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New Open Source VoIP PBX

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the tin-can-and-string-compatible dept.

dsginter writes "It looks like Asterisk isn't the only open source PBX game in town anymore. sipX, as the name implies, is a SIP-only PBX project released under the LGPL. A noteworthy feature is the inclusion of an out-of-the-box web-based management console. Read more about the release over at Voxilla."

25 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Asterisk is also a gateway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    SIPx appears to be a PBX only, with no way to attach real phones. Asterisk's primary appeal is that it integrates POTS and SIP. Who uses SIP and SIP alone?

    1. Re:Asterisk is also a gateway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This looks kind of like SER http://www.iptel.org/ser/

      For sip only there are a few options available.

      Anyway I41 like the swiss army knife approach of asterisk, would love to see encrypted IAX2 though.

    2. Re:Asterisk is also a gateway by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      gobs of people and businesses.

      3com's voip phone systesm are this way. and you can get pots to SIP adapters for much cheaper than the specalized cards that asterisk uses.

      asterisk is a cool project, but it's huge and designed to interface to lots of legacy hardware.

      personally sip alone works great for me. I can have incoming voip calls on one of my 2 voip lines routed to different phones in the house and do other neat things that are certianly doable with asterisk but this project I was able to be up and running in 3 hours of tinkering. I NEVER was able to get asterisk working the way I wanted after 2 weeks of tinkering. Too many configuration options and features that I will not use.

      but then that is why I run thttpd and not apache for my home web servers :-)

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:Asterisk is also a gateway by quarkoid · · Score: 5, Interesting
      "asterisk is a cool project, but it's huge and designed to interface to lots of legacy hardware."
      Nope. Asterisk is designed so that if you want to interface with lots of legacy hardware, it's easy to write an application interface to do so. There's a big difference.
      "and you can get pots to SIP adapters for much cheaper than the specalized cards that asterisk uses"
      Or, alternatively, you could just use those cheaper adaptors with Asterisk as we do.

      We have built our business based on Asterisk and have several SIP-only installations as well as SIP and TDM combined installations. We regularly undertake product surveys, but as yet we haven't found any product which can match Asterisk, let alone beat it!
    4. Re:Asterisk is also a gateway by shis-ka-bob · · Score: 2, Insightful

      These questions are so leading as to qualify at trolling and/or flamebait'. Just what OS do you thing they are using with Asterisk? (OK. That is also a leading question that qualifies as flamebait.) But more seriously, I don't think that the question is 'can Asterisk handle 30 calls?', but 'How much hardware do I need to handle 30 calls?' Or even more relavently, 'How does the cost of aquiring and running an Asterisk on Linux gateway compare with the corresponding costs for a commercial gateway?'

      --
      Think global, act loco
  2. There's at least one other open source PBX by SizL · · Score: 5, Informative

    And it's PBX4Linux. http://isdn.jolly.de/

    1. Re:There's at least one other open source PBX by hoppy · · Score: 2, Informative

      And a second:
      http://gnu.teleglobe.net/software/bayonne /index.ht ml

    2. Re:There's at least one other open source PBX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Nice, but PBX4Linux is mostly an ISDN PBX with VoIP in H.323 flavor (which is basically ISDN over IP) as a bonus. These days VoIP means SIP, and PBX4Linux doesn't do that.

    3. Re:There's at least one other open source PBX by fuzzbrain · · Score: 4, Informative

      YXA is another open source sip server. This one's written in Erlang which strikes me as a very good fit for this purpose (Erlang was originally developed by Ericsson for the specific purpose of developing high availability telephony applications). There are I believe some plans to integrate this with ejabberd.

  3. Terrible thought by Craig+Ringer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Perhaps they were all reading the article? *gasp*

    I know, it's more likely the comments were intercepted en-route by a pack of marauding ducks, but hey, it could happen.

  4. Whoah, Nelly! by FirienFirien · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think the number of acronyms per slashdot article might be an indication of its geek-tech depth...

    --
    Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
  5. Here's another by essreenim · · Score: 2

    PABX: Private Automatic Branch Exchange
    or
    Private Access Branch Exchange (less common)

  6. Re:Which means what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    *buzz* its Session Initiation Protocol

    thanks for playing. =)

  7. Here's more of'em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only? What is this, IDG?

    I can think of at least two right away:

    • SER
    • Yxa

    There are probably others, feel free to add...

  8. Includes VoiceXML support! by Alistair+Cunningham · · Score: 4, Informative

    What's particularly interesting with this product is that it includes a VoiceXML browser.

    For those who aren't aware, VoiceXML is a cross platform markup language, visually similar to HTML, for writing IVR applications. VoiceXML pages can be served from any web server, and converted to voice on an VoiceXML browser. It interfaces seamlessly to Text To Speech and Voice Recognition servers.

    My company, Integrics Ltd, does Asterisk, Cisco Call Manager, and SER installations. Up to now, we've done IVRs using Asterisk AGI for smaller systems, and VoiceXML on Cisco 2800 routers for larger systems. Being able to run VoiceXML on a free platform on Linux is going to be very interesting our customers. Needless to say, we're getting up to speed on sipX, and will be offering installation and development services as soon as it's mature.

  9. The Real Issue by osewa77 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is that another VoIP company decided that Open Source is a good strategy. That's the real story!

  10. Jargon Buster by Jack+Taylor · · Score: 5, Informative

    There seems to be some confusion over the acronyms on this topic, so I thought I would clarify some of them:

    PBX: Private Branch Exchange - this is basically a computerised telephone switchboard, allowing even fairly small organisations to manage their own telephone networks at low cost.

    SIP: Session Initiated Protocol - this is the protocol that is standard on most voice-over-IP devices.

    COWBOYNEAL: Circulation Of Worthless Broadcasts Over Your Nearest External Authentication Location - this is a special extension to the voice-over-IP standard allowing fast delivery of esoteric technological news to compliant devices. It also has the convenient property of always being last on selection fields in the user interface.

    --
    One good turn - gets all the covers.
    1. Re:Jargon Buster by CounterZer0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, SIP is 'Session Initiation Protocol', as specified in RFC 3621 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3261.txt)

  11. Re:Two Stones, One bird by Bothari · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Crucially important. Asterisk is the pits to implement for 80%+ of the situations where a open source voip pbx would be useful.

    Don't get me wrong, it's amazingly powerful and does just about anything except wash windows... as long as you can get it working properly. But it's not the right tool for a small (think 5-50 people) company which only wants a simple PBX to connect their phones...

  12. Copper 1 pair, actually by n4vu · · Score: 2, Informative

    Enjoyed your post, but should point out that only one pair is needed for telephone communication, including ringing. The two pair is a more recent wiring standard.

  13. Re:Yate is also a PBX and a gateway by biba2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yate (Yet Another Telephony Engine) is also a gateway and a PBX.
    It supports H323 (much better then asterisk), SIP (with a nice stack that it can be actualy reused), IAX2 (with a forked version of libiax2), and ISDN (PRI and BRI) using zaptel drivers.
    The best part is that is much more flexibile then any other similar project around. Is not like sipX just SIP based, and is not like Asterisk a emulation of PSTN over VoIP. Is a real VoIP server that actualy deal also with PSTN.

  14. Re:Two Stones, One bird by bastion_xx · · Score: 4, Informative

    Try asterisk@home for a good distro that should do most of the easy stuff "out of the box".

  15. Asterisk is like linux, Sipx is like Windows by tburt11 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I recently deployed asterisk in a few locations. It was admitedly tough. I was unfamiliar with the world of telephony, and new to VOIP. I read lots of wiki pages, and read through the extremely detailed configuration files, and with some trial and error, I now have a fully fledged PBX in my home, and my workplace.

    I have never sought out a GUI interface for asterisk.

    If I wanted a GUI interface, I would have looked for a MS based solution. Isn't that obvious?

    From what I have read, and experienced, IAX is a superior protocol to SIP, principally due to it's handling of NAT and firewall issues. It just works, and it works well. I can send an IAX adapter to the far side of the world, and have the user plug it in. Without the need to add rules to their router, I can connect and Voila, they are talking.

    I am very pleased with Asterisk. I have only begun to utilize it's vast capabilitites.

    It appears that SIPX is targeting the user who wants simplicity. Most windows users are attracted to simplicity. Ergo: Asterisk is like linux, manually configured and extremely powerful. Sipx is like windows, give me a dialog box to type in my phone number, and that is all I want.

    DISCLAIMER: I have never used SIPX, but a quick look at the website, and pulling up blank pages for the readme's tells me alot!

  16. Great! Now I have just 1 wish by aminorex · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If only sipX would support IAX2 protocol, we'd have
    a really useful component which would peer with
    Asterisk servers and be operable over stupid NAT
    devices such as the majority of connected systems
    use to connect to the Internet.

    --
    -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
  17. Forgive me for being underwhelmed by lorcha · · Score: 2, Insightful
    From the sipX site:

    sipXvxml - VoiceXML processing engine

    The sipXvxml project combined with OpenVXI v2.0, sipXportLib, sipXmediaLib, and sipXtackLib produces the SIP voicexml engine used to power the sipXpbx's project's voicemail and autoattendant features.
    License
    sipXvxml is distributed under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
    Documentation
    Coming soon!
    Riiiiiiiiiggghhhhtttt. Cute, guys. Wake me up when you've written some fucking docs.
    --
    "Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent