Asterisk Overview
Asterisk™ – the Open Source PBX!
What is Asterisk?
Asterisk is PABX software that runs on a standard PC (this may require a more powerful PC or Server, depending on your requirements).
Like other open source applications Asterisk comes free of licensing costs.
With the abundant features of Asterisk you can run your business more effectively with fewer hassles. And it does all of this for a fraction of the cost of other proprietary IP PABXs on the market.
Asterisk gives you real-time connectivity on PSTN (standard telephone network) ISDN and VoIP networks. Asterisk is much more than your standard PBX.
With Asterisk in your network, you can do telephony in all kinds of new ways, such as:
- Connecting employees working from home to the office PBX over broadband connections. Enabling remote users to have calls directly transferred to them as if they were working from their office.
- Connecting offices in various states over VoIP, the Internet or a private IP network.
- Giving all employees voicemail, integrated with the Web and their E-mail. Allowing users to retrieve their voicemail messages from a web interface or have them directly delivered to their e-mail boxes.
- Building interactive voice applications that connect to your ordering system or other in-house applications.
- Giving access to the company PBX for business travellers, directly from laptop computers using a soft phone application connecting from airport or hotel wireless hotspots.
- Free calls between interstate and International offices.
- …and much more
Asterisk includes many features only found in top-of-the-line unified messaging systems, such as:
- The ability to interface with normal telephone lines, and VoIP connections
- Music-on-hold for customers waiting in queues, supporting streamed media as well as MP3 music
- Call queues where call agents jointly handle answering incoming calls while monitoring the queue
- Text-to-speech system integration
- Call data record (CDR) generation for integration with billing systems
- All features included in old fashioned PBX systems
- Elimination of the need to purchase expensive hardware for proprietary key telephone systems when upgrading
- Elimination of the need to purchase additional line cards when you want to add more handsets
- Ability to simply purchase new handsets and plug them into your network