### Post date: [13 May 2020 07:35 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/33 "2020-05-13T07:35:33Z")
Dave Lane, the President of NZ Open Source Society is involved in [running a BBB instance for NZOSS](https://nzoss.nz/covid-19-response-help-those-learningworking-home) and more recently another one for the [Open Educational Resources Foundation](https://oer4covid.oeru.org/). Both have been made publicly available as a COVID-19 response, but I think Dave and others involved in both orgs might be interested in comparing notes on deploying BBB (and potentially other services) in a more sustainable, cooperative manner.
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### Author:  [@benhylau](https://community.coops.tech/u/benhylau)
#### Post date: [13 May 2020 09:08 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/34 "2020-05-13T09:08:50Z")
Continuing on mobile device support, I have some new datapoints.
## BBB on Mobile
Had a bunch of calls with people on mobile platforms, here’s a summary!
- BBB web client works on mobile, no app is needed
- **iPad and Android** devices work even better than I expected! Clear audio, video, drawing on whiteboard, PDF upload and presenting, everything works great 😃 first time users who aren’t especially tech-savvy had no trouble
- One Android phone, from an unknown manufacturer, has Chrome crashing whenever trying to enable video
- **Microsoft Surface (I assume Edge browser)** seems to be audio-only
- Phones with tiny screens may be more problematic, but that seems like a general problem
_There isn’t a collective place to pool this info together yet. I am going to continue this documenting on [our BBB issue at the Hypha GitHub](https://github.com/hyphacoop/organizing/issues/246#issuecomment-627189856) for now instead of piling all details onto this CoTech thread._
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### Author:  [@alex](https://community.coops.tech/u/alex)
#### Post date: [22 May 2020 15:55 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/35 "2020-05-22T15:55:38Z")
Just on my feed.
> **[GitHub - systemli/ansible-role-jitsi-meet: Ansible role to install &...](https://github.com/systemli/ansible-role-jitsi-meet)**
>
> Ansible role to install & configure Jitsi Meet. Contribute to systemli/ansible-role-jitsi-meet development by creating an account on GitHub.
A Jitsi Ansible role. Looks solid, has tests.
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### Author:  [@imac](https://community.coops.tech/u/imac)
#### Post date: [27 May 2020 10:14 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/36 "2020-05-27T10:14:44Z")
Hi @chris!
We at GreenNet have deployed a public Jitsi Meet instance at [https://vc.greennet.org.uk](https://vc.greennet.org.uk) We’ve been working with Jitsi Meet so far because we have experience with it, and because it’s hosting requirements are not difficult to meet (though of course it can use quite a lot of bandwidth, like any video conferencing software).
BBB sounds promising, but for production use the developers recommend that it runs on bare metal hardware, with no virtualisation, and so the server requirements are much more demanding and potentially costly compared to Jitsi Meet. For that reason, I think it does make sense for organisations to team up and collaborate in setting up BBB instances.
I think GreenNet would be interested in participating in meet.coop. I have seen the plans that you all have put together on [https://wiki.meet.coop](https://wiki.meet.coop) and they look quite sound. We’d be happy to contribute sysadmin time and possibly hosting capacity. Though I don’t know that we currently have any spare suitable bare-metal servers in our main datacentre currently. And bandwidth capacity may be an issue, we’ve been quite careful so far about hosting Jitsi Meet instances on our main network because of bandwidth considerations, preferring to at least initially deploy them to Hetzner cloud servers, where bandwidth is plentiful and cheap.
Anyway, let us know how we can become more involved, I think we’d definitely be interested in participating in the beta testing phase of the project, initially, so that we can compare the functionality (and ease of deployment/administration) of BBB with that of Jitsi Meet. Once we have some experience administering and using BBB, then I think we at GreenNet would need to decide which of the two systems to concentrate our efforts on.
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### Author:  [@imac](https://community.coops.tech/u/imac)
#### Post date: [27 May 2020 10:18 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/37 "2020-05-27T10:18:10Z")
That Systemli Ansible role was used as the basis for GreenNet’s Jitsi Meet deployment. It’s solid and works well. We have since customised some settings, reducing some of the audio and video quality parameters to some extent in order to reduce bandwidth and CPU usage. We should probably try and publish the Ansible roles that we are currently using when we get a chance.
-Ian
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### Author:  [@chris](https://community.coops.tech/u/chris)
#### Post date: [27 May 2020 11:15 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/38 "2020-05-27T11:15:06Z")
It would be great to have GreenNet involved in this project @imac, it is still at an early stage but is recieving a lot of interest. There is now a open [meet.coop](https://www.org.meet.coop/) Discourse forum:
> **[The meet.coop Forum](https://forum.meet.coop/)**
>
> Support and discussion forum for The Online Meeting Co-operative
We have a [draft roadmap](https://wiki.meet.coop/wiki/Roadmap) and [here](https://wiki.meet.coop/wiki/Alpha_server_options) is what we are looking at in terms of an initial server, yesterday I started writing [a BBB Ansible role](https://git.coop/meet/bbb/).
We are having weekly meetings, the next one is tomorrow at ~~3pm~~ 2pm, would you like to drop [contact@meet.coop](mailto:contact@meet.coop) a line to ask for an invite?
The [agenda for the meeting is here](https://wiki.meet.coop/wiki/28th_May_2020#Agenda).
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### Author:  [@jonathan](https://community.coops.tech/u/jonathan)
#### Post date: [12 June 2020 14:35 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/39 "2020-06-12T14:35:00Z")
Interested to hear what @ [Ian Macdonald](https://community.coops.tech/u/imac) says - I/we are also comparing Jitsi Meet with BBB/Open Meeting Co-op - If i may suggest there may be sense in pursuing _both_ …
Use Jitsi for quick, often one-to-one/small meetings.
BBB is more ideal for more conference/presentation/education
Just a thought?
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### Author:  [@jdaviescoates](https://community.coops.tech/u/jdaviescoates)
#### Post date: [13 July 2020 12:25 UTC](https://community.coops.tech/t/moving-away-from-zoom-collocall-co-op-hosted-solution/2056/40 "2020-07-13T12:25:27Z")
> [@shaun](#):
>
> I have already signalled the existence of [https://collocall.de/index.html](https://collocall.de/index.html) and [https://meet.collective.tools/](https://meet.collective.tools/) but it would be great if we could have a more comprehensive response from CoTech - we’ll get a mention!
What a shame that neither of those, nor meet.coop we’re included! It doesn’t even mention Big Blue Button! Whereas [Jami.net](http://Jami.net), which is completely peer to peer (ie will not work well for anything but really small groups of people with great connections) is at the top of their list:
I love Ethical Consumer and subscribe to the magazine, but they are quite often off the mark. Sigh
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