Did you know that there is a simple way to take your phone number with you anywhere you have Internet and make cheap phone calls? Over the past few years I have been exploring the possibilities of using an Asterisk PBX to achieve cheap phone calls. I have been using a Linux distribution specialized to Asterisk called TPBX In A Flash. PBX In A Flash is very easy to setup and run, you simply put a CD in a spare computer and turn on your computer. The computer will boot off of the PBX In A Flash CD and automatically install the Asterisk PBX system along with a lot of key third-party applications that makes management simple.

Some of the features of an Asterisk PBX are:

• Voicemail to Email: Receive your voicemail as an email attachment. If you are on vacation you can now know if you got that call you were waiting for.
• Ring Groups: Setup multiple phones accross your house and have them ring according to group memberships.
• Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Call Parking: Easily enable or disable call waiting and call forwarding per phone. Need to take a call in your office that you picked up in the kitchen? Simply place the call into the call parking lot and retrieve the call in the office. No more needing someone to hang up the phone for you.
• Text-to-Speech: Setup extensions to read you the latest headlines or weather forecast.
• Wakup Calls: Set up a wake up call much like the hotels use.
• Find Me Follow Me: Create a system that will call multiple locations such as your mobile phone or work phone.
• IVRs (Interactive Voice Response): Create phone menus for people to reach you at different locations, i.e. your mobile phone.
• Blacklist: Telemarketers calling you all the time? Add them to your blacklist and you will never hear from them again. You can even send them into an IVR that never ends to annoy them.

These are just some of the many features of an Asterisk PBX. We utilize many of those all the time. I have IVRs setup to try dialing my mobile phone instead of leaving me a voicemail. We also have Follow Me settings setup to ring first my soft phone client on my MacBook Pro, then my WiFi phone, then my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, and then finally my mobile phone.

But to get the most out of Asterisk you need some key third-party applications. The two major ones that we utilize are: FreePBX and ARI. FreePBX makes configuration and management of the Asterisk PBX simple, it’s a very intuitive web interface that allows you to setup all of the IVRs and other features without any hassle. ARI, or the Asterisk Recording Interface, gives you access to your voicemail and call recordings via your web browser anywhere in the world.

I’ve also been developing a few applications of my own to extend the feature set of Asterisk. Three major projects I’m working on at the moment are: OpenBook Phone Book, Asterisk Operator Panel (AOP), and Asterisk User Portal (AUP). Each of these projects will have pages up soon over at Digital Lifestyle Consultants after I have reached a release stage.

OpenBook Phone Book will allow you to have a web based phone book that can be loaded onto Cisco, Polycom, and Aastra IP phones. You’ll also be able to log into the web applications and click on a number to create a phone call between either your IP phone or bridge a call between your mobile and the destination number.

Asterisk Operator Panel is an AJAX extension status screen. By using AOP you will be able to see the status of every extension on your Asterisk PBX system, easily see who is on the phone and who is not. Hopefully the system will eventually be able to hook into Jabber IM servers to read your away status and set your AOP status accordingly.

Asterisk User Portal is an AJAX frontend for the end user. From this portal you will have access to your email, call logs, call recordings, follow me settings, voicemail settings, and more. The goal behind this project is to make a full self-service web portal for an end user. Stay tuned for more details as development begins!

Well enough about software, how about some information regarding hardware? The beauty of Asterisk is that you can use both SIP and IAX compliant devices, many of which can be obtained from web stores or eBay for cheap. Currently we have a few different types of phones that we use with our Asterisk system.

• Cisco 7970 - The Cisco 7970 is a touchscreen phone that features a micro browser capable of rendering special XML pages. We use this feature for the OpenBook integration and soon home automation.
  
• Cisco 7960 - The Cisco 7960 also features a micro browser but does not have a touchscreen. The screen also is not backlit by default, I had to mod it to add a backlit to make it easier to read the display.
  
• Cisco 7912 -The Cisco 7912 is a great kitchen phone, it’s not a fully featured phone but works great.
  
• PolyCom IP301 - Currently this phone is located remotely at my brothers. He connects into our system and we can have free calls between us.
  
• UTStarcom F1000 - This is a 802.11g wireless internet phone that works great when we are on vacation. We had this phone in Cancun with us and were able to call home from a free wireless hotspot for less than a cent a minute!
  
• CounterPath X-Lite - Ok so this isn’t hardware, but it’s a great free soft phone to use on your laptop or desktop.
  
• Gizmo - Again not hardware, but using this in combination with my Nokia N800 makes another great wireless phone.