Part 1 – What is VoIP?

About a year ago I was in
Colorado skiing and staying in one of my favorite houses. While this particular home is an architectural and design masterpiece you can probably guess what really gets me going- the tech. The owners have an elaborate whole-house audio system, satellite TV in virtually every room and a fantastic PBX phone system. It was while sitting in the kitchen surfing the web on my laptop that I first ran across http://asteriskathome.sourceforge.net/ on SlashDot. A DYI linux-based PBX, how could I pass that up? After several versions of software, a lot of hardware and some very frustrating phone calls we finally have a pretty nice setup. Over this three part series we’ll attempt to give a overview of VoIP and Asterisk as well as recount my experience in using Asterisk for a year as our primary phone system. In the interest of full disclosure the reader may be particularly interested in wife’s thoughts as well. As a decidedly non-nerd and self-proclaimed enemy of all things telecom I’m not sure she was as optimistic about this endeavor as I. We’ll do a special podcast interview in the coming weeks and hear from her first hand about what she likes and what she hates. We’ll also highlight some venders, providers and brands that I’ve either had success or problems with.

And finally, before we begin, Archatechs is available for home technology consulting services in the central
Virginia area. Click our About link for more information.

Background

Asterisk is a free open-source implementation of a Voice Over IP PBX. All Greek (or geek)? Let’s start from the top. A PBX- or private branch exchange- is like a mini phone company. Most offices or commercial establishments, like hotels, have some sort of PBX where each phone is an extension and maybe has services like voicemail. Most people probably think of PBX systems as that annoyance that makes you press 9 to get an outside line. However, behind the scenes a lot more is happening. The PBX may be making decisions about how to route calls (send it to the office next door or out over the public lines to someone a few states away) or providing users with features like call waiting. Traditionally PBX systems used standard copper phone wire and special (often vendor specific) phones.

Enter the modern age of the internet and the network; VoIP is a term for sending Voice over the IP protocol (you know, what the internet runs on). VoIP is a way to utilize existing computer networks to carry voice just like it was email or a web page. Many companies have modernized their PBX systems to use VoIP, but the servers and equipment can still run in excess of several thousand dollars for the most basic packages. That’s where Asterisk comes in. Asterisk, maintained by Digium, a company founded by Mark Spencer, is a very powerful VoIP PBX. Here’s where it gets really fun- it’s free, as in zip, zero, nada. Asterisk falls under the category of open source software which means it’s free to download and manipulate any way you like (just give credit where it’s due). All you need is a computer running Linux and you are good to go. Wait, you don’t have a computer running Linux? Don’t worry- we’ll get there!

Did we mention that you configure it via the web?

Ok but what does it do?

Why would you want a PBX? What’s the point? All good questions. Like we’ve said, a PBX is like a mini telephone company. It can provide voicemail, call waiting, call transfers, forwarding, hold music, and much much more. Wait- it gets better. You may have heard of Vonage, the popular VoIP provider that lets people make calls over the internet. Well, there are hundreds of Vonage-like companies popping up all over the internet, each trying to trump the next with their low rates. Broadvoice.com offers service for as low as $5/month, when was the last time your phone bill was under $50? Many services are even offering free lines (ok, so you have to have a
Fargo, North Dakota area code). When you build your own phone company and couple it with your choice of providers suddenly the power is back in your hands. There is no reason to pay $50 or more per month for things like call waiting and voicemail when you can do it yourself.

Seeing the big picture? Ok, let’s make it practical. Let’s say The Average family has two teenagers. The mom, Jane Average, works from home for a big company and Joe Average has family in
Australia. It’s always around dinner time when the phone starts ringing and it’s a constant barrage of shrill tones until after primetime TV. Trying to get the teens off the phone long enough to reach Grandma Average during the few overlapping hours of daytime Down Under is a fete of parenting magic. Enter Asterisk. With Asterisk each phone in the house is an extension- or a unique line of service. Joe Average signs up for a VoIP provider, like BroadVoice.com and gets two $5/month accounts- one for each teen. In asterisk he then programs each number to each child’s phone. He then gets a Voxbone account with a number in Sydney Australia for about $10/month, that way Grandma can make a local call and connect all the way to Joe’s house over the internet. Finally Jane get’s a Telasip business account for her office phone. When it rings her office, it also rings her cell phone. Since Joe is a dedicated reader or Archatechs and Nerd Vittles he doesn’t stop there. Joe programs both of the kids’ lines to go straight to their own voicemail boxes during dinner and homework hours and he has Asterisk turn their lines off at 10:00pm sharp. He then sets up his voicemail box to send him a copy of the message to his work e-mail so he won’t miss an important call. At the end of it all Joe has cut his phone bill from $50 – $100 a month to less than $30. More than that, he has the flexibility to make the phone work for him and his family, not the other way around.

Put simply, VoIP makes the phone work for you. You build your own calling plan, get numbers in countries or area codes where you need them, make calls around the world for free or next to nothing and, of course, make people listen to The Flaming Lips’ latest album while on hold!

Coming in the next editions

• Setting up Asterisk
• My personal hardware experiences
• Providers
• Real life uses of Asterisk
• Imagination is the limit