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Using BroadVoice with Asterisk How-To
Kerbo writes "With all the hype surrounding open source PBXs (telephone switches) such as Asterisk, the user community is clamoring for more help in getting these systems up and running. The Geek Gazette has published an article on how to configure Asterisk to work with BroadVoice VoIP service and eliminate the need for the phone company."
but how long until the phone company - who owns the backbone somewhere up the line, puts its foot down?
billy - remembering DSL
Exactly my thought. Telcos are amongst the most profitable companies around, especially in countries where they derived from old state monopolies.
I don't see governments encouraging the destruction of major industries, nor those industries happily watching, no matter how logical it may seem to the geeks involved.
Revolutions are possible but heading for full-frontal confrontations with powerful and rich interest groups is generally a good way to get yourself into serious pain.
If the telcos were bankrupt, inefficient, unable to provide a decent service, and already collapsing... yes, aim for the throat.
But given that's not the case, the smartest strategy is to move the fight to a different terrain (which VoIP attempts to do but which wifi is more suitable for). Guerilla warfare can bring down powerful interest groups.
Sorry for the metaphor of war, but if someone came along and told me that my $BIGbn business could be replaced by a bootable CD, there would be a certain reaction, yes.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
"My sister's in Italy. My parents are in Florida. My brother's in New York. I'm in Maryland. We need a cheaper way to talk securely..."
Right now we're using Skype with good results. I'm the only one in the family running Linux, but we've all got broadband and the audio is often better than a regular phone call.
My real evil plan, however, is to run a PBX (my own little Personal Branch Exchange) with VoIP subscribed PSTN numbers in Maryland, New York, Florida, and maybe Italy. Dialing in and out supported for authorized users (just the fam plus maybe a few friends if they want to add some lines to elsewhere.) My parents want to call my sister? Dial a local phone number and:
"For [Wil's Sister], press one. For [Wil's Brother], press two. For the most annoying sound in the world, press three. For Wil, press three..."
So far, the whole asterisk project is in the toy stage, but Skype is going strong already.
Wil Langford - opinionated bastard - Linux rules
You can set up your own free pseudo-micro-telco with Asterisk and a bunch of software phones. Asterisk, afaik, runs best on Unix, although I think I remember seeing a Windows version around recently. Software phones are available for many platforms.
Seeing as how featureful, small, internet-connected telephone switches might just attract some phr34ks, you may want to run your Asterisk on an older, dedicated machine.
I have been playing with it on a Debian machine recently, and it was really easy to install. The configuration has been non-trivial, but not too terrible.
I like the idea because you are in complete control of an entire PBX, including switching, extensions, and voice mail. You can even include on-hold music of your choice.
The best advice I can give is to install Asterisk (behind a firewall, to start) and begin playing with it.
Wil Langford - opinionated bastard - Linux rules
I'm working on a system where each of my computers (at home, work, and my parent's house) is fitted with a Bluetooth dongle which will discover if my mobile phone is nearby. If it is, calls to my Asterisk server will be routed to the landline phone I'm sitting at.
Geeky, I know, but I started my engineering life in telecoms and can't seem to shake it off...
Not sure how applicable Asterix is to the home user but it has just saved me a great deal of money. I own a medium sized enterprise in Melbourne, Australia and up until 2 months I was running a "key system" - small PBX - until it went on the blink. The vendor quoted me $4000 to replace the failed parts. Unfortunatly for the vendor I know a damm good IT consultant (actually he's worth a plug, his name is David Ankers) who after much persuasion convinced me to go with Asterix and broadvoice.
An old PC, some Linksys boxes and two days of Dave's time later and I have saved a lot of money. Not only that but I have way more features than I used to have. This is my first venture in to using open source, I think my Windows machines will be going soon.
Asterix is a great product, if it is configured correctly (apperently it isn't that friendly), it works perfectly, has saved me money already and I based on last years bills from Telstra broadvoice will save me even more.
Asterix & broadvoice are a killer setup.
Call quality varied from good to extremely poor. Your mileage may vary
Was this for internal or external telephone calls? I don't think we're quite ready yet for the later in a business environment. But on an internal PBX - isn't that okay assuming your LAN is up to spec?
Rob.
I teach in a small community college and would love to create meaningful labs/problems/projects to teach telco protocols. I realize Asterix does VoIP but it looks to me like it may also be able to communicate directly with a telco switch rather than just through a line card. Very exciting.
Could Asterix + minimal equipment be used to simulate two switches talking to each other?
How would you use this as a teaching tool?
I agree, very poor support, and generally poor service. Great price is the only plus.
The only codecs they allow are alaw and ulaw, which are bandwidth hogs, leading to poor call quality.
3/10'th the time they can't complete my outgoing call for one reason or another, sometimes I even get error messages in russian(?).
The worst part is their SIP implimentation changes regularly. One day everything works fine, the next day they've changed something and I have to fiddle with your configuration for a few hours to get it working again.
Good luck getting in touch with support, they don't answer e-mail and rarely answer the phone. I've called them a total of 27 times in the past, and got a rep on the phone only once. The rep was nice and tried to help at least. I am now trying to cancel my account to no avail. I'm putting a stop-payment on it tomorrow.
In short, don't use BroadVoice unless you are a bit of a masochist. There are other services such as VoicePulse Connect and SimpleTelecom that work MUCH better, and are fully supported.
Look for a provider that uses IAX instead of SIP. IAX is great for people behind nat, and the fact that they allow IAX connections means they run Asterisk too so compatibility is almost guarenteed.
Perhaps since WiFi.
Does anybody know if there is a open-source Windows PBX program?
The one bad part is the 30-40 bucks BV and others charge you with for what seems basically a large internet directory service, right? I mean, if I have the PBX and am willing to share my land line, all I want to know is a list of other people who will do the same. So it seems to me the only real expense should be the cost of the land line (if you want to share). In a world with long-range WiFi and mesh networking, perhaps even this cost goes away. Perhaps I missed something.
Really neat stuff! I wonder if the standards support both video and audio conferencing?
The biggest one I see is that it's cheap to have an unlimited VoIP account which allows multiple calls. And you can add a second DID (unlimited incoming) for dirt cheap ($5 or so).
Now why would a home want this? Daughter can talk on the phone all night long to her BF and you can still make calls. BF can call at all hours of the night and either by using a second DID or by using Caller ID matching - it only rings her phone.
Those are the biggest advantages I see, beyond the obvious one -- cost. If you make a lot of long distance calls, it's usually cheaper.
I perform CLI grooming, so Asterisk knows that it's my mobile calling. Only I get the menu.