phones.
we all need them. they are the way communicate apart from IM, email, etc, and the other techology gadgets we employ. In the early days of this company, everyone used their cell phones. “Do we really need a phone system?” some users asked. But isn’t it nice, instead of walking downstairs from your desk, getting distracted by a thousand shiny things (ooooh chocolate!), to just dial someone’s extension and ask them the question you needed to ask? All in the name of productivity my friends.
Now I am not a big fan of voicemail. I pretty much hate it. Somehow, though, when it comes in to my email inbox as a .wav file, it’s just that much less annoying, and I actually listen to it.
So I knew we needed phones, and I made sure I had money in the IT budget for them. I got quotes for $30k, 100k, and 15k, respectively for moderately-featured Avaya, Cisco, and way-stripped-down Avaya systems. And this is for 20 handsets, mind you! Ummmm, no. Then Louis reminded me, “can’t you just turn a regular PC into a PBX and be done with it?” Oh yeah...Asterisk! So I got on the trusty interwebs and started researching open-source PBX alternatives.
What I found was PBX in a Flash, a product of Nerd Vittles. This is a brilliant solution in terms of a downloadable image that installs on any intel-based computer. Burn to CD, pop it in, reboot, and in 45 mins, voila! instant linux-based open-source PBX will all the functionality you could possibly want in systems that cost mega-buxxxx. I found the installation to be seamless and the instructions on the site to be very thorough and helpful. I bought a $700 Digium PRI card, plugged my Verizon line into it, made some configuration changes and there we have it. Some of the many features include: Visual Voicemail (a la iphone), Conference Bridges, the aforementioned voicemail to email inbox, fax capabilities, follow-me, digital receptionist (IVR), and what is called VmX, or a mini-IVR in your voicemail, where you can give callers options to, say, leave a message, find me on my cellphone or transfer back to an operator.
When I was first setting up the system (with a Pentium 3 933 MHz Dell box I had lying around in my garage), I spent some $$ for FreePBX setup support (www.freepbx.org), and found myself on the phone with Philippe Lindeheimer, the lead developer for the FreePBX project. And, well it just so happened, that that very day he was speaking at the DigiumWorld conference in San Jose. So I went down there and met him, and was impressed with the amount of information this guy knows! Anyway, he also steered me to Aastra phones as the best phones to go with Asterisk systems. I actually tried them out at Digium World and was impressed. Since the phones read XML, you can create an unlimited number of applications for the phones, and they can be had on the net for $200 each. Quite a far cry from the other quotes I was getting for systems that didn’t do half as many functions!
Recently Nerd Vittles has posted blog entries declaring Aastra phones “The World’s Best Asterisk Phone.”
Anyway, I couldn’t recommend this system more highly, and Philippe has proven to be a really great resource.
Open-source phone system rocks: asterisk, freePBX, and PBXinaFlash
phones.
we all need them. they are the way communicate apart from IM, email, etc, and the other techology gadgets we employ. In the early days of this company, everyone used their cell phones. “Do we really need a phone system?” some users asked. But isn’t it nice, instead of walking downstairs from your desk, getting distracted by a thousand shiny things (ooooh chocolate!), to just dial someone’s extension and ask them the question you needed to ask? All in the name of productivity my friends.
Now I am not a big fan of voicemail. I pretty much hate it. Somehow, though, when it comes in to my email inbox as a .wav file, it’s just that much less annoying, and I actually listen to it.
So I knew we needed phones, and I made sure I had money in the IT budget for them. I got quotes for $30k, 100k, and 15k, respectively for moderately-featured Avaya, Cisco, and way-stripped-down Avaya systems. And this is for 20 handsets, mind you! Ummmm, no. Then Louis reminded me, “can’t you just turn a regular PC into a PBX and be done with it?” Oh yeah...Asterisk! So I got on the trusty interwebs and started researching open-source PBX alternatives.
What I found was PBX in a Flash, a product of Nerd Vittles. This is a brilliant solution in terms of a downloadable image that installs on any intel-based computer. Burn to CD, pop it in, reboot, and in 45 mins, voila! instant linux-based open-source PBX will all the functionality you could possibly want in systems that cost mega-buxxxx. I found the installation to be seamless and the instructions on the site to be very thorough and helpful. I bought a $700 Digium PRI card, plugged my Verizon line into it, made some configuration changes and there we have it. Some of the many features include: Visual Voicemail (a la iphone), Conference Bridges, the aforementioned voicemail to email inbox, fax capabilities, follow-me, digital receptionist (IVR), and what is called VmX, or a mini-IVR in your voicemail, where you can give callers options to, say, leave a message, find me on my cellphone or transfer back to an operator.
When I was first setting up the system (with a Pentium 3 933 MHz Dell box I had lying around in my garage), I spent some $$ for FreePBX setup support (www.freepbx.org), and found myself on the phone with Philippe Lindeheimer, the lead developer for the FreePBX project. And, well it just so happened, that that very day he was speaking at the DigiumWorld conference in San Jose. So I went down there and met him, and was impressed with the amount of information this guy knows! Anyway, he also steered me to Aastra phones as the best phones to go with Asterisk systems. I actually tried them out at Digium World and was impressed. Since the phones read XML, you can create an unlimited number of applications for the phones, and they can be had on the net for $200 each. Quite a far cry from the other quotes I was getting for systems that didn’t do half as many functions!
Recently Nerd Vittles has posted blog entries declaring Aastra phones “The World’s Best Asterisk Phone.”
Anyway, I couldn’t recommend this system more highly, and Philippe has proven to be a really great resource.
Leave a remark
We need at least your name and an email address.