《《Building Your Own IP PBX》.pdf

Building Your Own IP PBX an Networking eBook Building Your Own IP PBX f your business is like most businesses, your phone system is a vital resource. But, as with most businesses, Ichances are its an area where youre always looking to save money. With voice over IP (VoIP) popping up in so many segments of the consumer telephony market, you probably have some idea of the advantages it offers -- especially operating cost-savings. Replacing a phone system is an intimidating prospect, conjuring up images of armies of technicians invading your premises and large bills arriving in the mail. It doesnt have to be that way. There are plenty of commercial vendors whod love sell you their solutions, but theres also an alternative -- a free, open-source IP PBX product called Asterisk. (Why Asterisk? Because the asterisk, or star key, on your telephone keypad is the first character in phone commands.) Not only is Asterisk free, it works -- and theres a large community of resources thats grown up around the basic software package, making it safe and simple to make the move. Is rolling your own PBX a far-fetched notion? Not at all. Thousands of businesses of all sizes are running Asterisk PBXs today, just as many businesses are running their company Web sites on the free, open-source Apache Web server. Asterisk is licensed under the GPL. It is both a development toolkit, and a full-featured telephony server. Because Asterisk supports multiple protocols and integrates PSTN with VoIP, allowing you to mix and match analog, digital, and IP phones, you can migrate away from your existing PBX at a comfortable pace. Or, if you prefer, build a brand- new system, adding features and capacity at your own speed. Asterisk gives you complete control of your telephony. You can run your Asterisk PBX yourself, or hire help, or pur- chase a commercial implementation. If you