configuring asterisk:cheap phone?

[Bill Cox]

Hi, Terry.

I have set up Asterisk systems at several locations.  I generally
still use Trixbox, though I'll probably switch soon to PBX in a Flash
or a similar competing system.  Fonality, the company that bought
Trixbox, is acting in several essentially evil ways, so the community
is moving away from them.

In general, I recommend installing Asterisk on a dedicated system with
one of the Asterisk distros, like Trixbox.  It will save you many
hours of headaches in the long run.  For a user trying to save a few
bucks while at grandma's house, I'd say stay away from Asterisk and
buy a cheap phone card.

The last time I tried PBX in a Flash, around December, it was still
unstable relative to Trixbox.  I had a lot of trouble getting it to
work how I wanted.  However, that's changing fast, and may already be
out-of-date information.

At home, I use a Trixbox system, which I integrated tightly with the
Asterisk system I built for work.  It's kind of cool.  If anyone calls
my work number, it rings a VoIP phone at work, a VoIP business phone
at home, and every wireless phone in the house.  My wife hates it, but
I find it very convenient.  For home service, I use VoIP Street, and
can attest that they have outstanding voice quality.  However, since
my wife's business went under due to the rotten economy, she talks on
the phone all the time!  I'd save money just paying $25/month to
Vonage.

Bill

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 10:48 AM, Terry D. Cudney<terry.cudney at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>   It looks like there are a number of people here who are using or are interested in voip.
>   Asterisk has a steep learning curve and I wouldn't recommend starting into it if you are only going to use it for a short time. ON the other hand, if you can justify the time to learn it, using straight asterisk 1.4/1.6 is very accessible for us bliind users. All configs are text files. Once you get a handle on it, setting up new phones/lines is very quick and easy. If you are using Debian, there is an asterisk apt package that does quite nicely fo rthe base asterisk installation.
>   I have not looked at the numerous  graphical configuration systems (like pbxinaflash or trixbox). Perhaps some of you who have used some of these could comment on their accessibility using commandline tools/speakup.
>   How many people here have asterisk (or other voip server) running that we could maybe set up a "blinknet" based on iax2 (or even sip)?
>
>   Let's all thank Kirk for his liberality in not restricting postings here to just speakup-related topics!
>
>   --terry
>
> --
> Name:   Terry D. Cudney
> Phone:  705-812-4949
> SIP: 5000 at cudney.homeip.net
> E-mail: terry at octothorp.org
>
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>
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