nightfox1405241487 0 Report post Posted February 6, 2007 I was wondering if anyone here ever used (or uses) Asterisk? If you don't know what Asterisk is, it is a VoIP server (Voice over IP). Basically, it's like Vonage's servers in your home (beats the $24.99 month phone bill from Vonage, plus your local phone bill, plus internet bill). Anyways, nothing beats a POTS right? Well, features such as Voicemail, call forwarding, voice options (menus), etc can come with a price tag from your phone company. You already have copper phone lines coming into your house so why should you pay extra for these services when you can DIY? That's what Asterisk is! Currently, Asterisk runs on any Linux or BSD based OS (which means Mac OS X) but doesn't run to well on Windows so no Windows version has yet to be released. Or AsteriskNOW is where Asterisk packages are built right into a Linux distro (looks like it's RedHat based). Now, the difference between the two (Asterisk and AsteriskNOW) besides the built-in OS and no built-in OS is the GUI. AsteriskNOW comes with a web GUI (which only works with Firefox, ironically enough) and it's brother, Asterisk, is configuration file editing on the Asterisk PBX server. Another nice thing about Asterisk(NOW) is that home users can use any old computer that can at least run Linux to use as the PBX server. Larger entities such as companies will obviously have to use higher grade equipment to support more users, but all in all, it's pretty much the same software. I'm playing with AsteriskNOW on an old computer. Ok, now I'm missing something from the picture which is how to get the copper phone line to the ethernet. If anyone knows what this device is called, I'd much appreciate it. If you're thinking about getting VoIP, get Asterisk or AsteriskNOW because you'll still be using your copper telephone wires, but isn't it nice to know you can call forward, voicemail and all that other stuff for FREE? Oh yeah, you don't have to port your phone number over to another provider, such as Vonage, either. So it becomes much more simple! You can get AsteriskNOW at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ (NOTE: The download is VERY slow! I have a 320Kbps line and I was downloading at 21K to 31K and the x86 ISO image is 420MB (about) so it may take 3-4 hours to download. You can get Asterisk at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Happy Telephony! [N]F Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
docduke 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2008 The cleanest solution I have found to "get the copper onto the internet" is the Linksys SPA-3102. I have discussed this and other VoIP-related things here. If you persevere to the bottom of that post, you will find details that are relevant to Asterisk. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
julyinin 0 Report post Posted July 15, 2009 How to edit the configuration file on the Asterisk PBX server._________________Call Center Software Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
