about asterisk

i'm very new about Asterisk, but i hope with your help to learn a
lot.

Some friends just invited me to use my SPA2002ER with asterisk:
something is not very clear to me: is Asterisk an online PBX? Do i
have to install it on my pc? DO i have to leave my pc turned on 24h/
7 ?

thanks

robert wrote:

> i'm very new about Asterisk, but i hope with your help to learn a
> lot.
>
> Some friends just invited me to use my SPA2002ER with asterisk:
> something is not very clear to me:

> is Asterisk an online PBX?

There are many companies selling hosted Asterisk online, eg Sipgate

> Do i have to install it on my pc?

If you want to use it, installation is the best router. You can run it
inside [for example] VMWare Player, however.

> DO i have to leave my pc turned on 24h/7 ?

If you want to use it 24/7, yes. You can get a cut-down installation onto an
OpenWRT router.

--
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This is my BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMSTICK

"robert" <centro.gamma@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1173989430.908771.31330@b75g2000hsg.googlegro ups.com...
> i'm very new about Asterisk, but i hope with your help to learn a
> lot.
>
> Some friends just invited me to use my SPA2002ER with asterisk:
> something is not very clear to me: is Asterisk an online PBX? Do i
> have to install it on my pc? DO i have to leave my pc turned on 24h/
> 7 ?
>
> thanks
>

Asterisk (or Trixbox) generally runs on a dedicated machine,
think of it as like an office telephone system, a box on the wall
costing hundreds or thousands of GBP. Your Asterisk box
will cost you next to nothing because you can use a low
spec machine that people discard,and, it is likely to have more
features than the office phone system.

At our, (well my) level, the outside lines will
be virtual; voip accounts via the internet.
What most of us want is real telephones as the extentions,
You can get PCI cards that connect direct to telephones but
they are expensive, so what most of us do is use one or more
ATAs. So typically your Asterisk box and your ATA both
connect to your router via Ethernet Asterisk looks out towards
the router's gateway and the ATA looks towards the Asterisk
box.

If you have an old Pentium 2 with 250meg of RAM and a NIC
doing nothing, download from here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/asteriskathome/
burn the ISO to a cd-r, stick it in the drive, and an
hour or so later you will have Linux and Asterisk installed
(practically no user intervention required)
Then there are plenty of us here who can help you
program it.
--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On Mar 15, 6:19 pm, "Graham" <m...@privacy.com> wrote:
> "robert" <centro.ga...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1173989430.908771.31330@b75g2000hsg.googlegro ups.com...
>
> > i'm very new about Asterisk, but i hope with your help to learn a
> > lot.
>
> > Some friends just invited me to use my SPA2002ER with asterisk:
> > something is not very clear to me: is Asterisk an online PBX? Do i
> > have to install it on my pc? DO i have to leave my pc turned on 24h/
> > 7 ?
>
> > thanks
>
> Asterisk (or Trixbox) generally runs on a dedicated machine,
> think of it as like an office telephone system, a box on the wall
> costing hundreds or thousands of GBP. Your Asterisk box
> will cost you next to nothing because you can use a low
> spec machine that people discard,and, it is likely to have more
> features than the office phone system.
>
> At our, (well my) level, the outside lines will
> be virtual; voip accounts via the internet.
> What most of us want is real telephones as the extentions,
> You can get PCI cards that connect direct to telephones but
> they are expensive, so what most of us do is use one or more
> ATAs. So typically your Asterisk box and your ATA both
> connect to your router via Ethernet Asterisk looks out towards
> the router's gateway and the ATA looks towards the Asterisk
> box.
>
> If you have an old Pentium 2 with 250meg of RAM and a NIC
> doing nothing, download from herehttp://sourceforge.net/projects/asteriskathome/
> burn the ISO to a cd-r, stick it in the drive, and an
> hour or so later you will have Linux and Asterisk installed
> (practically no user intervention required)
> Then there are plenty of us here who can help you
> program it.
> --
>
> Graham.
> %Profound_observation%

Thanks Graham,
really helpful.

Do you know any company who offer free Asterisk hosting (like for 1
account)?

thanks

robert wrote:
> On Mar 15, 6:19 pm, "Graham" <m...@privacy.com> wrote:
>> "robert" <centro.ga...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:1173989430.908771.31330@b75g2000hsg.googlegro ups.com...
>>
>>> i'm very new about Asterisk, but i hope with your help to learn a
>>> lot.
>>> Some friends just invited me to use my SPA2002ER with asterisk:
>>> something is not very clear to me: is Asterisk an online PBX? Do i
>>> have to install it on my pc? DO i have to leave my pc turned on 24h/
>>> 7 ?
>>> thanks
>> Asterisk (or Trixbox) generally runs on a dedicated machine,
>> think of it as like an office telephone system, a box on the wall
>> costing hundreds or thousands of GBP. Your Asterisk box
>> will cost you next to nothing because you can use a low
>> spec machine that people discard,and, it is likely to have more
>> features than the office phone system.
>>
>> At our, (well my) level, the outside lines will
>> be virtual; voip accounts via the internet.
>> What most of us want is real telephones as the extentions,
>> You can get PCI cards that connect direct to telephones but
>> they are expensive, so what most of us do is use one or more
>> ATAs. So typically your Asterisk box and your ATA both
>> connect to your router via Ethernet Asterisk looks out towards
>> the router's gateway and the ATA looks towards the Asterisk
>> box.
>>
>> If you have an old Pentium 2 with 250meg of RAM and a NIC
>> doing nothing, download from herehttp://sourceforge.net/projects/asteriskathome/
>> burn the ISO to a cd-r, stick it in the drive, and an
>> hour or so later you will have Linux and Asterisk installed
>> (practically no user intervention required)
>> Then there are plenty of us here who can help you
>> program it.
>> --
>>
>> Graham.
>> %Profound_observation%
>
> Thanks Graham,
> really helpful.
>
> Do you know any company who offer free Asterisk hosting (like for 1
> account)?

Why on earth would you want and entire PBX for one extension?????

"Desk Rabbit" <nospam@example.com> wrote in message
news:yvGdnYJQkKhUOWfYnZ2dnUVZ8rOdnZ2d@pipex.net
> robert wrote:

[snip]

> > Thanks Graham,
> > really helpful.
> >
> > Do you know any company who offer free Asterisk hosting
> > (like for 1 account)?
>
> Why on earth would you want and entire PBX for one
> extension?????

He said one account, not one extension..!

Ivor

Ivor Jones wrote:
> "Desk Rabbit" <nospam@example.com> wrote in message
> news:yvGdnYJQkKhUOWfYnZ2dnUVZ8rOdnZ2d@pipex.net
>> robert wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>> Thanks Graham,
>>> really helpful.
>>>
>>> Do you know any company who offer free Asterisk hosting
>>> (like for 1 account)?
>> Why on earth would you want and entire PBX for one
>> extension?????
>
> He said one account, not one extension..!

How many accounts can you assign to an extension in Asterisk or
extensions to accounts for that matter?

"Desk Rabbit" <nospam@example.com> wrote in message
news:xKmdnW0e2Ms5MWfYnZ2dnUVZ8qLinZ2d@pipex.net...
> Ivor Jones wrote:
>> "Desk Rabbit" <nospam@example.com> wrote in message
>> news:yvGdnYJQkKhUOWfYnZ2dnUVZ8rOdnZ2d@pipex.net
>>> robert wrote:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>>> Thanks Graham,
>>>> really helpful.
>>>>
>>>> Do you know any company who offer free Asterisk hosting
>>>> (like for 1 account)?
>>> Why on earth would you want and entire PBX for one
>>> extension?????
>>
>> He said one account, not one extension..!
>
> How many accounts can you assign to an extension in Asterisk or extensions
> to accounts for that matter?

There are no limits for either.
Simultaneous call handling is a different matter.
I have no problems with 3 concurrent high quality (u-law or
a-law) calls.

--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

> Do you know any company who offer free Asterisk hosting (like for 1
> account)?
>
> thanks


What functions of the PBX do you exactly need? if your needs are modest you
may find a new ATA or using advanced functions of yours or other VOIP
providers does what you need

If it is only the ability to have Interactive Voice messages or divert to
mobile etc on one number the probably easiest to go for a company like
voipfone who charge you only for what you need, and is simple and cheap to
setup. If you wanting to link multiple voip accounts together for your own
personal use from one VOIP device it is probably best and cheapest to to buy
account ATA. Full hosting of a PBX usually only of benefit for multiple
extensions/users spread over multiple locations.

Asterisk runs on linux platform. If your computer is installed MS-
windows, I suggest you to try miniSipServer which is a SIP&STUN server
and it is a green software.

In article <1174052679.877972.193850@b75g2000hsg.googlegroups .com>,
robert <centro.gamma@gmail.com> wrote:

>Do you know any company who offer free Asterisk hosting (like for 1
>account)?

What exactly do you want from it?

If you just want a SIP service then there are dozens who offer such a
service for varying descriptions of the word "free".

ie. there are some who will give you a telephone number for free, and
let you connect in for free, and recieve incoming calls for free, but
then they charge per minute (and you pay in advance) for make outgoing
calls through it (unless you are calling another member of the same
company). Sipgate is like this.

Then there are others who will charge you a monthly subscription charge,
but give you free 01 and 02 calls... Vonage is an example of this.

But to just ask for hosting doesn't really mean anything. I will host
an asterisk server for you, but it won't be free. Far from it. I could
even arrange that server to be plumbed into the PSTN via an IP to PSTN
carrier, but that won't be free either. I can give you an account on one
of my asterisk servers, but you won't be able to do anything with it,
other than call others on the same server.

I think you need to work out exactly what it is that you need, or are
trying to achieve. Just jot it down in words and let us know, then we
may be able to suggest solutions...

Gordon

Graham wrote:
> "Desk Rabbit" <nospam@example.com> wrote in message
> news:xKmdnW0e2Ms5MWfYnZ2dnUVZ8qLinZ2d@pipex.net...
>> Ivor Jones wrote:
>>> "Desk Rabbit" <nospam@example.com> wrote in message
>>> news:yvGdnYJQkKhUOWfYnZ2dnUVZ8rOdnZ2d@pipex.net
>>>> robert wrote:
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>>> Thanks Graham,
>>>>> really helpful.
>>>>>
>>>>> Do you know any company who offer free Asterisk hosting
>>>>> (like for 1 account)?
>>>> Why on earth would you want and entire PBX for one
>>>> extension?????
>>> He said one account, not one extension..!
>> How many accounts can you assign to an extension in Asterisk or extensions
>> to accounts for that matter?
>
> There are no limits for either.
> Simultaneous call handling is a different matter.
> I have no problems with 3 concurrent high quality (u-law or
> a-law) calls.
>
Actually Graham I know, I was just winding up Ivor

"Desk Rabbit" <nospam@example.com> wrote in message
news:Jrmdneav7_E7zGPYnZ2dnUVZ8sHinZ2d@pipex.net
> Graham wrote:

[snip]

> > There are no limits for either.
> > Simultaneous call handling is a different matter.
> > I have no problems with 3 concurrent high quality
> > (u-law or a-law) calls.
> >
> Actually Graham I know, I was just winding up Ivor

Why..?

Ivor