Asterisk

Overview

I am setting up Asterisk again at home. I want a thing that looks like a real phone to ring when I get calls. I have been missing too many important calls lately, because my mobile is ofetn tucked away and set to tingle instead of bleep.

I used Asterisk for several years and then I went to a simpler system for a time. VOIP Then I went to having only the mobile.

The original goal in moving to Asterisk was to eliminate a monthly bill with Packet8 service. Packet8 is a fine service provider but I was easily able to replace the $30 bill with a pay-as-you-go bill of less than $5 per month with essentially no change in service level.

The standard Packet8 service for $30 included unlimited outbound calling which was a waste for us. I reduced this to $20/month by changing to a 400 minute / month plan. ($15 + taxes) but that's still more than we needed.

Then I changed over to use a Grandcentral (now Google Voice) number for incoming calls (free), which forwards to a Gizmo5 number (free) and a Les.net per-minute service for outbound calls. That translates to a whopping $2.70 per month if we talk for 3 hours outbound. At that point we were saving at least $17.30 per month. This makes the exorbitant $50 (now $70!) Comcast Broadband bill more bearable.

Then Google bought Grandcentral and it became Google Voice, and bought Gizmo5 and shut it down!

Incoming calls

I used to have a [Freeworld Dialup] account but no one ever used it so when they went to a subscription service I let it expire. They are gone now.

I also had a Stanaphone number in New York but don't have forwarding on it right now. I had an IPKall number in Seattle but it has expired.

Currently all incoming calls route through my Google Voice number.

Outgoing calls

Updated 24-Nov-2008

For several months now I have been using Les.net for outgoing calls, but we have been experiencing audio drop outs in the outbound calls; the person at the other end hears dead air for 1 or 2 seconds at a time. This is very irritating, so I am going to try using the Gizmo Project CallOut service. They've been providing me a free incoming number, I figured why not try their outbound service as well.

When I signed on with Les.Net I put $25 in credit. I use their pay-by-minute with no monthly fee. I still have $21 left after several months. Rates are about $.015 / minute.

A better provider is voipjet.com. I use them for my employer's business phone system. Oops they are gone now!

Updated notes on home Asterisk system

Hardware

Server is bellman (appropriate name huh) which runs Linux Mint.

1 Grandstream BT-100 Budgetone phone

1 Desktop running Ubuntu on the LAN with Ekiga softphone installed

Not using at the moment: 1 Packet8 DTA-310, reflashed to be a Leadtek BVA8051. See http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Packet8+DTA310+and+Asterisk and http://www.stromcarlson.com/projects/dta-310/

Softphone

Using Ekiga on the same system that has Asterisk installed on it meant I had to run gconf-editor (apps->Ekiga->Protocols) to change the SIP listen port from 5060 to 5061 since Asterisk was already using 5060.

Ekiga is the softphone installed by default with Ubuntu 8.10 Hardy Heron. I've seen softphones I like more but it works for testing and I use hard phones most of the time.

Implementation

I am using the generic asterisk package that is pulled from the Ubuntu repository. To this I make the following configuration changes.

As much as possible I keep general changes out of main config files by using include files. This makes updates much simpler. In sip.conf add this line: #include sip-wildsong.conf and in extensions.conf add this: #include extensions-wildsong.conf The voicemail.conf file warns agains this approach so I edit it directly.

For each of the extensions, I then add entries in sip-wildsong.conf and extensions-wildsong.conf and voicemail.conf.

I edit the web settings for the hard phones and the configuration settings for the Ekiga softphones.

That's about it.