What I wish I knew about asterisk before.
A few months ago I started using Asterisk@home to provide my home phone. I started as any geek does, no instructions manuals, no books, just google and a burnt CD. The install was easier than installing the latest copy of Ubuntu, just a few keystrokes and the clunker PC was formatted and it’s 233 mhz processor was useful once again!
I started knowing very little about the whole VOIP process, I knew that it involved the internet, phones, and RJ-45. My first setup was a little bit different than the current running server. I had one Ma-bell line coming in the house that the fiancé did not want to give up without a little confidence this “magical” phone system would work. My first impressions about the whole setup was:
- I thought I needed this PCI card that would make this all possible, turns out you don’t need it at all! This little XP100P connects your Ma-bell line to your asterisk box, provides one analog port as a pass-thru port. You can sign up for any SIP service and be up and running in minutes.
- There are many (probably thousands) of Voip providers. Most are different, and all have their ups and downs. Pick one that fits your needs, but you can see lasting more than a week.
Once I waited about 3 weeks to get the awaited XP100P, I installed the card and fired up the install process. Once installed I started poking around and found it took a little bit more to make a phone ring.
If you just want to make a test call between two computers, that’s pretty easy. You must go to your http://asteriskIP/admin , use FreePBX to setup 2 extensions. You can download X-lite, install and add an account. You’ll only need to enter a few details, not the 5 pages of options you have.
- You can set the Display name, the name you want associated with the number.
- The username is the extension number
- The password is the secret
- Authorization user name is also the extension number, not needed most of the time
- The domain is the ip of your asterisk server.
Once saved it should connect and register, it will display the status on the X-lite screen. If both are successful you can dial one from the other, make sure the audio works. Once that works you might get excited and want to start making real phone calls, which will involve some kind of connection with the rest of the public phone system. I’ve actually been using 3 different providers over the past few months(4 including 1 free one).
- FWD – FreeWorldDialup – Obviously the free one. It’s good if you want to be really cheap and use a 1800 number to call Free411, any call you can make from a pay phone for free is free with them, the quality is something left to be desired, but they do keep promising improvements in their newsletter.
- BroadVoice – My very first provider. I still use them daily actually. It seems about a year ago they started getting bad reviews. People were complaining mostly about buying the unlimited service and Broadvoice would charge them by the minute and insist the customer abused the unlimited plan and breached the TOS. I haven’t had any problems with them, we use it just like a house phone. The best thing about BroadVoice is the flat rate idea. I pay a flat rate to have international calling, not including everywhere, but 35 countries. Just today I talked to a friend in a small town in Germany for $0.00/min. Until I have an issue with the TOS I love the service.
- Axvoice – My second provider, just a few days after BroadVoice, I bought I number with Axvoice. The service is fine, just fine. I use them for my secondary line. Incoming calls seem to work fine, placing outgoing calls doesn’t always work. I’ve gotten circuit busy, fast busy signals, and dial tones. However, as of lately they seem to be working much more often, clarity and lag is more shaky than BroadVoice. They too offer an unlimited plan for US/Can for around $16, not bad at all.
- Telasip – I had some issues signing up with them, I think it was due to my billing address though. So far the service from them has been great, not only great, they support Caller-ID forwarding (none of the others due at this time), which means you can have people call your VOIP number and let the asterisk system hunt you down and you can still receive the CallerID of the person who is calling you through your server. Their service is $15 a month, but with a 500 minute cap on outgoing, after that it’s a very cheap per minute charge.
A few more things you might want to note when building an asterisk server. Make sure you keep your dial plan organized! You don’t want to have extension numbers overlapping numbers you might dial another time. Just for ease on your hair I would write down your plan before bringing all your devices in.
