Asterisk@home

Today was a fun day. I installed my first asterisk box, got 3 VOIP telephones connected, got voicemails set up for the users, got the inbound calls and outbound calls to route, got the incoming faxes to recieve, set up and auto-attendant.

The purpose of this article is to share with the asterisk community my experience of setting up the system for the first time. First of all, it took forever. I started at about 2:00PM and at 9:00PM i was just about wrapping up. Thats 7 hours for 3 phones, and i had already installed the OS and figured did a testing phase in my shop. Here is a list of things i didn't know i needed untill i got there.

You can get started with your own Linux Based PBX system. All you need is an old computer, a ZAPTEL based modem, and a burned copy of Asterisk @ home. You can download the software from http://asteriskathome.sourceforge.net/

I have personally had very good results with this disk. I have attempted other versions of asterisk install but this one is by far the easiest for the beginning asterisk admin.

These servers allow you to set up telephone systems for your customers at 1/2 the cost of a traditional telephone system with more features. I highly recommend this for any computer tech that is planning to be in the business for a while as this is the future of all telecommunications.