Asterisk has taken the power of the open-source software movement and brought it to the land of telephony. Much like how open source has proven that users don't need to rely on commercial companies for software, Asterisk has proven that users don't need to rely on commercial telephone companies for telephone systems. Open-source software allows you to be free of vendor lock-in, save money on support, use open standards, and change the software to suit your unique problems if the need arises. Thanks to Asterisk and VoIP, it is possible to run a telephone company out of a basement, handling telephone calls for people within a neighborhood, a city, or a country. Doing this only a few years ago would have required buying a large building, setting up large racks of equipment, and taking out a second mortgage. But today, everyone is jumping on the Asterisk bandwagon: hobbyists, telephone companies, universities, and small businesses to name a few. But what exactly is Asterisk? And what can it do? Let's find out. 1 See What Asterisk Can Do for You.
Learn how asterisk can be fit into both the large and small business environment, and allow you to run virtual call centers and bypass the telephone company for phone calls. 2 Choose Your Hardware. Choose a reliable server for a PBX, proper RAM and processing speed, phone types, and bandwidth management. 3 Install Asterisk. Learn the numerous ways to install Asterisk and the Asterisk Linux distributions, such as trixbox. 4 Configure Your Dial Plan. Understand the three major parts of a dial plan, macros you can use to automate functions, and see how to eliminate code duplication. 5 Configure Your Connections.
Asterisk supports many VoIP protocols and hardware connections: learn the pros and cons of SIP, RTP, IAX2, FXO, FXS, and more. 6 Configure Voice Mail and User Information. Review VoiceMail() and VoicemailMain(), learn how to provision users, and configure Music on Hold, Queues, and Conferences. 7 Use the Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI). AGI lets users control playing prompts, listen for input, and do many more tasks. 8 Review Legalities. See why you should check local and state laws before doing a security audit via VoIP and war dialing. 9 Write Custom Applications.
Increase the power of AGI's to interface Asterisk with actual hardware such as security cameras, electronic door locks, and card readers to name a few. Book jacket.