What is Asterisk?
In the following article you can get to know Asterisk, many companies use it as their communication network. Every company needs to communicate within and outside of the company to be more efficient. In the sections below you can read about Asterisk, why it is referred to as pieces of Lego and what it can provide for its users.
The Asterisk is a software-based telephone system (a so called console application that is a computer program: it is used via a text-only interface) and it is a PBX: it actually forms your computer into a communications server. It switches calls, manages routes and also connects callers through the Internet Protocol (IP). You can connect your old Asterisk pbx to Ozeki Phone System that can handle many phoning devices such as smart phones, VoIP phones, soft phones, etc. (Figure 1)
The Asterisk is like pieces of Lego. You have several building blocks from which you can create different systems (PBX, IVR etc.). It is usually referred to as a tool-kit.
This kit consists of for example:
- VoIP protocol drivers
- call detail recording
- bridging single and also multi-party calls
- speech recognition
It is an open-source technology and it can be downloaded from the Internet.
It is mainly used by call centres, different businesses and even governments because with the help of Asterisk you can build up a powerful communication solution so the different organisations can improve their reliability and standards.
Asterisk usually replaces ordinary PBXs and allows users to build new phone systems. Asterisk uses channels, like VoIP that can provide high quality services and it supports different kinds of VoIP protocols (SIP, H.323).
Asterisk Can Provide
It has services that a simple PBX has:
- IVR
- conference call
- voicemail
- call transfer
- call forwarding
- trunking etc.
- new functionalities can be added to it
Asterisk requires you to have a Linux OS (Operating System) which is a great disadvantage because the update on the system is not easy and the administrative cost is high.
Ozeki Phone System provides the same VoIP services and more on Windows than Asterisk provides on Linux. The difference between the Ozeki Phone System and Asterisk is that Ozeki Phone System has a GUI (Graphical User Interface).
Read the following related pages for further information:
If you became interested in this topic, please watch our video:
What is Asterisk? (Video tutorial)
More information
- What is VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)?
- What is SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)?
- What is PABX (Private Automated Branch Exchange)?
- What is IP PBX? (Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange)
- What is VoIP PBX (Voice Over Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange)?
- What is SIP Trunking (Session Initiation Protocol Trunking)?
- What is SIP Trunk (Session Initiation Protocol Trunk)?
- What is Direct Dial In: DID?
- What is IVR (Interactive Voice Response)?
- What is RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol)?
- What is RTCP (Real-time Transport Control Protocol)?
- What is SRTP?
- What is H323?
- What is VoIP Tunnel?
- What is PSTN Gateway?
- What is CAPI?
- What is FXO?
- What is FXS?
- What is PRI/E1?
- What is PRI/T1?
- What is PRI/J1?
- What is PRI?
- What is ISDN NT?
- What is ISDN TE?
- What is VoIP Client (Voice Over Internet Protocol Client)?
- What is SIP Client?
- What is SIP Server?
- What is VoIP Server (Voice Over Internet Protocol Server)?
- What is Dial Plan?
- What is Asterisk?
- What is VLAN?
- What is VoIP Phone?
- What is SIP Phone?
- What is IP Phone?
- What is SIP Account?
- What is ATA?
- What is Ring Group?
- What is Virtual PBX?
- What is Hosted PBX?
- What is PSTN?
- What is SDP (Session Description Protocol)?
- What is DECT?
- What is VoIP Call?
- What Is VoIP Cluster?
- What is Trunk?
- What is Fring?