brainsnorkel.com

I am in the process of installing and experimenting with the configuration of the Asterisk “free” software PBX. I’m playing around with it to evaluate whether I would recommend it as a suitable PBX for my parents-in-law’s very small business. Over the next couple of weeks you will probably see the links on the right expand as I write more about how it meets my requirements and what I find in the process of tweaking and testing. It’s a little light on content at the moment, but will add more narrative and references for anyone else who wants to sample Asterisk’s flavour of VoIP. There are plenty of references around, but learning how to navigate them is part of the fun.

Right now I have a softphone and an analog phone set up that can both place calls to the PSTN. I have an IVR that allows callers to choose whether they want to ring the analog phone, or leave a message for one of the occupants of our house (not including the bird or the cat). Voice messages are copied to the email address of the recipient.

How far am I going to go?

My plan is to have fun, and write a report on the results of requirements for my parents-in-law to make a business decision. The ability to control voice mail is pretty compelling, so I might adopt it as a home PBX once I’m done. If I can work out how to program Asterisk to tie a copy of voice messages onto the leg of our bird, then I may be able to contribute RFC-1149 compliant addition to the project.