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Using BroadVoice with Asterisk How-To

Posted by timothy on from the next-comes-the-phone-division dept.

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."

4 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, fine... by ramblin+billy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    but how long until the phone company - who owns the backbone somewhere up the line, puts its foot down?

    billy - remembering DSL

  2. Re:Maybe a dumb question... by Wil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  3. Re:Benefit for the average home? by timthorn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I'm in the UK. I call the US a lot, from home or from my mobile. Asterisk allows me to telephone a UK number from my mobile, thus using my free talk time, but have the call routed to the US over IP. I can also use the server to deliver my home voicemail to my work email.

    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...

  4. Re:BV = Poor Support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.