Asterisk -- punctuating the path to open source Packet Voice (LinuxDevices) [LWN.net]

LinuxDevices.com has a whitepaper on the Asterisk Private Branch Exchange (PBX). "The Asterisk Private Branch Exchange (PBX) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform offers an exciting look at the power and adaptability of the Linux kernel and GNU system. Asterisk turns a GNU/Linux system to the task of switching calls, and offers a large number of features to support communication in the business environment."

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Asterisk -- this thing looks *cool*

Posted Jun 2, 2002 2:31 UTC (Sun) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

I've been running Linux since 0.99pl12f.

I've been involved with telephony for at least 10 years longer than that.

Believe me when I tell you that this thing looks seriously cool. I haven't had the time to dig as deeply into it as I probably should have before writing this piece, but I've been doing this long enough to get a feel for whether the people working on the project actually understand telephony or not -- like most computer/video hybrids, most don't -- and these folks appear to.

As with most such projects, the interface hardware is going to be the dicey part -- in many cases like this, what you have is a bunch of analog phones, and analog ports are not cheap. They've apparently got some good prices for single port interfaces -- and some *incredible* prices for Quad-T cards.

Once I've looked into the package a little more, I'll have a better idea whether it supplies the knobs, lights, and meters necessary to make managing such a system practical in a Real Business Environment -- that's always the part that suffers in ad hoc design -- but it's looking pretty good so far.

But maybe it's just me.

So many things are just me.

No SIP, SS7 or H.323...yet? Limited hardware support? Bayonne?

Posted Jun 7, 2002 19:56 UTC (Fri) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link]

I'm not much of a telephony geek. So I may be the wrong person to ask these questions. However, I notice that the following features are "under development:" SIP, SS7, and H.323; how much does that hurt them for now?

I also notice that they offer quite limited hardware support (no Dialogic boards, for example).

I wonder if they might benefit from some work with the GNU Bayonne team? How do these projects differ? How much could they benefit from integration of their code bases? (Bayonne might, at least, be able to offer the low-level driver support for Dialogic and other telephony boards). Info about GNU Bayonne can be found at:

http://www.gnu.org/software/bayonne/bayonne.html