Stephen Misel

This month, we're going to perform a basic Asterisk installation and configure two extensions. For this, we'll need the Asterisk@Home distribution, a PC, and two VoIP phones. Asterisk@Home is a CD-based Linux and Asterisk installation system. Version 2.0 installs Centos 4.2, Asterisk, and a handful of tools such as Asterisk Management Portal, Flash Operator Panel, and SugarCRM. You'll need to download the ISO from http://asteriskathome.sourceforge.net/ and burn it to a CD. The PC requirements are rather minimal. My development PBX is an AMD Duron 800 with a 40 gigabyte hard drive and 512 megabytes of memory. This low-end system is an ideal test platform and would work fine in a residence or very small office with a few phones. Speaking of phones, I've selected the Grandstream Budgetone BT-101, an entry-level SIP phone. While these only support one-call presentation... (more)

Linux.SYS-CON.com Feature: Confessions of a VOIP Junkie

Asterisk has gotten a lot of press coverage lately. What's all the commotion about? Asterisk is a software-based solution that provides more features than many expensive commercial PBX systems. Best of all, it's free and works with dozens of standard IP telephones. Out-of-the-box, Asterisk has business-grade voice mail, conferencing, ACD, Automated Attendant, IVR, music on hold, and Voice-over-IP. It connects to standard telephone lines, such as POTS and PRI, with additional hardware available from Digium. Digium is also the primary developer and sponsor of Asterisk. I installe... (more)

Asterisk: Getting Connected

In December's column, we installed the Asterisk PBX and configured two IP phones as extensions. This month, we'll connect our PBX to the telephone network for incoming and outgoing calls and set up the Digital Receptionist to route our incoming calls. Connecting Asterisk to the Telephone Network Asterisk supports a myriad of ways to connect to the public telephone network. Asterisk provides standard technologies such as IAX (Inter-Asterisk-eXchange), SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), and PRI (with appropriate hardware). We'll be connecting with IAX because it's simple and widel... (more)