Asterisk anyone?

[David Bandel]

On 11/8/05, Matthew Carpenter <matt at eisgr.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 08 November 2005 01:17 pm, David A. Bandel wrote:
> > Well, first, Asterisk is powerful, but I find little need to set up all
> > the bells and whistles at the expense of some of the power.  Second,
> > Asterisk at home is 1.0.9.  I'm running 1.2.0beta2 with the patch to add
> > followme functionality.  I expect 1.2.0 to be released RSN, as the
> > 1.2.0 betas have been very stable for me.
>
> Bleeding edge?  ;)

No, that's CVS HEAD.

>
> > I think you'll find IAX (inter-Asterisk Exchange) easy to use.  I
> > expect a lot of companies to follow suit and run Asterisk.  Heck, I'm
> > going to use the office Asterisk server for home too until I just need
> > two (one at each location).
>
> I've been meaning to run one at my home for some time.  I bought and FXO card
> for my pc to interface with one my ISDN lines.  I wish more companies would
> likely follow suit.  Right now I'm witnessing the clash of the titans, Aspect
> IP Switch (our Callcenter folks) and Cisco CallManager (joint Data and Voice
> Telecom).  Two different groups proselytizing opposite ends of the spectrum,
> and I'm simply thankful that we've weeded out the awful Siemens Hipath crap
> the voice guys originally tried to push.  Alas it seems the large
> corporations seem to devalue solutions without huge price tags.

They have expensive hardware to sell.  Gotta make the big $$$$.  But
that leaves out small businesses and SOHOs.  And even some big
companies I know are using Asterisk.

>
> > VoIP will replace regular telephony.
>
> Quite likely.  In the US it will largely depend on the nasty regulatory
> strength of the incumbent lobbies.  Hopefully we have already seen their
> power waning with the advent of several large-scan VoIP providers.

It's inevitable.  C&W here tried to have VoIP and anything else that
looked like telephony outlawed.  But it backfired badly.  C&W is
falling on hard times with competition.  Competition charging $.05/min
to the US where they charge $0.65/min.  Not hard to figure out what's
going to happen here.  This is a country where Windows 3.1 and DOS
still rules (and many government agencies still use manual
typewriters).

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
--
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
            - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto