1. Dennis Little Your Technology Management Partner DennisLittle.com | KeyCruncher.com | IRC: keycruncher Taking Back Your Phone System with VoIP & Asterisk an overview

2. Dennis Little ● My job: Independent Technology Translator ● Expertise: ● Liaison between business & technology leaders ● Technology integrator & educator (SMB, Fortune 500, DoD) ● Windows / Linux / Voice / Networks & Management Thereof ● Reach me: ● DennisLittle.com | KeyCruncher.com ● IRC: keycruncher

3. Telephone Functionality ● Typical Business or Individual Needs: ● Make / receive calls reliably – TOP PRIORITY ● Voicemail ● Transfer within the organization (even remotely) ● “Entertain” while on hold ● Specials: conference, autodial, CRM integration, text-to-speech, follow-me, etc., etc., etc.

4. Telephone Functionality ● Typical Business or Individual Needs: ● Cost controls & auditing (least-cost routing and call detail records [CDR]) ● Automate call flow (attendants, after-hours, priority) ●... do all of this without added cost and on our own

5. Great News! Asterisk can do all of this and more...

6. Telephony Lingo ● Telephony: “the general use of equipment to provide voice... over distances, specifically by connecting telephones...” (Wikipedia.org) ● Channel / trunk – one bi-directional communication line ● FXO (Foreign eXchange Office) interface – to telephone company ● FXS (Foreign eXchange Subscriber) interface – to your phone/fax

7. Telephony Lingo ● Protocol – set of rules to communicate with others (SIP, IAX, H.323) ● Codec – software to encode / decode digital voice streams (uLaw, g.729, GSM, g711, iLBC, etc., etc.) ● VoIP – Voice over Internet Protocol (phone over the internet) ● ATA (Analog Telephony Adapter) – standard phone to VoIP ● Softphone – Software for making VoIP calls

8. Codec Bandwidth Requirements *Chart: trixbox CE 2.6: Implementing, managing and maintaining an Asterisk-based telephony system. Garrison, Kerry. All codecs are not created equal! Voice quality and other factors will affect your selection. For more info, investigate Mean Opinion Score (MOS) – a measure of voice quality

9. Asterisk: What is it? ● Software implementation of a telephone PBX created in 1999 – Mark Spencer at Digium ● Utilizes VoIP technology for advanced call routing ● Allows inter-office calling and connection to the PSTN and VoIP ● Dual-licensed: GPL, proprietary versions ● Originally designed for Linux, but runs now on *BSD, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows

10. Asterisk: What is it? ● Provides major functionality present in proprietary systems like Avaya, Nortel, Cisco, etc. (true bridged appearances? – not yet!) ● Install on top of Linux or use a distro-based installer: trixbox, Elastix ● Extensible and flexible (use multiple channels, failover, etc.)

11. Asterisk: What does it look like? ● Asterisk Business Edition screenshot (call ringing through):

12. Asterisk: What does it look like? ● Asterisk Business Edition screenshot (ringing extensions):

13. Asterisk: What does it look like? ● Asterisk Business Edition screenshot (show all peered devices):

14. Asterisk: What does it look like? ● Asterisk Business Edition screenshot (show all peered devices):

15. VoIP Advantages ● Operates over existing Ethernet networks – goes anywhere with Internet service ● Allows you to make much cheaper or even free calls to other PSTN / VoIP users ● Czech Rep. - U.S. : AT&T wireless from $1.99-$2.29 / min, VoIP $0.0198 / min ● Unregulated ● Run your own phone system over low bandwidth ● “Remote office” much more easily

16. VoIP Problems ● 911 location – better serviced now (still quirks) ● Unregulated: no guarantee on services ● QoS – impacted by other network traffic ● Echo requires tuning ● Troubleshooting can be more difficult ● Past trouble has left a bad taste for end-users (V@!*$#) ● Fax is quirky

17. Example Equipment http://img.donanimhaber.com/resimler/DVG-1120_view.jpg ATA: D-Link DVG-1120M / S (hackable)

18. Example Equipment http://saborlatinoonline.net/images/sipura_spa2100_big.gif ATA: Sipura SPA-2100

19. Example Equipment http://www.loukola.com/doc/cisco-sip/x-lite/x-lite_screenshot_03.jpg Softphone: CounterPath X-Lite (free for Windows 2000+ / Mac OS X)

20. Example Equipment http://www.digiumcards.com/images/digium_cards_images/sidecar_for_601.jpg http://www.8774e4voip.com/photos/Polycom-Soundpoint-IP-331-2T.jpg http://www.digiumcards.com/digium_ebay/ip4000.jpg Integrated IP Phone: Polycom IP 601 w/ sidecar, IP 331, IP 4000 conference phone

21. Example Equipment http://www.voipsupply.ie/product_images/uploaded_images/Aastra%209133I%20IP%20 Phone.jpg Integrated IP Phone: Aastra 9133i

22. Example Equipment http://www.voipsupply.ie/product_images/uploaded_images/Aastra%209133I%20IP%20 Phone.jpg Embedded Asterisk System: Digium AA50

23. Example Equipment http://images.techtree.com/ttimages/story/95551_nokiae51.jpg Nokia Natively VoIP-enabled WiFi Cell Phones (e51 shown)

24. Many, many more brands ● Linksys ● Cisco ● Grandstream ● Snom

25. VoIP Systems / Components ● Digium http://www.Digium.com/http://www.Digium.com/ ● Major corporate backing behind Asterisk project ● Digium Asterisk Business Edition (ABE) ● Appliances / standalone servers ● TDM cards (T1 PRI, analog lines, ISDN, etc.) ● Codec licensing for g.729a ($10 / channel) ● Voice processing engines

26. VoIP Systems / Components ● Fonality http://www.Fonality.com/http://www.Fonality.com/ ● trixbox – Open-Source and Hybrid-hosted appliances ● PBXtra – appliances / standalone servers ● TDM Cards (T1, ISDN, analog trunks) ● Sangoma ● Rhino ● Rockbochs – Fax-over-IP

27. VoIP Reference Web Sites ● forums.digium.com ● AsteriskGuru.com ● voip-info.org ● #asterisk #asterisk-gui on freenode IRC

28. VoIP Reference Books ● Great overview / planning resource ● Beginner to experienced ● Specific to trixbox CE, but very helpful with Asterisk planning in general ● Garrison, Kerry (2009) trixbox CE 2.6: Implementing, managing, and maintaining an Asterisk-based telephony system. Birmingham, U.K.: Packt Publishing. ● *disclosure: Packt provided me with a free copy, Amazon.com-provided picture

29. Copyright & Credits This template is based on CleanBlocks from SmallDataProblem.org and is licensed LGPL. Patton Electronics: What are FXS and FXO?What are FXS and FXO? Brady Alleman & Doug Warner (2007 CPLUG): http://tinyurl.com/yevav6n http://tinyurl.com/yevav6n