The benefits of an Asterisk PBX business phone system.

Asterisk is an open source telephony platform that combines a suite of telecommunication applications.  Built right into the software are many feature sets, such as call queues, voicemail, call treatments, music on hold and because of its very nature, can be integrated with many other business applications to make for a customizable robust communications system.  Unlike traditional PBX software, Asterisk is highly flexible and can be made to achieve many end uses.  It is typically installed on to a Linux operating system, but even that can now be changed and it can be installed onto Windows or a Macintosh operating system.

Consider open source & standards based hardware:

Asterisk� is an IP-PBX business phone system that does not require proprietary hardware to work, rather it can be installed on a regular PC and use telephony equipment from numerous manufacturers which build to an open based standard.  Combining this fact along with the knowledge that Asterisk is a free open source software dramatically lowers the cost to get a complete business phone system, which will have all of the features of an expensive traditional PBX, and probably more, at a fraction of the cost.  Just about any feature that you can think of will also be included with Asterisk.  And then there are many other software applications specifically written to integrate with Asterisk giving it more potential than any other telephony system around.

Traditional PBX companies have had a lock on their customers who have been trapped by a cycle of expensive original purchases and then spend more money for costly upgrades just to receive new features or keep manufacturer support.  And because hardware is proprietary, customers who have a certain model of PBX are locked in.  They have no where else to turn to get parts or phones and even then certain versions will not even work within the same manufacturer, requiring customers to face expensive decisions when contemplating expansions.  Add to this the licensing fees that get charged for certain feature sets, and limitations placed on how many people can use a feature (more licensing) the costs can become quite large.  But, finally telephony is going to become affected by open source technology, something that has been progressing slowly for the last nine years and is gaining in its momentum has big name PBX companies realize they have open source as a real competitor.  And with this last piece of the integrated data convergence, Asterisk has taken the lead and should be the open source PBX software of choice for the time coming.

VoIP is revolutionizing the data network, and with this revolution is bringing the last piece of the converged network, voice as just another data application.  Asterisk has many benefits, some of which are:

• Being open source there are no license fees.
• Choice of hardware, you're no longer locked into only one vendor.
• You get numerous features, more than you might expect, and Asterisk has capabilities far beyond traditional PBXs.
• Add features, turn off features, your in control.
• Scalable, Asterisk is not limited by the number of users, just put in place the proper hardware and your system can handle a couple hundred phones.  (Note: For enterprise solutions other open source solutions should be investigated.)
• Administration, most packaged Asterisk servers would include a web based control panel.  (FreePBX is one of the best.)
• Asterisk integrates with your current network because telephony is all IP.  Data and voice on the same network.

The benefits of Asterisk are great and your next business PBX phone system should be an Asterisk system, but there are caveats to consider.  It is not an easy system to correctly configure or install for the first time and thought should be given to purchase one from a company who has experience with Asterisk.  Installation requires some previous knowledge and in most cases a decent knowledge of Linux. For a company who wants to customize it then Linux knowledge would be a critical need.  And unless you have a person who can accomplish these items, you should consider a vendor who can deliver a system installed, preconfigured and ready to connect to your telephone provider.  And by choosing this alternative you'll probably save more money than going solo and doing it from scratch.  You still get all the benefits of Asterisk.  You should choose a vendor who will include training on administering the system yourselves.  This in itself will save hundreds if not thousands of dollars over the course of a year or two.  For by doing adds, or extension changes, or call treatment changes in house, you save time and money.

 

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