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Asterisk?
Open-source software released under the GPL
Sponsored by Digium, the main hardware provider for
POTS interface cards
Digium named in the top 10 open source companies to
watch by networkworld.com
Ports for most *nix systems including Solaris
Ports also available for OSX and Windows
Open standards along with some proprietary protocol
support (like Ciscos Skinny and MGCP)
Modular plugin type system
Protocols Supported
SIP Session Initiation Protocol
H.323 Common in video conferencing
Skinny Cisco IP Phones default protocol
MGCP Media Gateway Control Protocol
IAX - Inter-Asterisk Exchange Protocol
Codecs Supported
G.711 Best voice quality ~100Kbps
G.729 Good voice quality ~40Kbps
GSM Acceptable voice quality ~10Kbps
G.722, G.723.1, G.726, iLBC, Linear, LCP-10, Speex
FXO
FXS
E&M (w/ or w/o Wink), Loop start, Ground start, Kewl start
T1
4ESS
Lucent
National
Some international support
Biggest Features
Unified Voicemail
Enterprise Features
Unified dialplan across many servers
Better analog support, but uses more PCI slots (or spaces)
T1 / PRI / BRI 1-8 on a single PCI card with hardware echo
cancellation
Clear channel DS3
Full PBX
Service Component
Meetme Conferencing Bridge
Voicemail / Unified Messaging
Add Softphones to non-VoIP PBX
Drawbacks
No PCI-Express Support (just came out for digital interfaces, still
none for analog interfaces)
Hardware sizing information hard to find
Kernel updates break Digium drivers
PCI Bus sharing can cause significant problems with voice quality
NAT Traversal (common across any SIP system)
Linux system QoS not very mature yet
No VoIP security yet, although planned
Not for *nix beginners
Support
Certifications dCAP (Digium Certified Asterisk
Professional)
Voip-info.org (VoIP WIKI site)
Commercial support (through Digium)
Partners (certified or un-certified)
Mailing Lists (very active)
User Groups (although none in Boston)
Astricon (Asterisk conference)
Books
Where to start?
www.asterisk.org (Asterisk main page)
www.asterisknow.org (Asterisk and CentOS with full installer)
www.voip-info.org (huge resource for VoIP related projects and configuration
info)
www.digium.com (hardware manufacturer and project sponsor)
Trixbox (formerly Asterisk @ HOME)
User Groups Find one close or we can try to start one
Books OReilly, Asterisk for Dummies, Asterisk configuration guide,