Build Your Own PBX

Kerbo writes "Kerry Garrison has written up a complete guide to building your own PBX with Asterisk@Home to create your own working PBX system. In the article, he shows how you can build a complete, working system for under $20 (assuming you have some old hardware laying around the house)."

Comments

Next on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Become a Millionaire with only $20, and another $999,980 laying around.

Re:Next on Slashdot

[Eil]

Mod me up! :)...

Um, no. I have mod points, but I'm not modding you up. Rather than modding you down, however, I'd like to point out a couple things that have been bugging me about a lot of Slashdot comments recently.

1) You felt the need to ASK to be modded up instead of letting the content of your comment stand on its own.

2) Your reply has sweet fuck all to do with the comment that you replied to and you did this solely to give your post higher placement in the comments. A sad tactic, and the one that I most often give out negative mod points for. Next time, start a new thread. If you feel that what you have to say is so important that it must reach the largest audience possible, take out a few banner ads. Don't further wreck the continually derailing train that is Slashdot commentry.

Re:Next on Slashdot

[Zemran]

ASK = A Slashdot Knowall ???

Re:Next on Slashdot

[Da Fokka]

No, ASK is GETTING PERMISSION.

Oh and TLFS means The Lameness Filter Sucks.

Re:Next on Slashdot

[bigpat]

"Don't further wreck the continually derailing train that is Slashdot commentry."

I was with you until this last part. No need to add a point of hopelessness to your otherwise helpful comment. Slashdot provides many tools for filtering out the useless comments, peer pressure is one of them and you are using it to hopefully good effect.

But remember, like someone who goes "shhhhh" in a crowded theatre you are adding to the noise yourself, so do so sparingly. Which is something that has been bothering me about the messageboards lately. There are far too many offtopic posts critical of the form of people's comments rather than the substance.

Yes, I realize the hypocracy of that statement or perhaps it is irony. But it is meta hypocracy.

Re:Next on Slashdot

[Eil]

I was with you until this last part. No need to add a point of hopelessness to your otherwise helpful comment.

You make a valid point. The comment came purely out of frustration and could have been omitted.

There are far too many offtopic posts critical of the form of people's comments rather than the substance.

Yes, I realize the hypocracy of that statement or perhaps it is irony. But it is meta hypocracy.

You're excused. :) It's not like there's a separate forum set aside for discussing this sort of thing, so we might as well talk about it here.

bad grammar

[Anonymous Coward]

some old hardware laying WHAT around the house?

Re:bad grammar

[lukewarmfusion]

There are plenty of sites on the web where you can find various machines doing some "laying."

Re:bad grammar

[operagost]

I let my hardware lay around the house and before I knew it, I had a nest with forty baby Pentiums. It's hard to get people to adopt them. I ended up having to take some to the computer shelter.

And what's neat...

[Pig Hogger]

And what's neat is that it's ready to go VOIP at the same time.

Hmmmm. How about making a Linux distro that gives out a PBX/bastion host/firewall???

Re:And what's neat...

[darnok]

I've already got a highly effective PBX firewall in place. It's called "leaving the phone off the hook", and it's very effective around dinner time to ensure we don't get snowed by phone calls to our teenage daughters.

Even better, it comes with a highly effective content filter. Callers with truly important news will, upon finding the house phone is engaged, call one of our mobile phones. However, teenagers, with their inherent lack of cash and memories of past confrontations with parents over mobile phone call costs, will instead retry the home phone approximately every 60 seconds. I can guarantee that, from the instant I replace the phone after dinner, it's never more than 60 seconds till it starts ringing again.

Kerry's Blog is kinda interesting too ...

[xmas2003]

Here is Kerry's Blog which is kinda interesting reading too.

For those with extra hardware to run Astrerix@Home, consider running Folding@Home! ;-)

Re:Kerry's Blog is kinda interesting too ...

[ylon]

I will have to say, that was funny!!!

Confusion

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

I may be incredibly dense (drunk), and I have never messed about with my home phones. Essentially, I would like all my phones to go through Vonage, but act exactly like normal phones. Is this a way of doing this? The article goes into detail about Soft Phones, but I have no interest in that.

Any points for a beginner looking for information?

Re:Confusion

[TheMysteriousFuture]

Yes.

order vonage service

receive vonage ata (analog telephone adapter)

disconnect ILEC telephone lines from inside house telephone lines at your dmarc on the side of your home

plug vonage ata into phone jack inside

enjoy

Re:Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

What the parent said should make you happy. It works well.

Please do not try and combine Vonage with Asterisk unless you're prepared to use an FXO device/card. It can't be done. (Before I get flamed, technically you can do it through software but Vonage won't give you the information to do it.) You'd have to use an FXO card to connect the "analog" line coming out of your Vonage ATA to the Asterisk Box -- it would treat it just like a standard POTS line.

A very crude setup, if I do say so. Your calls would be going through multiple conversions and using much more bandwith (Vonage -> ATA, Asterisk Box -> SIP-phone/ATA vs. Broadvoice -> Asterisk then bridged to Broadvoice -> SIP-phone after call setup).

Plus it's frankly just going to be annoying -- when you start doing things like this you're just asking for a long delay between when the person calls you and your phone rings (even with immediate=yes, the Wildcard X100P often introduces .5-1 ring delay).

Re:Confusion

[jessecurry]

just sign up for Vonage service, it's great....it works just like your normal phone. I hear though that Time Warner is offering a service where they just tie their VoIP hardware directly into your home telephone wiring.
I guess with Vonage you can conceivably just attach the interface into your telephone wiring, but they recommend finding an electrician to help.

Re:Confusion

[rusty0101]

One difference is thta TW is providing you with what they are willing to claim is an electrician.

Whether the guys down at All Systems, or Collisys would agree is a completely seprate matter.

Currently I am appaled at Vonage's service suspension policies, but that's my own business at the moment.

-Rusty

Re:Confusion

[fireboy1919]

That's overkill. Phone lines aren't power lines.

Jacking into the junction box isn't any harder than making an ethernet cord (which just takes a spool of CAT-5, a crimping tool, some vampire clips, and an IQ somewhere around Forrest Gump's).

In fact, a lot of junction boxes have rj-11 jacks on them so you don't have to do anything to the wires. You'd just disconnect the main from the outgoing line and connect it to the ata adapter.

Re:Confusion

[rich_r]

But you sure as hell don't want to be holding the wires when someone dials in. Those ringers have to get power from somwhere...

Re:Confusion

[tdemark]

That's overkill. Phone lines aren't power lines.

Written by someone who has never been working on a phone line when a call comes in.

While 90V @ 30 Hz is not usually life threatening, it's also not a walk in the park either.

- Tony

Re:Confusion

[zotz]

Especially if you are stripping the wire with your teeth at the time!

Re:zonk

[gamepro]

The guy has been posting here since december... http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/16/ 1537246&tid=97&tid=10 sheesh

Lousy Submissions

[ilyagordon]

One of the major problems with Slashdot articles is that they provide absolutely NO background information to what the hell they're referencing. We may all be geeks and nerds, but that doesn't mean we know what a PBX box is. I'm not going to click on your damn link just to find out what the hell you're trying to say with your stinking news submission.

If a standard, everyday IT geek can read your submission without clicking on any links and be able to understand what's in store within those links, you've done a good job. This particular submission is not an example of this.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[Kerbo]

If you don't know what a PBX is, then this probably isn't of interest to you in the first place. I have no idea what "Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) and Elliptic Curve Menezes-Qu-Vanstone (ECMQV) for key agreement, and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) for signature generation/verification" means, but that didnt stop me from reading about it.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

Thank you. I was going to post, too, but given my already "Bad" Karma, I thought better of it. Glad to see someone agrees.

In any case, here is an explanation of PBX -- it certainly helped me.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[ilyagordon]

How do I know if I'm interested in it or not if I have no idea what it is? A simple sentence at the end of the submission saying something like, "Incase you don't know, a PBX is _____" would have told me just what I'm reading about. And if it suddenly peaks my interest, then I'll start clicking the links to learn more. I'm not asking for a full essay describing everything there is to know about a PBX, just one short sentence is plenty.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[mustangsal66]

PBX = Private Branch Exchange

(Your work phone system)

Just in case it's not clear yet

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/PBX.html

Re:Lousy Submissions

[DNS-and-BIND]

Standard, everyday IT geeks know what PBX systems are.

HINT: When the article provides absolutely NO background information, it can safely be said that everyone but you knows what we're talking about.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[stevesliva]

PBX = Poor Box.

You know, like alms. The key is the appearence of security, without ostentation.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[binaryspiral]

Or you could spend two seconds googling PBX and learn all you need to know.

If you ever plan to be a resource to a company it may be worth your time to learn the basics of PBX installations, IP telephony, and the proper pronouncation of the word "telephony".

Re:Lousy Submissions

[jerkychew]

The parent submission is a serious troll. I mean, I started working the lowest level helpdesk in 97, and when I got my first tour of the server room, I was shown the PBX. Now, I had no idea what PBX stood for, or how it worked (and to be honest, I still don't), but I was told that its primary purpose was to handle all the phone switching.

I mean, come on. It's almost all but impossible to work in the IT field and not at least see a PBX.

Slashdot isn't supposed to spell out every single technology that it features. It's assuming that you either have an idea what the article is about, or you know how to at least use google. Go google for "what is a PBX". There, done.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[prichardson]

It's too bad that there isn't some sort of online database of acronyms.

Perhaps we could call it Acronym Search.

Or perhaps some sort of search engine.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[finkployd]

I suppose you were born with an innate knowledge of all acronyms appearing on the Slashdot front page?

I was actually born with an ability to google things I didn't already know.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[Fjornir]

Sir, the thing is that slashdot is targetted at people who can read the front page. PBX is by no means obscure, at least as far as the slashdot readership is concerned. This is not a problem with the slashdot submission process as you had said in a previous post, the problem is the fact that you are ignorant of things which are just assumed to be known. I'm not saying this to trash on you in any way -- maybe twice a month I'll hit google and ask it to "define: tla".

But the fact is that I'd rather slashdot erred on the terse side, instead of excessive verbosity. If I started seeing a lot of "In case you don't know, a CPU is a Central Processing Unit...", "In case you don't know an LED is a light emitting diode", "In case you don't know a ...." garbage in the submissions, I'd stop reading. If there's something that's too obscure I can always look it up.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[littlerubberfeet]

Or, we could even go to our web browser and type in www.AcronymFinder.com....

Re:Lousy Submissions

[BobPaul]

Heh.. yeah. I knew what PBX was way back in the 80s before I was even in Middle School... Thank you Anarchist Cookbook!

Re:Lousy Submissions

[yrogerg]

The idea is to help people out who may not know all the l33t acronyms that you know. And otherwise, why include any information and not just post a link to the article? Slashdot could just be a list of links to interesting articles.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm dying, quick, what's the google keyword for 911?

Re:Lousy Submissions

[swit]

re:
"One of the major problems with Slashdot articles is that they provide absolutely NO background
information to what the hell they're referencing."

So apt! And so stupid that this TRUE comment is shown as Flamebait.

I read Slashdot daily, and find that in almost every main article some stupid goof
with the mental maturity of a turnip posts stuff assuming that the rest of us are somehow
able to telepathically divine what he is talking about.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[binaryspiral]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=911

Re:Lousy Submissions

[InfinityBuffer]

Amazing, same with me. Only difference is that I was only 3 by the end of the 80's. In all seriousness tho, most geeks know what a PBX is. My mom even knows, and she is definately not a geek, but im getting its because im always going on about how we should have a PBX for absolutely no reason other than confusing visitors by telling them to dial 9 first.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[drsquare]

Not just him, but a lot of other people, including me. Obviously not everyday 'geeks' know what they are, just a self-important few.

As for saying 'well google it', it's not my job to find out something so I'm interested in an article, it's up to the article submitter to sell the story to me, if he wants me to read it. Every salesman worth his salt knows that.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[randomiam]

Why don't the people who post stories add appropriate hyperlinks to websites such as wikipedia at the time of posting? That would seem to solve the whole problem.

On a somewhat related note, I've found this website to be invaluable when dealing with avalanches of acronyms.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[EEBaum]

What of the myriad of non-IT geeks? I'll have you know that IT doesn't hold a monopoly on geekery, whether on the internet or elsewhere.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[nacturation]

You use this word, "geeks" in your post as if I'm supposed to know what it is. Are you all self-important that defining your words is beneath you? If you're worth your salt, you would have sold me on it so that I would consider your post worthy.

However, for your benefit, I hope slashdot institutes an auto-acronym feature. So that next time there's a story about a new BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), SCO (Santa Cruz Operation), IBM (International Business Machines), or even 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Corporation) you'll (you will) know what those acronyms mean.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[coastwalker]

Oh for goodness sake show a bit of backbone human. Whatever happened to the spirit of adventure, to curiosity, to self belief?

Slashdot amongst other things is a forum for discussion about topical technological subjects. There is no way on earth that you are going to have expertise on all the subjects covered and it would be tedious in the extreeme if subjects were avoided or dumbed down because they were obscure. So for goodness sake get off your fat lazy backside and invest some effort into your life rather than waiting to be spoon fed everything. I use google to find out more and I cannot understand why you dont want to.

The beauty of slashdot is that it is indiscriminate and can raise subjects that are arcane as well as trivial, use the content classification system if you do not want to see articles about indigestible subjects.

Telephony has always been a subject that is shrouded in mystery, mainly one suspects because of the monopoly that carriers enjoyed in the past. An article on one more step in the erosion of that secrecy and lingering monopoly has to be an interesting read for anyone aware of what is going on in the world of technology.

A VOIP PBX is almost as exciting as a VOIP PABX, an Apache of the VOIP world could be very disruptive.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[Alioth]

It's pretty much general knowledge what a PBX is.

Some trivia: PBXs used to be known as PABXs, when it was new and highly advanced for a company to have a private AUTOMATIC branch exchange, rather than one where a switchboard operator would plug plugs into the right holes to manually route calls. The original PABXs were electromechanical - some large companies had Strowger private exchanges the size of a typical telco exchange unit.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[jotok]

How do I know if I'm interested in it or not if I have no idea what it is?

I'm guessing you already know if something interests you or not.

Or are you asking if you should be interested? Take my advice, kid--don't depend on /. to tell you what you should be interested in :)

Re:Lousy Submissions

[Spoing]

1. If a standard, everyday IT geek can read your submission without clicking on any links and be able to understand what's in store within those links, you've done a good job.

Agreed.

1. This particular submission is not an example of this.

Yes it is. For the sake of Captain Crunch, it's a PBX! Go learn something if you consider yourself a geek or hacker!

Re:Lousy Submissions

[raju1kabir]

I mean, come on. It's almost all but impossible to work in the IT field and not at least see a PBX.

It's impossible to be so much as a departmental secretary and not know what a PBX is.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[hb253]

Try whatis.com

Re:Lousy Submissions

[operagost]

Pardon me, but I see these blurbs about new Linux "kernels" all the time. Could someone explain those? They don't have anything to do with corn or fried chicken, do they?

Re:Lousy Submissions

[ivrcti]

Try http://www.carrieraccessbilling.com/telecommunicat ions-glossary-a.asp

It lists every telecom related acronym I can think of.

Re:Lousy Submissions

[NAACPsupporter]

Look. I am black, went to public south side schools in Chicago, went to a crappy college also in Chicago, but I know what a PBX is - because I read every single IT publication that I can get my hands on. You sound like some white rich boy that wants things handed to him for free. Is this why you read slashdot?

Re:Lousy Submissions

[michaelwigle]

But if the person didn't already know what PBX meant in this situation would they know what it meant after getting the following result on Acronym Search?... 2 records were found matching PBX PBX Plastic Bonded Explosive PBX Private Branch Exchange Wouldn't want anyone to get the right.. err. wrong idea about geeks after all... ;)

Re:Lousy Submissions

[finkployd]

The question of course is where do you draw the line? What level of "geek trivia" can we assume? I do not want to see submissions that get so wrapped up in basic descriptions that it is hard to parse what the news is actually about.

There is really going to be no way to please everyone in this case.

Finkployd

Using IP Phones with this

[Kerbo]

While I ddid focus on using softphones, you can use either SIP phones or normal phones using an ATA adapter. SIP phones range in price from $69 - $500.

Re:Using IP Phones with this

[BobSutan]

What if you have a modem in the PC? Can't your regular phone connect straight into that (and let the PC (Asterix) convert it to VoIP?

Re:Using IP Phones with this

[tylernt]

No, the modem does not provide a dial tone. The modem and phone are both "clients", and the phone company is the "server". You need a "server" device such as the Vonage ATA device or the QuickNet Internet LineJack.

Re:Using IP Phones with this

[BobSutan]

I was afraid of that.

What kind of interface does the Linksys router w/ its 2 integrated voice ports provide? FYI, I'm referring to the model that Vonage uses (sorry, but I don't know the model number).

I'm thinking about setting up my own PBX for the extended features, but I'm already with Vonage. Would there even be a benefit to using an Asterix box in this kind of scenario? And it'd be VoIP behind VoIP, which for some reason doesn't seem wise to implement....

Re:Using IP Phones with this

[Kerbo]

The "ideal" setup IMHO is a VOIP dialtone provider and a VOIP PBX system. Using Vonage, BroadVoice, etc can be cheaper than analog lines and an Asterisk system is BY FAR cheaper than an analog PBX.

Re:Using IP Phones with this

[Afrosheen]

The Vonage Linksys router provides FXO ports (I believe, Asterisk docs screwed my head up on fxs/fxo). Those ports are pstn, and handsets plug into them. Any old analog phone can jack in, including cordless phones. FXO cards can make you look cool if you have some cordless phones plugged into your Asterisk box or even the unbranded Linksys router Vonage uses along with wireless and a cordless phone.

Voicemail hell

[jsimon12]

So now when people call me they can go through auto attendent hell just like the big companies.

Re:Voicemail hell

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I shoiuld build this, and record the entire dell tech support tree. This way, when I'm feeling frisky, I'll flip the "dell" switch and pick up when anyone actually gets to the end.

Re:Voicemail hell

[Zemran]

yes, and just like in real big companies you can route important calls from people you know to immeadiate answer and leave the canvasers to suffer until they find their way to voise mail. The system can be programmed to deal with numbers that it recognises differently to the rest of the plebs.

Re:Voicemail hell

[spj524]

I tried doing that but forwarding all the calls to India got way to expensive.

Asterisk has good WAF...

[mutterc]

(Wife Acceptance Factor)

Ours (done in a modern machine, so it would have PCI 2.2 for the cards to drive Plain Old Phones) has a (not hard to do once the basics are working) callpath that's a caller-ID whitelist.

Calls from numbers "on the list" ring the phones, then go to voicemail, like "normal" calls would. Calls from one of our cellphones tell the caller how many new voicemails are waiting, then distinctive-ring the phones, then go to voicemail. Calls from unknown, private, or not-on-the-list numbers go straight to voicemail without ringing the phones.

You'll pry it out of my wife's cold dead hands...

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[phil4]

> You'll pry it out of my wife's cold dead hands...

Dude, that's just sick. Bury her already.

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[stratjakt]

(she's inflatable... shh, he doesnt know. he's still mourning.. hehehehe)

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[blackbear]

Another tactic for call screening that I use is to require the caller to press a number in order to leave a message. For me, this stops a lot of telemarketing calls. It seems they either can't or don't want to press 1 before leaving me a message. Which makes me VERY happy.

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[stratjakt]

They dont want to be on tape calling someone on the DNC list, or prior to the list, someone who'd previously asked to have been removed.

That'd potentially open the parent company up to real legal problems. Physical evidence vs hearsay.

I dunno though, the robot ones didn't seem to bother leaving messages for me to call back about an urgent business opportunity or whatnot.

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[nmos]

In my case, when someone leaves a message I have a text message with their caller ID info sent to my cell phone. For me it's the perfect compromise between forwarding all my calls (far too many interruptions) and missing out on calls until it's far too late to do anything about them.

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[Nate Fox]

What is the hardware required to run this? I RTFA, but it deals with softphones, rather than plain old phones.

I'd like to know what the "PCI 2.2 for the cards to drive Plain Old Phones" card is. If its anywhere near the ~$10 that the card to bring in lines on, I'd have no problem buyin stuff to play :)

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[rusty0101]

Best bet is to follow the various links, and search for FAQ's, One of them is bound to have the following:


2. I tried to install Asterisk@Home on my XXXX pc and it says it don't support my system.

Asterisk at Home is based on RHEL 3 Linux. RHEL 3 does not support many older systems. You should have at least a 300MHz PII. This may have been an oversight on my part but most of the info I have read on Asterisk says it does not run well on systems slower than this. Besides look on e-bay a Dell Optiplex GX1, a great Linux and Asterisk box with good hardware support, sells for $34USD (buy it now)! Seems like a worthwhile investment for Asterisk/Linux experimentation.

If you really want to use Asterisk on slower hardware try Debian Linux it runs on almost anything and has good Asterisk support.


The 'buy it now' price varies, and depends a lot on the processor speed, plus you may want to bump up the memory. That 'buy it now' price does not include shipping, so you may want to factor that in as well.

However I do see quite a few of the Dell Optiplex GX1 systems for under $100, including shipping, and if you are going to pick up the fxs card at the same time, and are not too picky about which Optiplex you get, you might be able to get everything necessary for under $100 including shipping.

Since I have better than that hardware sitting in storage at the moment, I might just do this in the next month.

Later...

-Rusty

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[nacturation]

Another tactic for call screening that I use is to require the caller to press a number in order to leave a message.

What works really well is to generate a number between 50 and 100, then ask the user to press the corresponding digit of pi in that decimal place.

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[kissyfish]

I can only claim to have a medium WAF, While building this, and a few subsequent outages ( I was implementing the telemarketer torture script for fun), the little woman could not make calls. Subsequently, anyone claiming they tried to call, and us not getting the call has been blamed on the system (along with any other minor annoyance) Reminded me too much of my day job, so I have temporarily unhooked it (though I caught her still blaming things on it) :) Kissy

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[mutterc]

I bought the card to capture a POTS line (my BellSouth line is hooked to it) new from Digium, for IIRC $50ish. It's discontinued now I think; they combined it with the other card.

The other card is the one to drive POTS lines (so the Asterisk box is what rings my house phones). The current version can be found here. That's the one that requires PCI 2.2. One port in each direction will cost $195 new.

What I did was to get a new box, move all of the usual services (homedir, Samba PDC, etc.) to it, added Asterisk and a second mythbackend. Being a P4/2.4 with 1GB RAM, it handles all this stuff without breaking a sweat :-)

Re:Asterisk has good WAF...

[plsander]

You know you have been listening to too much political discussion when you parse DNC as "Democratic National Committee" rather than "Do Not Call"....

Another option

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to avoid the hardware costs of a PBX, consider a virtual PBX system, which often offers many more features than you can get even in a professional PBX setup. For as low as $9.99 a month you can get a system at http://www.freedomvoice.com

I admit, I do work for this company, but it definately is a relevant option.

Re:Another option

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.freedomvoice.com for the lazy

For those of you that don't know what PBX is

[ballsanya]

For those that don't know...Private Branch Exchange[wikipedia.org]

Re:For those of you that don't know what PBX is

[Jon.Laslow]

Thank you! It gets rather aggravating when the poster/article writer assume that everyone knows what the abbreviation they use over and over again without explaining means.

And for those who are about to jump and say "if you don't know it, Google it!", I say "why?". If it's important enough to make an article about, could you please make sure everyone knows what exactly it is you're talking about? Please?

Re:For those of you that don't know what PBX is

[Legion303]

And for those who are about to jump and say "if you don't know it, Google it!", I say "why?"

Because if you aren't willing to google it, chances are you won't want to fuck around with configuring it, either. Asterisk is extremely complex and sophisticated, and has a steep learning curve. The article did a good job of outlining a basic setup, but the software does much more.

Re:For those of you that don't know what PBX is

[Jon.Laslow]

Did I mention anything about configuration? If I find something interesting, I'll take the time to poke around with it and learn it, but I need to know what the hell it is, first! After all, there's nothing like spouting off abbrivations fifty times without knowing what they stand for....

Re:For those of you that don't know what PBX is

[Legion303]

If a horde of AOL users had chimed in with "me too!" I might see your point. Since it was just you and maybe 2 others (last time I looked at the thread), I submit that perhaps it's a more common abbreviation than you think.

SOHO

[erick99]

It you just opened your own cottage industry style consulting business out of your home, something like this could make you look like a bigger business. I could see the advantage to that. The features of the system would be handy too for a new and very small business.

Re:SOHO

[rtaylor]

Indeed. I've been eyeing fax to email gateways for a little bit now, but don't think it's worth $20 per month recurring (potentially lots of inbound faxes). However, if this thing can run on an old junker (cheap) computer, it might be worth it.

Hey, look at that, an old junker computer in the closet that I've been meaning to donate, complete with a modem. How convenient!

Could someone please explain the last mile?

[Sark666]

With all this talk of voip here and there, I've never understood how the actual conversion from ip to pots actually takes place.

Basically I want to know how these companies do it. How do the perform this termination service? How small a scale could one do this himself?

Re:Could someone please explain the last mile?

[Kerbo]

In a PURE VOIP scenerio, you could get PSTN/POTS termination from a company like Vonage, Broadvoice, VoicePulse, or a number or other companies. This basically gives you Dialtone-over-internet. What you need on your side is either a single softphone, ATA adapter, or something like an Asterisk box communicate with the provider. VOIP is suitable for everything from 1 user to any number of business class users.

Re:Could someone please explain the last mile?

[mike.newton]

You lease a POTS line like a T1, which will give you 24 voice lines, or an E1 which will give you 32. Plug that into an interface card in your asterisk server. Those T1 lines will come with phone numbers for incoming calls as well. That's all you'd need to get a basic VOIP company up and running.

As far as how small a scale you can do this, it's about $1000 (Canadian)/month for a T1 in a data centre -- but I'm sure people still do fractional T1, don't they?

As long as nobody wants to call outside the local calling area of your server, you're set. Otherwise you'd need to set up servers elsewhere or make arrangements with someone else.

Re:Could someone please explain the last mile?

[grasshoppa]

and voicepulse. I've used them for three months now to an asterisk box, they are awsome. iax2 termination, multiple codecs. Two thumbs way up.

Re:bad grammar-Do the Locomotion.

[bersl2]

You become used to it after a while.

Re:bad grammar-Do the Locomotion.

[lukewarmfusion]

What are you talking about? I see plenty of action. I just finished playing a twelve hour marathon of Counter-strike!*

* I'm married.

Request

[syynnapse]

Could we have a combo trunk building/blue box building article posted? I was born too late to ever get to successfully use a bluebox, and i think it would be cool. ya know, if its not too much trouble.

Re:Request

[CammieCrookston]

If you want the full blueboxing backstory as well, go here: http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/story.html

eBay

[Anonymous Coward]

The most recommended card is the Digium Wildcard X100P FXO card which can be purchased brand new on eBay for $6.95 each.

Not for long...

Re:eBay

[CRC'99]

Too bad they're a shit card, plagued with echo problems, low volume, faulty hangup detection, and many, many annoying issues.

Oh well, you get what you pay for I guess...

Re:eBay

[ewieling]

These are clone cards, not official Digium cards. Rumor has it that they have problems with echo when used in a VoIP netup.

Is it cost effective to become a mini-Vonage?

[Cryofan]

So, this is a PBX. So, I can hook this hardware up to the telco and take incoming calls from clients anywhere in the world over IP and make a call for them to a telco phone number, and let them talk over my PBX, correct?

OK, but what I do not know is what kind of connection to the telco do I need to do this? Can I do it using my standard phone connection? I would think you need multiple lines outgoing to the telco POTS (plain old telephone system), correct? So, if I have N lines to the telco, I can handle a max of N calls from clients on my IP to Telco PBX, correct?

So, would this be cost effective as a business model? Is a certain number of lines required, etc?

TIA

Re:Is it cost effective to become a mini-Vonage?

[bahwi]

Way off. There's no need to have POTS lines if you want to be a telecom, you need end termination.

Check out http://voip-info.org/ and good luck! =) It's a fun, crazy learning curve.

Re:Is it cost effective to become a mini-Vonage?

[Kerbo]

You can use any of the following: Regular phone lines (multiple modems or multi-line modems) ISDN Trunk lines T1 Trunk lines Internet-based carriers If you have 2 regular phone lines, you can handle 2 concurrent calls, a T1 can handle up to 23. It is a very effective cost point considering the alternative standard PBX costs.

Re:Is it cost effective to become a mini-Vonage?

[Sly-Guy]

FYI: T1 can handle calls on all 24 channels without extra digital info, Caller ID, ANI/DNIS, etc.

You are referring to a PRI (Primary Rate ISDN) that uses 23 channels for voice and 1 for call setup/teardown. This provides all modern phone convieniences.

Re:Is it cost effective to become a mini-Vonage?

[captwheeler]

Thanks. I was wondering why people kept saying 23 channels.

Re:Is it cost effective to become a mini-Vonage?

[rusty0101]

And even saying PRI uses 23 channels for voice and 1 for call setup/teardown is specific to a single PRI T1.

The spec for PRI allows that one channel for call setup/teardown to handle as many as 20 PRI spans. After the first PRI (which is shorted the control channel) each of the remaining 19 PRI T1 circuits can use all 24 channels for voice or whatever service you configure them for with your provider.

In other words if you can afford the expenditure, you can do variable bandwidth connections across 1 x 23 x 64 + 19 x 24 x 64 ~= 30Mbps with variation down to 1 channel or 0 if you and your remote end have some other method of signalling to activate from 0 channels (i.e. your isp sends you a reverse call request via the data channel.)

Note, while this is an option, I have never actually seen it implemented. I have seen multiple PRIs in use, we use it as a dial backup mechanism to maintain connectivity with branches at times, however our PRI's are all 1D23B setups. I wasn't involved in the design, I just use the stupid things at times.

-Rusty

Re:Is it cost effective to become a mini-Vonage?

[bwass24]

In a large real world implementation you would never use a single D channel for 20 PRI's. For diversity and overall manageability sake you would create trunk groups of 5 or 6 PRI's and use 2 channels--each on a different PRI--for a primary and a backup D channel for each trunk group. I've implemented this arrangement many times and it works great as long as the PRI carrier has their act together at their switch end.

Re:Is it cost effective to become a mini-Vonage?

[ivrcti]

You've also overlooked the most painful and expensive part of the whole business model, regulation. Once you start acting remotely like a local telco, your own telco will report you and then you'll go into a huge, ugly, never ending labrynth of telco regulation. Figure about 10 people on staff just to manage regulatory requirments. Better have more than 2-3 simultaneous connections!

Silly question about Asterisk@home

[mikeage]

Hi,
I'm considering setting up Asterisk at home, however, the WAF (wife acceptance factor) is going to be very important here, so I'd like to make sure I know what I'm doing before I start. How hard is it to deploy an Asterisk@home with the following configuration:
Two outgoing lines (one for local calls via local telecom, one for US calls via VoIP (packet8 -- using their DTA-310), and three local extensions (only one will be a "real" telephone.
As I understand it, this means I need two FXOs, and one FXS. Can I use three separate cards for this, instead of buying a 2 or 4 port FXO, which seem to be more than 2* the cost of a single?

Re:Silly question about Asterisk@home

[cfoster611]

You can have 2 FXO cards (Wildcards ) in one computer, though sometimes it gives people problems. The *best* solution to what you want is a full fledged TDM400P with 2 FXO and 1 FXS modules. But thats expensive.

You can get 2 Clone FXO cards for cheap, and then use a Sipura 1000 or 2000 for your FXS. I use a similar setup (1 Clone FXO, Sipura, some Grandstreams), which works well.

Re:Silly question about Asterisk@home

[nmos]

It looks like you'd only need 1 FXO (for your telco line) and 1 FXS for your standard phone. A Sipura SPA-3000 would provide both of those quite nicely.

Re:Silly question about Asterisk@home

[batkiwi]

Why do you need two FXOs? The outgoing to packet8 would be via sip uplink. It would be INCREDIBLY silly to go FXO-> DTA 310 -> Ethernet again!!!

Here is how to do it:
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Packet8+DTA310+ and+A sterisk

So now you're down to 1 FXO and 1 FXS. However, you can, if you choose, "downgrade" your now unused DTA-310's firmware to an older version that lets you set which server to log into. Set it to log into your Asterisk server, and suddenly you don't need an FXS because your DTA-310 does the job!

Email me if you want details. it's my slashdot username @ happychinchilla . com

Re:Silly question about Asterisk@home

[mikeage]

I was under the impression that packet8 did not allow people to connect with any SIP devices except for their DTA, to the point that they'd send out emails threatening to disable the service of people who do this.

If it's possible, then yes, I'd probably try converting the DTA-310 to an FXS.

Re:Silly question about Asterisk@home

[mikeage]

I have two outgoing lines -- one is packet8, one is a local number (I don't live in the US, however).

Re:Silly question about Asterisk@home

[nmos]

I havn't used packet8 but they look like a fairly standard voip provider so you should be able to connect to them directly with Asterisk rather than using another FXO and plugging into their box. If not, I'd personally switch to a provider that is more Asterisk friendly.

Re:Silly question about Asterisk@home

[millst]

the WAF of asterisk is average. for the first few months after installing asterisk the WAF was very low with comments such as.. "why can't we just have a normal phone system like everybody else" "so and so called today and they said my voice sounded like it was under-water" "i tried ringing so and so today and it just beeped in my ear" and stuff like that, once you have ironed out all the crinkles and fixed all your config file typos it generally just goes. my rule of thumb now is - don't touch it unless its broken, my asterisk box hasn't missed a beat for over 4 months now, still get the occassional jittery call but it generally just goes now.

Re:Silly question about Asterisk@home

[jjhall]

One of the biggest WAF points for me is the cost. I built my system out of spare parts, a knock-off X100P card from eBay, and a Sipura SPA1000 provided by my ITSP.

You see, my local telco charges basically $20 per month for unlimited long distance, in addition to the regular $30 or so for a basic line with a couple of basic features. My ITSP charges me $10 per month for unlimited inbound and in-state outbound calling, plus tons more features than our old company does.

Since I am generally beta-testing somebody's service at any given time, we effectively have free long distance. My wife loves it, as she can call all of her out-of-state friends and it doesn't bring our phone bill up over the $10 per month.

Once I run out of companies to beta test for, I can switch to a $20 per month plan at my ITSP and have unlimited long distance to all 50 states. That would still save us $30 per month over what our land line provider offered.

Sure there were some occasional quirks that needed to be worked out, but they are few and far between. I was showing my wife something she could do with the phone the other day, and she even made the comment, "I used to hate this and think it was a waste of time and money, but I'm really glad you have this working now."

Jeremy

Thanks Asterisk!

[Neo-Rio-101]

This is great. When I get another free day off I'm going to try this out. If it makes me a lot in consulting and hence improves my CV, then all the better for me.

Thanks Asterisk!

Then what?

[JPriest]

Once I have the PBX running, how do I get my phone number routed to it? Do I have to sign a lease agreement with a CLEC for them to host and forward my number? What paperwork do I fill out to get my number released from the ILEC and to whom do I send it?

I could probably swing running the software and equipment, but I am lost with the administrative and telephony portion of having my own PBX.

Re:Then what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You either use something like the Wildcard X100P Generic (mentioned in the article as available on eBay for $6.95) to connect your standard analog line to the Linux box.

Or, you use a VoIP provider that does DID/Termination and will port your number. I believe Broadvoice does this. Then it's purely a VoIP line -- you use it by setting up the Asterisk box to use SIP to connect to Broadvoice. i.e. once you port into Broadvoice you'll no longer have a real landline.

Broadvoice is $5.95/mth for DID (unlimited incoming, pay per minute outgoing) or starts at $19.95 for their unlimited package (includes North America and quite a few European locations).

I have two Broadvoice DID's, one Broadvoice line that has the unlimited World that I use for outgoing calls, 1 Nu-Fone IAX outgoing line, 2 Unlimitel DID's (one of the only places to get Canadian numbers), 1 POTS line.

One of my favorite side tricks after getting the basic PBX features running is to setup one of the DID lines to give me DISA (direct-inward-system-access) when I call from my Cell Phone (based on Caller ID) so I can then dial out one of the outgoing accounts to anywhere in the world and only have to pay for a local call on my cell phone. (Here in Canada long distance is rarely included on cell phones like it is in the states)

Don't get into the things you were talking about. You only go there if you're running a business and want things like 24 flexpath lines on a T1.

Re:Then what?

[TheMysteriousFuture]

*sigh*

Host and forward your number? I have no idea what you are thinking here.

If you want to port your current phone number to a VoIP provider you'll have to find one that is willing to deal with the incredible headache that is LNP paperwork, and you simply provide them a copy of your current bill and pray.

Or you can use a hardware interface card from digium.com to connect a t1 or pots line directly to your server.

Re:Then what?

[EvilMagnus]

if you currently have a single, POTS line from your local telco then you'll need one of them modem cards. And that's it. Plug the phone into the card, tell Asterisx about it, and you're done - you have a 1 line PBX. Good for call screening and voicemail.

You don't need to tell your telco anything - this isn't the same as getting a block of DID numbers and a T1. :)

Re:Then what?

[vcbumg2]

You are not going to be part of the telco...
You will only have a PBX inside your house.
If you are not going to get a PRI/T1 then you can not even utilize many of the things a PBX can do.
For anyone using POTS lines this is more like you linksys setup than a cisco 7500 running BGP routing traffic through the internet.

Re:Then what?

[JPriest]

I am currently using Vonage for $15 a month, but they won't service a PBX. I want to run a PBX rather than an MTA/RJ-11 adapter because it lets me do some cool things with caller ID. Caller ID info is stripped by the last switch, so if I am running that switch incomming callers can't hide their info (eg. ANI). It also lets me modify my own outgoing caller ID info to anything I want.

So are there providers out there that would offer me "last switch" service, rather than just a glorified SIP phone?

Re:Then what?

[JPriest]

If you are not going to get a PRI/T1 then you can not even utilize many of the things a PBX can do.

Isn't it sort of the point of VoIP that I don't need a T1? My internet connection actually puts a T1 to shame, it is just not a dedicated telephony circuit.

Re:Then what?

[JPriest]

The article is about a VoIP PBX!

Re:Then what?

[vcbumg2]

That is true as long as you do not want it to act like a pbx connected to PSTN. You would have to have another party line vontage to handle your PSTN traffic.

Just so you appreciate what you are doing,

[pair-a-noyd]

Here's a REAL PBX that is my personal property.
It's a Rolm CBX II 9000 that is configured to handle 10,000 lines. (Yes, it's operational) It was purchased for $3,000,000 when it was brand new. It's had additional upgrades installed, it's net value was over $5,000,000 at one point in the very recent past.

It fills an entire building. So, compare that with this new tech and you'll all the more appreciate what you have in front of you...

Re:Just so you appreciate what you are doing,

[putaro]

That was his point RETARD.

Re:Just so you appreciate what you are doing,

[clemming]

that thing is REALLY cool.... to look at.... i've seen bits and pecies of similar systems and even a single cab (mostly gutted) at my old job (scrapping the things as well as other anchent technology), but it's kinda impressive to see a complete system like that. now, with that being said, who on earth would want that? i know a lot of people who collect old tech, but man, that takes a lot of room.... and i can't think of how it would be practical for anyone.... a corp that needs 10,000 lines can afford new tech that dosent fill a building.... and smaller corps certently wouldent want anything like that....who do you think would buy this.... monster?

Re:Just so you appreciate what you are doing,

[pair-a-noyd]

Upstarts in third world countries.
With all the offshored support centers, this is rocket science to Pakistan or India.

Other uses, there are still a lot of these in use in universities around the world. Anyone that wants to keep an existing system limping along for a few more years could use it.

There's a lot of uses for it. It's T1/T3 ready as it sits..

Re:Just so you appreciate what you are doing,

[CherniyVolk]

To hell with the PBX. How much for the CAR?

www.systemrecycler.com/rolm/stored/imag0199.jpg

Re:Just so you appreciate what you are doing,

[Penguinshit]

Jesus.. that looks like the pile of crap they pulled out the former-defense-contractor building one of my (former) companies moved into back in 1996. We used a Lucent Definity system that did pretty much the same thing, but wasn't much bigger than a small footlocker (per chassis, total of four stacked). The Definity was also simple to operate versus the nightmare of operating this Rolm behemoth.

You weren't kidding about needing an 18-wheeler to take it away; it sat on our loading dock for three months before the hauler finally showed up.

Re:Just so you appreciate what you are doing,

[pair-a-noyd]

Dunno, that belongs to my dad. I assume you mean the '38 Buick? If you mean the 65 Dodge, that's mine and it ain't for sale.

Re:Just so you appreciate what you are doing,

[Alioth]

Not as impressive as the 10,000 line PBXs (or PABXs as they were called then - Private Automatic Branch Exchange - to differentiate them from the ones where a telephonist would manually route your calls on a switchboard) of the last generation.

The previous generation was massively electromechanical - many many Strowger switches consisiting of relays, uniselectors and bi-directional selectors. The racket of thousands of relays moving and switches stepping must have been quite impressive. One of my co-workers is a former telephone engineer who used to work on this kind of kit for a telco. It took 20 engineers to keep a 10,000 line exchange unit operational. One engineer can now look after 6 10,000 line digital exchanges. He told me about one evening how he was on shift, in the exchange (a telco exchange rather than a PABX), and all was quiet. Then at 8pm, the sound started - all the switches started operating and the noise moved across the exchange, until it became a crechendo of noise. The cause? No, not World War 3 starting, but a soap opera having a dramatic ending on TV.

Re:Just so you appreciate what you are doing,

[boethius]

You should have a very, very, very (read: just about impossible) hard time ever selling this puppy.

For the very reason that VoIP tech. has essentially taken over most corporate phone networks that would ever need a 10K line exchange, there is not a chance anyone would ever deploy it and a fairly slim chance that you could employ a crew that knew how to maintain it properly.

It might pique the interest of some die-hard electronics collectors or an electronics museum, but even then I doubt they'd give you much more than a few hundred bucks for it.

It continually fascinates me how rapidly electronics can devalue. A $3M phone switch drops like a rock to a $1K-$2K device, maybe and even stuff like 3-4 year old Cisco switches and routers dropping to 20-25% of their original value. We're already laughing at how much some of us paid for 15" LCDs 2 years ago (thankfully I wasn't one of them).

NOTE: This will erase all data...

[Goldenhawk]

From the article:

• With Asterisk@Home, you simply need to download the disk image, burn it to a CD, and boot off of it.
  
  • * Burn Asterisk@Home iso to a blank CD
    * Boot your Asterisk PC with the CD and press enter
    NOTE: This will erase all data on the hard drive of the PC!!!

Just a "minor technical detail", that last note. The way people don't RT*A around here, I'll bet in a day or two we'll see some late posts whining about their loss of data. (is that Darwin I hear?)

Aw, com'on, don't tell me you've never just hit enter without REALLY reading the dialog box, right?

Re:NOTE: This will erase all data...

[adolf]

Geez.

Us Gentoo folk just emerge asterisk, and call it a day. No data loss required.

*shrug*

(-1, Flamebait)

Re:NOTE: This will erase all data...

[advocate_one]

"I'll bet in a day or two we'll see some late posts whining about their loss of data. (is that Darwin I hear?)"

Sadly not... if it were Darwinism at work, then they'ed just disappear and never be heard from again... ;)

And more resources

[fiji]

Make sure your connection is up for it:
http://testyourvoip.com/

Wikipedia VoIP Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voip

Linux ISO for PBX

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux PBX based ISO, Asterisk@Home
You still need some hardware though!

You are the man, here's why:

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

Fucking THANK YOU!!

Once my SO figured out she could have this too if, and only if, daddy gets to buy a new machine. i said it'd probably needs a good amount of horsepower and needed a lot of ram - she was still stunned by the idea of having such a phone system, she didn't even question it.

Hot damn, new server AND a new phone system to play with - i looked at the gui screenshots of the astGUI client - holy shit, this is going to be fun.

Re:You are the man, here's why:

[MicklePickle]

I have absolutely no idea what you just said.

Re:Totally offtopic: Is Slashdot dying?

[djplurvert]

That's because the articles haven't been very good. I know that I go through phases of interest and when the articles are as bad as they have been slashdot gets replaced with other activities.

What about IAX2

[Burz]

I have a VOIP provider (VoipJet.com) that only allows connection via IAX2 protocol. While I understand it is a better protocol than SIP, the only IAX2 softphone I can find on Linux is IaxComm (which often crashes).

Re:What about IAX2

[Afrosheen]

That's no problem at all. You first setup a working Asterisk box which your phone connects to and registers with. Next you setup an IAX2 trunk between your Asterisk box and voipjet. Done.

Re:What about IAX2

[kriston]

While you will be able to find some IAX and IAX2-compatible units around, they aren't cheap, and they aren't plentiful. The trend is to use IAX/IAX2 for the trunking and plain old SIP for the desk sets.

Re:What about IAX2

[Afrosheen]

Yeeeaahhh, umm, I need those TPS reports on monday mmkay?

That's what I was trying to say originally. Asterisk handles the trunk to your provider, you do sip on the inside to the phone. That's the way we did it on my job.

The Jig is Up

[mykepredko]

Hey Folks,

We've got to be more careful - he's starting to ask questions. It's pretty important that he doesn't find out what else we've been keeping from him.

myke

Re:bad grammar-Do the Locomotion.

[Afrosheen]

Oh, you're married huh? At the end of my wife and I's counterstrike marathons, all I hear is Terrorists Win. Is that supposed to happen?

Answer and a Question

[BobPaul]

The answer to your question is in the Step by Step Home Wiring Setup" in the Vonage Faq.

What I would like to know is if this Astrix PBX they talked about in the article can be used to replace the ATA Vonage hands out. I'm pretty sure Vonage won't let me return the ATA for any value, but Astrix looks to have more features.

Re:Answer and a Question

[Afrosheen]

Vonage is good for people that don't feel like dedicating a computer to this task and spending any more money than they have to. The little router they give you handles QoS well enough to keep your 0wned spyware-infested, upstream-consuming computer from ruining the quality of your voice calls. Asterisk is for those of us who want to make changes to our services, play with stuff, do it ourselves, maybe save a few bucks as well. I just finished rolling out an Asterisk install for a company and they love it and the Polycom SoundPoint IP500 phones I dropped in. Right now it's still PSTN but once I'm convinced our IAX provider is reliable, we'll leverage our bonded t1 towards telephony and drop our 5 pstn lines.

Re:Answer and a Question

[Solder Fumes]

I'll answer your question with another question: if you already have Vonage, why would you need Asterisk? Vonage already has most of the goodies you'd regularly use with Asterisk. Now, if you want to run a little business and do some fancy work with multiple phone lines, just ditch Vonage and save $5 a month with Broadvoice.

If you don't need to put your grandmother through a five-level voice menu every time she calls, then Asterisk doesn't offer that much of an advantage. The Vonage box is actually pretty cool, you can take it with you on extended trips. My job often puts me in other parts of the country for a week or two, it's nice to have a phone that uses zero precious anytime cellphone minutes. Basically, with a laptop computer, access to a printer, high-speed internet, and a Vonage box, you are in your office.

PBX?

[houghi]

Should that not be a PABX instead of a PBX as it is automated? At least that is what we call it here in Belgium.
PABX = Private Automatic Branch eXchange
PBX = Private Branch eXchange

Re:PBX?

[stratjakt]

Aint nothing automatic about linux. It's somehow powered by the kinetic energy you expend by endlessly tweaking conf files.

I like your waffles. I buy as many as I can with counterfeit yen.

Re:PBX?

[pangur]

PABX is what private phone systems are called in Europe. PBX is what they are called in North America. Otherwise, they are exactly the same (except for the telco interfaces that they accept, example: E1 in Europe vs. T1 in NA).

Hope this helps.

Re:PBX?

[Alioth]

The A in PABX is redundant and most people no longer use it. They used to be called PABXs to differentiate them from manual switchboards. However, no one uses manual switchboards now so hardly anyone calls them PABXs any more because the A is assumed.

Re:Totally offtopic: Is Slashdot dying?

[humberthumbert]

Not to mention all the dupes recently.

To the editors: I do hope that you get off your asses and do something. Editors are supposed to editorialise right?

So, pen your thoughts on topics of interest to the geek world. All we get so far is this immense wall of silence from you. It's like you're just going through the motions nowadays.

At least address the complaints we see daily. You owe the paying subscribers this much.

I recall the heyday of /. when I could look forward to really thought-inspiring articles. Hell, even Jon Katz was worth a gander now and then, if only to laugh at how clueless he was/is.

Articles on tired Sci-Fi franchises and barely concealed adverts are boring me to tears.

As an aside, can anyone can recommend another good forum for geeks to hang out on?

GNU Bayonne?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody care to comment on the relative merits and approaches of Asterisk and Bayonne?

Re:GNU Bayonne?

[TheMysteriousFuture]

Sure.

Asterisk is to GNU/Bayonne as the Linux kernel is to GNU/Hurd.

Student Solution

[geekboxjockey]

This looks like a great idea for student houses. I'm going to seriously consider setting one of these up, but does anyone know from a phone-line connection aspect weather I could use my existing telephone line or would there be any sort of "call the phone company to talk it over" type configuration (does it work like answering machine on first ring with a supported modem card or will I need to set up another sort of line?). I wouldnt mind the bottleneck of just one phoneline for 6 people on a pbx, I'm assuming that there is a busy signal etc for every other caller after the first and some sort of warning for someone who picks up to try to call out on a busy line. This would be amazing for those "somebody called for you, I forgot who it was and where I wrote the number" situations, along with the classic case of nobody answering because theres a 1 in 6 chance its for them etc etc.... anyways just some brainstorming, time to hunt down an old clunker to install it on...

Re:Student Solution

[nmos]

You can just use a regular phone line or a voip line if you prefer. No need to talk to the phone company. Busy signals for incoming calls are the phone companies problem, you don't have to worry about that. In a simple case you might have your Asterisk box pick up on the second ring (caller ID comes in between ring 1 & 2) and ask the caller to "press 1 for Jack, 2 for Jill etc. When the caller makes a selection you then ring the phone distinctivly (ie. different kind of ring for different people) and if noone answers the call goes to voice mail.

Anyone else find it weird...

[aztektum]

that this guy builds his own home PBX but hosts his blog on Blogspot? Or is that his next article? "Built a blog server!"

Re:Anyone else find it weird...

[syukton]

You build a PBX because buying one would be too expensive. The opposite is going on here, he's using somebody else's service (blogspot) because rolling his own would be too time consuming/expensive/whatever. I like to say: Don't reinvent the wheel unless that reinvention is done at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.

Add some cheap SIP hardware from voipsupply.com

[kriston]

Not a commercial, but you can add regular telephones to this great PBX system by going to www.voipsupply.com Most consumer SIP equipment is locked for Vonage, CallVantage, or Net2Phone. This shop sells non-configured versions which you can simply plug into your network, configure, and go. There are single- and dual-port analog adapters with FSX support, and fairly nice (and cheap) desktop phone sets, all SIP compatible.

I hope you have more security than CID..

[Large Green Mallard]

Anyone with a trunk connection can announce whatever they want as the CID..

Just so ya know :)

Re:I hope you have more security than CID..

[nacturation]

Jeez, people have become overly paranoid about security.

It is justified though. A client of ours recently had their PBX hacked and someone managed to rack up thousands of dollars of long distance to Saudi Arabia. Let's just say that a bit more paranoia would have probably helped them out in that circumstance.

A good solution to get access to an unrestricted outside line would be to have a one-time pad of n-digit numbers where n is perhaps 6 or more. Every invalid attempt from a particular CID number increases the wait time exponentially. To prevent someone faking your CID and effectively DOS you, you could also have a one-time pad containing long reset numbers. The one-time pad prevents any replay attacks in case you're connecting from an insecure line. Users can make as many free outside calls as they want with normal authentication means, but when placing a toll call, they'd have to go through something like that.

Re:I hope you have more security than CID..

[gclef]

Yeah, but to spoof a number on his whitelist, the caller has to know his whitelist. Which means they have to know him. This is rare. It's much like UDP rules on a firewall...sure, they're spoofable, but you have to know which source to spoof to get through.

Is it foolproof? No. Will it help in the vast majority of cases? Absolutely.

Re:I hope you have more security than CID..

[mutterc]

Anyone with a trunk connection can announce whatever they want as the CID..

True, but the only thing spoofing one of our cell numbers would buy you, with my dialplan, is the ability to ring through, and the ability to check voicemail without a password. Since not many people know the cell numbers, I consider it as good as a password :-) (I don't have inbound calls from the Internet, except via IAX from a few family members who have been issued IAX softphones, and ID's/passwords, for the purpose.

I definitely wouldn't put DISA (the ability to get an outside line) or anything like that on just CID authentication.

Re:I hope you have more security than CID..

[z_gringo]

do you by any chance know how to configure an Avaya Definity G3 to do that? I have one, and I can't seem to configure the caller id.

Re:Totally offtopic: Is Slashdot dying?

[humberthumbert]

Thanks mate, I'll take a look.

We have one too.

[ashitaka]

Single cabinet 9751 Model 40. Saw one on eBay the other day for $200 so your 10,000 line unit probably isn't worth much more than 2 grand. Mostly scrap value.

I love showing people the industrial-refrigerator-size ROLM PBX and the OS/2-based Octel voicemail PC and then the 1U Asterisk pizzabox server that will replace both of them.

Very clever IMO

[billsf]

Those Lin/Winmodems are simply a soundcard with a telephone interface. They are of no value to most of us that have had fast Internet connections for years. Wait a minute: They have been approved to be connected to the PSTN! That is by far the greatest expence of producing this hardware.

Might I add, with a bit of experience, and perhaps a 'trade school' education in electronics it is trivial to reverse them and make 'ATA' devices. (Actually I think they are called 'FXS' devices in telco lingo. The devices that must be approved for connection to the PSTN are 'FXO' modules.) At somewhere between zero and a couple Euros per linmodem, used, this is a great idea.

As for the software, I'll stick to FreeBSD or Gentoo Linux and install my own Asterisk. Binaries give me the creaps. Computers a couple or three years old are likely to have more PCI slots and maybe an onboard 'Lin/Winmodem and lan card. While ee100s are a very good NIC (get them for as little as EUR 5,--) Linux and the BSDs have drivers for just about all types -- far more than Windows ever had.

Functioning but not practical...

[ashitaka]

Maintenance is the problem on older ROLM boxes. We once lost phone service for an entire day when one card in teh switch died. They had to fly the part from Toronto because there was no local supply here in Vancouver.

There may be no shortage of ROLM parts floating around on eBay, but the know-how to install and configure these switches is what is in short supply these days.

Reverse to ATA?

[tqft]

Can you point in the direction of instructions please?

I tried googling but ata in google with a qualifier or two still brings up way too many machine specs.

TIA

Re:Totally offtopic: Is Slashdot dying?

[Penguinshit]

Actually, I think it's because people just aren't RingTFA at all anymore and just posting pre-formed opinions.

Re:Totally offtopic: Is Slashdot dying?

[humberthumbert]

Yes, the amount of quality comments has really gone down.

Perhaps cutting down on the number of articles posted will help. My personal opinion is that many of the stories are just drivel. There's really no need to report on the nth article on the iPod (disclaimer: I'm an iPod owner) or WoW.

Also, whatever happened to the mini Slashdot articles? What were they called...ya know, where there's a collection of less important/offbeat newsbits. That would help with the clutter on the frontpage.

Question about setting one of these things up

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been wanting to set up a system like this but was confused by certain things about asterisk and never got around to reading up on them. This article doesn't clear things up, for a "complete guide" it is quite short actually. But it has sparked my interest again.

Let's say I have one PSTN phone line. Assuming two people won't be calling at once, I want the caller to be greeted with a menu "press 1, press 2, press 0 to speak to an operator, etc". Then if someone presses 0, I want my phone (a regular cordless phone) to ring, so that I can speak to this person. How can this be done?

I get the part about running the phone line into the computer, and interfacing with the Asterisk software. I can just buy one of the compliant modems or the Digium card mentioned in the article, stick it in the computer, and hook it up to the phone line. That would probably work for giving them the menu, and taking voice mail. But how to pass the call along to my cordless phone, should the caller press zero? Do I need to install another modem in the computer and run a line from that modem to the cordless phone base station?

Re:Question about setting one of these things up

[Dogers]

I'm no expert, heck i'd call it a stretch even as a beginner, but from what i've read, you'd need an FXO line for the phone line to come in to, then however many phones you have, you need as many FXS lines.

Asterisk can then ring whichever the caller select from the menu, which is possible, it seems, according to the article and voip-info.org!

I'm gonna have to make me one of these boxes :D

Re:Question about setting one of these things up

[Dogers]

Oop, I should add - if you junk the standard phones and get SIP phones instead (i know, i know, cost!), you can have as many as you like and you save because theyre ethernet, rather than pots - you dont need the FXS card in the asterisk box!

ok i am soo confused

[adrianp918]

ok these are my questions, 1) do i have to use VOIP or can i use my normal everyday phone that i have 2)will i be able to have multiple extension on a single line and a single phone # 3) how would i connect the other phones to that i plan on implementing ...how would they get connetcted, please be clear and as non techno as you can get

Re:ok i am soo confused

[Wakkow]

I've never set one of these up, but this got me interested so I started reading..

You can use a regular phone line.. If you do, you need a modem thingy like the $7 mentioned in the article (turn analog line to digital for asterisk). You can use a regular phone, but you need an ATA or FXS adaptor (turn analog phone into digital). You can set up Asterisk however you want with multiple extensions, voice mail, etc. Each additional phone would need its own ATA adaptor thingy, else you need VOIP phones.

Someone mentioned broadvoice.com which offers "Bring your own Device" for $6/mo. Hook up your Asterisk system and you can dump your regular phone line since you'd have VOIP.

"I hear funny voices on the other end of the line!

[SuperBanana]

It you just opened your own cottage industry style consulting business out of your home, something like this could make you look like a bigger business. I could see the advantage to that.

Only if you're really good at making your voice sound funny, otherwise, callers won't have to be terribly bright to figure out that Jim the receptionist, Bob in Sales and Frank in accounting are all the same guy.

Or, I guess, start recruiting your kids. Maybe there's a market for an Asterix module that implements Virtual People...calls to different extensions go to the same place but it changes your voice differently! :-)

Scalability?

[UglyMike]

Great! So now you can have real PABX functionality at home (SOHO) But how does it scale? How many people can actually have working phones on a system? Is it just the Hardware which needs to scale or are there limitations to Asterisk itself? If I could play with this at work, how many guys could I conceivably hook up to this (using just SIP calls, no external connections needed) What would be the number of concurrent calls? Is there any info on that (yeah, I know it's "@Home" but just wondered...) I've been aware of Astersk for ages, but having a 'self-intalling' PBX does lower the bar quite a bit.

Re:Scalability?

[Spoing]

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+dimensionin g

Google is your friend; asterisk pbx scale lines.

To be fair

[commodoresloat]

The Slashdot FAQ actually recommends posting early in a discussion in order to attempt to boost karma:

# Post Early: If an article has over a certain number of posts on it already, yours is less likely to be moderated. This is less likely both statistically (there are more to choose from) and due to positioning (as a moderator I have to actually find your post waaay at the end of a long list.)

Re:To be fair

[BrokenHalo]

The Slashdot FAQ actually recommends posting early in a discussion in order to attempt to boost karma

Trouble is, this leads to an unfortunate situation which defeats the whole purpose of karma points. Treating the whole thing as a race to get something said at the top of the page does nothing for quality of discussion, even if it does happen to score points with those moderators who can't be bothered looking at the bottom of the page.

Re:To be fair

[robertjw]

The Slashdot moderator guidelines also recommend "Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting."

While I agree with the grandparent that requesting moderation is annoying (something I completely ignore when I have mod points). A highly disagree in modding someone down just for asking. In general I disagree with modding anyone down at all. Worry more about promoting good posts and not as much about smacking down posts you don't like/agree with.

Re:To be fair

[Eil]

No, the FAQ is suggesting posting early to a new story with only a few comments, not suggesting replying to a comment for better placement when you should be starting a new thread. In any event, when the offender posted his reply, there were only about 50 comments in the story total. A large portion of comments are usually -1 or 0, so it would not have been difficult for his post to be noticed by moderators if he'd done the right thing and started a new thread.

There is nothing fair here

[ZosX]

# Post Early: If an article has over a certain number of posts on it already, yours is less likely to be moderated.

This is far different however than posting early. The tactic he/she used was to post early in a parent post to try to boost karma by being closer to the top of the page by astroturfing on someone elses high ranking post as well as asking for mod points.

The parent is right in this case. The kid needs to be sent back to school.

Re:I'm sure it's very interesting...

[symbolic]

But some basic web design skills are badly needed. White text on black is bad enough, but to make the text even darker by making it a pastel color is not a good idea. I'd like to read it, but I don't have the time or the will to slog trough content that is much more difficult to digest than necessary.

Beware

[Nurgled]

It seems that most voicemodems don't work with Asterisk. I'm not sure why, but they say something to do with them being half-duplex. Unless you are lucky enough to own one of the handful of modems that will actually work, you might have to invest in one of those Zaptel cards mentioned in the article.

Re:Beware

[rtaylor]

It seems that most voicemodems don't work with Asterisk.

Yeah, found that out later on that "and most other phone equipment" didn't include modems. Since I got surprised there, I'm going to triple check the same line can do voice and fax service without too much pain.

Re:Beware

[raju1kabir]

That's only if you want to keep your existing analog phone line. If you aren't wedded to your number then you can just get a new virtual number from LibreTel or someone like that.

Buy your outgoing minutes from any of dozens of cheap wholesalers (1 or 2 cents/minute) and you can do everything via IP without any need for analog phone line interfaces, at least facing the outside.

LEGO

[__aahlyu4518]

When I read the headline and noticed PBX I was thinking about Lego Mindstorms. Guess my mind was in bad weather to... as Mindstorms has a RCX not a PBX.

Or does it ??? lego pbx

Viable replacement for Vonage business plan?

[scarolan]

Some of you have mentioned the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). I am one of those rare slashdotters who lives with a woman.

Anywho, my wife runs a small internet-based home business selling maternity and baby items. She currently uses the Vonage business plan which includes unlimited long distance and a fax line. We also have a toll-free number so the total works out to around $65.00 a month.

Would it be more cost-effective to set up an asterisk server instead (assuming that I already have the hardware lying around)? If so, which providers can sell us service and port our numbers over to their system?

Re:Viable replacement for Vonage business plan?

[rjune]

Since the WAF is important, you should proceed very carefully. I am transitioning to Vonage and it is working very well. However, I have prepared my wife so there are no surprises, such as you need to dial all 10 digits for some local calls. On the other hand, if you make the change and your wife loses business because the phones are down... I see from your posts that you are tech savvy enough to pull this off (some of the posters couldn't even spell PBX) Good luck with this.

Re:Viable replacement for Vonage business plan?

[LyingDown]

If you implement the Asterisk@Home solution for VoIP, you would still need a VoIP service provider, such as Vonage or BroadVoice. They provide the connection between VoIP (internet) and the PSTN (phone system).

Your Vonage plan also came with an ATA which allows you to connect your analog phones, and this is the only way to utilize a cordless phone.

Re:Viable replacement for Vonage business plan?

[ixx]

You could use Asterisk with Vonage, but you would need a FXO card (from Digium, ebay, or somewhere) for connecting. Vonage does not give SIP info or support its use (they actively try to prevent this). They do have a software version for $4.99/month but it is limited in its minutes (and is in addition to your current plan). If you want to use bring your own device (BYOD) you do have many choices: Libretel, VoicePulse (connect.voicepulse.com only), NuFone, Broadvoice, etc.

Broadvoice was the first I saw that offered unlimited for BYOD. I have seen one other since then but can not find the link or name handy.

The plans Broadvoice offers are very good if you are really needing unlimited. They also have pretty good international plans. I do not know if they have a toll-free number. You could always get that through someone else (such as NuFone for $0.02/min). Asterisk can handle the different accounts just fine. For outgoing it would use the unlimited, but accepts calls from either.

Regarding porting numbers... that something I see slowly happening with each provider. Maybe it would be possible to drop the vonage account type down to the limited $14.95/month and just have a message stating the new phone numbers if you can not port.

Free massages?

[speculatrix]

First you could LART people remotely using SLTP - simple LART transfer protocol, but now you can do remote massages with Asterisk!

Asterisk@Home 0.2 iso released
November 24, 2004
...
Asterisk@Home also has a built in xPL agent that send out massages with CallerID and voicemail information.

Re:Free massages?

[CommandLineGuy]

"...can do remote massages with Asterisk!" Remote massages? Sounds like it could be better than this. I'll have to look into both feature lists.

Telephony Hardware is becoming redundant

[datafr0g]

There are thousands and thousands of small businesses who this sort of thing could work really well for. While it costs next to nothing to set up, anyone who spends the time learning about how the technology works could potentially run a nice little side business, rolling premade boxes out by charging perhaps for hardware, install, config and ongoing support. The telco market is pretty competitive but as software is now becoming more important than hardware in this business, these sorts of things are going to get easier. I work for a company that supports and designs complex converged communications solutions for large corporates and what's become clear over the past couple of years is that the IP Telephony market is overtaking traditional TDM based systems exponetially. The vendors used to make the majority of their cash from the hardware side. The type of hardware that systems run on is becoming less important, as is the manufacturer - it's the software and what you can do with it that's driving a lot of decisions nowadays. One example is that there are a lot of good open standards now on most platforms which allows for easier integration of other existing systems in a business from databases to other PBX's - this is all enabled because of software, not hardware. Interesting side note for the linux peeps - Avaya, who is probably the largest telephony vender in the world for large corps (they spun off from Lucent in 2001) use Red Hat - they use proprietry hardware and software of course, but thought this may interest some...

2 Phone lines and 4 phones?

[donkeyoverlord]

I have 4 phones in my house and 2 phone lines, how would I go about setting this up so that all out going calls would be on line 2 and incomming would be line 1? Would I need 2 X100p? Also, how would I connect the phones to the system? A picture would be nice ;)

Wait a minute

[St.Anne]

You mean to say if I install this stuff on my "old" computer, when my work calls I can make THEM talk to the robot?!? hahahahahaaaa

Yes, BroadVoice.

[Futurepower(R)]

Yes, BroadVoice. Much better than Vonage, in my opinion.

DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

[the3ngineer]

DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

IT WILLE AUTOMATICALLY FROMAT YOUR / PARTITION WITHOUT AKSING YOU A THING.

OMG this is freekin' Unbelievable!!!

I've downloaded the Asterisk@Home and like every other n00b around I just booted up from it (no I've not read any warning s or FULL documentation). I bet 98% of people around to the same thing. After the kernel boot and X detection phase it started formatting my / partition. NOT even a ONE question asked. Of course it screwed my system.

The good part is that I booted from this ISO in a virtual machine (not my real box) and I just lost a default Debian installation (installed on a virtual machine).

Is this the latest way to distribute bad things on the net? Post an article regarding an open source project that do a lot of good things after it FORMAT your / partition?

Please if you wanna try Asterisk@Home ISO do it in a blank new virtual machine not your development/home primary box.

Regards,
the3ngineer

Re:DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

[the3ngineer]

Yes, "Installing Asterisk@Home" how-to specify that: "NOTE: This will erase all data on the hard drive of the PC!!!" in a usual font like it is not such an important matter.

On the other hand, "**NOTE: CHANGER YOUR ROOT PASSWORD IMMEDIATELY by typing passwd **Asterisk@Home boxes with default passwords have been hacked!!" is clear written in red text and uppercases.

I'm not saying that htis is not a great product but just be carefull now and in the future with these very "handy" tools that automaticalli erase all data on your drive with not evena freekin prompt.

Sorry for the rant but an application that remove all data from a data suuport (HDD/partitiion etc.) with no prior question/answer except a small note on the website deserve the title of MOST STUPID APPLICATION EVER.

This is mindblowing. I simply cannot image could happen if I booted this on a RAID system :((

take care
the3ngineer

Re:DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

[wagemonkey]

IT WILLE(sic) AUTOMATICALLY FROMAT(sic) YOUR / PARTITION WITHOUT AKSING(sic) YOU A THING.

And delete your spellchecker and lock your shift key too.

So you booted from an unknown ISO without reading the documentation first and it did something you didn't expect? And you're surprised?
You were probably luckier than you deserved to be, only losing a VM. It's nothing to do with being a n00b, lots of n00bs know to be careful before running unknown software...
Yes, it might happen to me one day but I'd be fully prepared to accept that it would be my fault for not being more careful.

Are all your knives labelled "Caution, may be sharp"?

Re:DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

[hoofie]

I think you will find that most people who manage a RAID system wouldn't install the software this way anyway. I would also suggest that most people who manage RAID systems can :

1. Refrain from installing any old software at will
2. Spell
3. Plan their installation

If you are going to install some new software, at least take the time to read up on how to do it and whats its effects might be.

Re:DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

[the3ngineer]

I am sorry for my bad spelling but I am very glad a lot of grammar teachers read slashdot and they also have time to help improving my English. They can really dedicate this spare time to teach some third country children to correct spell English. But hey, not all third countries have big oil reserves.

Btw, if you are offended of text written with only caps please don't be such a tight azz and go relax a little bit walking away from your computer.

My intent was to make other people aware that there is a problem. I used only caps intentionally that my message strike through the big pile of stupid and useless comments even if it is quite annoying (I have to admit this). But, of course, the small 1% "natural born expert computer users" are too short minded that the majority of people are not so well experienced.

Anyway, thank you for you grammar corrections. They'll really help other not so experienced people avoid the stupid situation of losing their Linux systems.

Deep inside I feel pleased cause my "caps only bad spelled message" annoyed a small number of "experts" but helped a bigger number of inexperienced fellows. If only one person have read again the "Installer instructions" after he saw my warning, I still did something today. I cannot say the same about you, my beloved English teacher.

And about knives, even if they aren't all labeled "Caution, may be sharp" don't tell me you never get cut. "Errare humanum est".

Have a nice life,
the3ngineer

Re:DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

[Jon_Hanson]

It says plainly on the webpage linked in the article that it will format your hard drive. You should read more closely next time.

Re:DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

[pwright2]

Well said. Nicely spelled also. Amazing how many people object to safety warnings which cost them nothing. -----Paul------

Re:DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

[z_gringo]

They can really dedicate this spare time to teach some third country children to correct spell English.

AND

But hey, not all third countries have big oil reserves.

I think you mean to say "Third World Countries".

For example: What third world country are you from?

(Technically, I think there is a problem with that sentence too. Something about ending a sentence with a preposition or something...)

So, Anyway, What third world country are you from?

Re:DO NOT BOOT THE Asterisk@Home ISO !!!!!!

[IchBinEinPenguin]

+5 Informative?
Come on, moderators, this is the FUNNIEST thing I've read all day!

Didn't take a day....

[CommandLineGuy]

It didn't even take a day

Re:Totally offtopic: Is Slashdot dying?

[SComps]

I'd rather see dupes and articles such as this (which is admittedly quite cool and interesting -- to me ) than articles like "What's your favorite web browser and why?" or "Which is your favorite linux distrubition and why?" "What color was the first condom you ever used... *sigh* and why?"

I think it's pretty cool that I can come here, be forced to actually think and read articles about stuff I've never seen and don't entirely understand.. even if it was posted two days ago. I don't stop in every day. ;)

Please note that this is not intended to be a flame. If you (general populace) are offended by the tone or content of this post you may freely ignore those parts without any negative impact.

Can you install on an existing Linux box?

[AGTiny]

I don't really want to dedicate a box to Asterisk, but I'd really like to try out this nice-looking web interface.

Their FAQ has instructions on how to manually run the AAH installer. Does anyone know if that will work safely on an existing Linux box?

Re:Can you install on an existing Linux box?

[bluGill]

Asterisk will work safely, but this will not. You need to ask your distribution for a Asterisk install.

I setup a nice h.323 to pbx gate way a while back

[vcbumg2]

http://www.spectechnologies.net/projects/pbx/index .html

question on termination

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Ok this may be kind of OT but since this is a VOIP discussion...

Exactly how does termination work nationwide/worldwide? For instance when signed up with Vonage I'm able to call a landline with my VOIP connection. These POTS landlines can be anywhere in the country. Does this mean Vonage has physical switches in all cities around the U.S. to do termination, to prevent the long distance companies from charging them extra money? Or is this done via a contract with some backbone provider, who offers this to them and charges them a fee for access?

Re:I'm sure it's very interesting...

[BrokenHalo]

Well said. I get mightily tired of site developers who seem to believe there is something incredibly cool about pastel text against a coloured background. But then, I guess it's probably a good way to mask a general lack of content...

multiple lines?

[Elminst]

So if we currently have POTS with 3 lines + a fax line.. How would this incorporate into an asterisk@home box?

Would you get 3 of those FXO cards and install them in the CPU?? Then assign phone numbers to the cards through the software?

And can you use physical phones with this system? Or must it all be Softphones with headset/mics connected to each desktop PC?

Re:multiple lines?

[Johnny Grep]

You can use a Digium TDM400P with 3 FXO modules. The TDM400P can accomodate up to 4 modules, with whatever combination of FXO or FXS. Works great here. :)

Torrent, who has a torrent

[varmittang]

I'm at 2% and pulling only 18.2 KB/s on a T1 line. I was getting 300KB/s to start but it just kept droping. Can someone get a torrent going of this so we can speed things up a bit.

Synopsis of an Asterisk Install

[tburt11]

I have wanted a home PBX for a long time. I looked at Asterisk once, a while back but could see it was too green.
About a month ago, I took the plunge. I bought the Digium Card with 1 FXS and 3 FXO ports (~$300). I had a running Redhat 9.0 system that was doing nothing.
I installed the Digium Card, and installed the stable 1.0 release of Asterisk in about an hour.
It took me about a day, to figure out the "world of telephony". The telephone people in general have built a world of acronyms that are confusing to the non-initiated. But after some study, and reading the WIKI, I had a fully functional PBX system.
I purchased a number through connect.voicepulse.com and set that up easily. I kept one land line, for 911 calls, my DirectTivo, free local calls, and because everyone still calls us on that land line (10 years+).
EVERYTHING WORKS!
I now have true "extensions" in the house. My wife can now call me when I am out in the shop via the extension. The kids now get calls directed to their phone, so I am no longer picking up their phone calls. Voicemessages delivered via email.

But the best feature of all is: Because the initial voice menu requires you to enter a one(1) or a two(2) this puts a stop to the telemarketers and wrong numbers and the midnight faxes!!!

Another great feature of connect.voicepulse.com is that you get 4 simultaneous incoming/outgoing calls. This means that with one account, and one number, we can all be making outbound calls at the same time!
If someone calls in on our number, and another call comes in at the same time. Asterisk handles it. Up to 4 calls in a row. This feature I like!

Finally, I bought a second Digium card (works great btw) and now we have 7 independent extensions in the house. Overkill, I know, but it is extremely convenient!
I do not work for Digium, I have no reason to give them a good review, except that I have bought their product, been very pleased with the quality, and I am a very happy user of Asterisk.

Have it set for callback

[Linuxathome]

Calls from one of our cellphones tell the caller how many new voicemails are waiting, then distinctive-ring the phones, then go to voicemail.

I think it'll be a better setup if the system doesn't pick up on a cellphone call (for like 10 rings) and instead will call your cell phone back to tell you how many voicemails you have and play them. My mobile plan is setup such that the first minute is free -- I'd rather use that free minute for my voicemails rather than use up the minutes.

Can Asterisk do that?

OFF TOPIC - comments and moderation points

[ixx]

I have never ran into the conflict where I wanted to post to a story as much as I wanted to moderate. I can understand the overall reasoning for not allowing moderation and commenting. I am wondering if limiting it to specific threads would be enough? I suppose someone would try to make problems in that setup as well. The issue is after reading flat and newest post I moderated several comments up I found a comment with a question and no "full" response. So I decided to respond. This of course kills all the previous moderations that you do. So is there any solution?

BTW, is there some area for discussing these sort of things? It would be nice to have a forum or something dedicated to talking about how slashdot runs it self.

HEY DILLHOLE!!

[handmedowns]

What company do you work for? I gotta make sure I sell any stock in that one.

FROM THE FRONT PAGE:

--snip--
Installation
With Asterisk@Home, you simply need to download the disk image, burn it to a CD, and boot off of it.

* Burn Asterisk@Home iso to a blank CD
* Boot your Asterisk PC with the CD and press enter
NOTE: This will erase all data on the hard drive of the PC!!!
* After the Linux is loaded the CD will eject. Take out the CD and wait for the system to reboot
* During the reboot Asterisk will be built from source for your hardware. This will take some time. Do not cancel the boot!
* Log in to your new Asterisk box (user:root, password:password)

--snip--

WOW was that ever hard to Read (bold emphasis mine of course)

This is NOT meant to be an intuitive GUI install..
I hope to god you're not a sysadmin or something of the likes.
It didn't even take Reading "Full Documentation", just opening you're fucking eyes and putting good old fasion literacy to work.

I really hope this was originally meant to be funny.

How this EVER got modded to be 5 Informative is beyond me.. (oh yeah, it's slashdot).

Have you tried

[lorcha]

Reading The Fucking Manual?

Of course not.

DUH

[lorcha]

geek n. Slang

1. A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.

HTH. HAND.