Asterisk Phone System

Overview

Asterisk is a great Open Source Phone System that can give you a lot of great features (including T1 integration and VoiceMail) at a fraction of the cost of a proprietary systems because all of the Asterisk software and hardware are based on Open Standards. Open hardware and software solutions give you the best value because Open Systems based on Open Standards create competition between hardware and software vendors providing you the best possible telephony product and support solution at the best possible price. For example, the Aastra phones have twice the features (including backlit displays) at half the cost of proprietary phones.

Asterisk Software

• Asterisk Software Download
• Asterisk GUI Setup: AsteriskNOW provides a free GUI for Asterisk. Now you can download the source and install it on the standard Asterisk installation.
• Building Asterisk on Mac OS X
• Asterisk VoiceMail for iPhone
• PIKA Technology Fax Software
• AsteriskUbuntu: Compiling and Installing Asterisk on Ubuntu is a snap

Asterisk Hardware

• Appliances
  • PIKA WARP Appliance for Asterisk
  • Asterisk Appliance -- Full-featured, Cost-effective Internet Telephony in a User-friendly Package for two to fifty users, includes firewall, PBX, voice mail, router with Business level support
  • Asterisk Runs on Linksys WRT54G Router -- if anyone gets this working please post a message to itDiscuss about it.
• T1 Cards
  • Digium PCI Cards
  • Sangoma A104D with Echo Cancellation Sangoma A104D Quad T1/E1 Onboard Hardware DTMF Echo Cancellation PCIx
  • Sangoma A104D at voipsupply.com
  • Sangoma A102D with Echo Cancellation at voipsupply.com Sangoma A102D Dual T1/E1 Interface Card Asterisk Interoperable PCI with Echo Cancellation
• Create Redundant Asterisk Switches with RedFone Communications foneBridge2
  • How To Create A High Availability Solution with RedFone foneBridge2
• Analog TDM Cards
  • Digium Wildcard TDM2400P eliminates channel banks, very flexible with six groups of FXS/FXO combinations of expansion cards to meet your needs.
    • Probably requires the 12v DC FX Module Power Supply to provide 12v DC current to the analog lines
• Good Open IP Phones
  • Aastra 480i-CT -- Good for tech support with mobility option (warehouse coverage up to 300,001 sq. ft!)
  • Aastra 480i -- A Good Exec phone
  • Aastra 9133i SIP IP Phone Dual RJ45, 10 Line Appearances. Speakerphone
  • Aastra 9112i SIP IP Phone With Speakerphone under $100
  • Entire Aastra Product Line
• Good Open Softphones
  • Softphones at Wikipedia -- what is a softphone?
  • X-Lite Softphone -- a popular Windows and Mac based softphone
  • Ekiga Softphone for Linux -- Ekiga comes built-in to Ubuntu; Ekiga is a SIP and H.323 VOIP phone that runs on a Linux system and can speak to any SIP or H.323 based IP based phone system Asterisk).

Learning More About Asterisk

• Weekly Podcast
  • VOIP Community Users Conference -- a weekly conference call on Asterisk at 11:55 EST on Friday.
    • VOIP Users Conference Web Site
    • Begginer Links to Asterisk

• Video, Book, Conference & Doc References
  • Systm Episode 5 -- Asterisk -- Nice video intro to Asterisk
  • Asterisk Wiki Has Amazing Amounts of Information about Asterisk
  • Free 2nd Edition of O'Reilly Book: Asterisk: The Future of Telephony Wow, the entire O'Reilly Book 2nd Ed. for free!!
  • AstriCon the official conference for the Asterisk PBX
  • Configuration Guide for Asterisk PBX
  • How To Install Asterisk on Ubuntu
  • Asterisk IRC (Internet Relay Chat): IRC channels on irc.freenode.net at: #asterisk and #asterisk-dev

Case Studies

• Jon Edmiston of Christ’s Church of the Valley in Peoria, Arizona has installed Asterisk as their primary PBX which includes 130 telephones.
• Other AsteriskCaseStudies

Asterisk Configurations

• Using Asterisk to listen to Podcasts. Also seems like you could dial into audio podcasts this way as well. Combine this with the voice menu, and you can provide a structured interface to podcasts, both live, and pre-recorded.
• Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI) -- extend Asterisk with your programming language of choice
• Faxing with Asterisk
• Asterisk Telemarketer Torture

Asterisk Support

Asterisk provides installation consulting services for your own installation of Asterisk, on your computer, with your flavor of Linux (I recommend UbuntuLinux). Here's the check-list:

• At least a 800Mhz PC, 512RAM, 2.2 rev. PCI bus for TDM Cards (A minimal computer... don't throw away that old computer it can be your phone switch!)
• Linux kernel 2.6 (UbuntuLinux)
• Any mainstream Linux distribution (UbuntuLinux)
• Digium telephony cards - no other hardware supported
• Root SSH w/capability of accessing the public internet in order to download and install necessary packages and programs.