Computer Communications - Homework One (Part 1)
Bilal Fadlallah
Asterisk as a Software PBX and Softphone Client Installation
1 Introduction
Asterisk is the world’s most famous ”open source tele-
phony project” [1]. The Asterisk project was initi-
ated in 1999 by Mark Spencer as an open source soft-
ware aiming at transforming any computer into a multi-
feature voice communications server. Asterisk supports
features for several telephony interfaces such as ISDN-
BRI (Integrated Services Digital Network - Basic Rate
Interface) lines and especially VoIP applications like
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), IAX (Inter-Asterisk
eXchange) and H.323.
2 Importance of Asterisk
To understand the importance of Asterisk’s applica-
tions, it is crucial to explain the notion of PBX. Unlike
a common telephone company that operates publically,
PBX or Private Branch Exchange is a telephone ex-
change network serving a particular company or orga-
nization. PBX is responsible for connecting the internal
telephones of a given firm and linking them to the Pub-
lic Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) using trunk
lines. Asterisk has building blocks needed to create a
PBX system among other systems (Interactive Voice
Response or IVR systems...etc). The main blocks of the
tool-kit include drivers for VoIP protocols, PSTN inter-
face cards, routing and call handling, besides speech
synthesis and recognition. Adding functionalities can
be done by writing scripts in Asterisk’s own extensions,
adding C modules, implementing Asterisk Gateway In-
terface (AGI) via standard streams systems or network
TCP sockets.
3 Asterisk Applications
3.1 Asterisk as PBX
Asterisk can be configured as the core of an IP or hy-
brid PBX, switching calls, managing routes, enabling
features, and connecting callers with the outside world
over IP, analog (POTS), and digital (T1/E1) connec-
tions. It can run on a variety of operating systems and
provides all of PBX features. This includes advanced
features linked to high-end proprietary PBXs. The ar-
chitecture of Asterisk is known for its flexibility ad sup-
port for VoIP using several protocols. Moreover, it can
operate along with most standard telephony systems
via accessible hardware.
3.2 Asterisk As Gateway
Asterisk helps bridging the gap between the good old
PSTN and the revolution of IP telephony. As previ-
ously mentioned, its flexibility allows the conversion be-
tween several protocols and codecs. Asterisk can work
as a conference bridge, an automated attendant, a novel
voicemail system, a telephony interface for web sites and
can assume many other roles.
3.3 Call Centers & Public Networks
Call centers around the world have adopted Asterisk
for its flexibility. By adding remote IP agent capabili-
ties, advanced skills-based routing, predictive and bulk
dialing, efficient solutions were implemented to answer
the already existing problems. Public Networks use As-
terisk extensively for their Feature Severs applications,
Voice Mail systems, and other hosted service clusters,
which reduces their cost dramatically.
4 XLite Softphone Installation
The Softphone i installed was X-Lite. To do this,
go to the website http://www.counterpath.com/xlite-
download.html8 and download the appropriate file for
your OS. Then from SIP Accounts, i added a new ac-
count with the below credentials:
• Display Name : ”Bilal Fadlallah”
• Username : 392103
• Password : The one sent by Email.
• Authorization Username : Same as Username
• Domain : ast.qcslink.com
Finally, the boxes : ”Register with domain and re-
ceive incoming calls” and ”send outbound via - domain”
should be checked. I made a test call to 9-1-800-555-
1212 and heard an automated welcome to the ”Toll Free
Directory Assistant”. Iasked for the Bank of America
number in NY and was given 866-984-0372. The call
duration was 1:20 and quality was excellent.
5 References
[1] ”Asterisk”: http://www.asterisk.org/asterisk
[2] ”PBX”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBX
[3] ”Asterisk” : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterisk (PBX)