# asterix & voip

## jonnymalm

VoIP seems to be the new big thing and I was wondering if any gentoo users have set up a Asterix pbx box yet, since there is an ebuild for it.  I have been looking into it and it looks pretty cool.  It has a ton of cool features.  The only thing I am worried about is the cost of picking up some ip phones and the pain of wiring cat5 throughout the whole house.  

Has anyone setup an asterix pbx box or have any other voip solution implemented?

P.S. I am not sure if this is the right forum, but I figure it has a lot to do with networking.

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## tagore

check this

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=119306

and the next time use the serah feature  :Wink: 

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## jonnymalm

 *Quote:*   

> check this 
> 
> https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=119306
> 
> and the next time use the serah feature 

 

Thanks for the link but I have already seen that in a search I did.  I was looking for a bit more information.  I just thought some one out there could shed a little bit more light on the subject.

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## fleed

I setup an * server but just so I could use my Iconnecthere account through linux.

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## jonnymalm

 *Quote:*   

> I setup an * server but just so I could use my Iconnecthere account through linux.

 

I am assuming you have a broadband connection?  Does it work well?  Sound quality and all?  Is it worth it?

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## funkmankey

check out here

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33345

and here

http://voxilla.com/Article39.phtml

</shameless self-plug>

I should probably update the cvs ebuilds -- zapata is unnecessary, and libpri is also not necessary (unless of course you are using a PRI/BRI, hehe)

the wiki site is an excellent source of information on many topics:

http://voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk

some very good and thorough examples of config files can be found at John Todd's site.

I use voicepulse connect, which lets you use iLBC which only uses ~13kbit/s (plus overhead) and it's been very nice. I also use FWD which rocks (but uses an uplink-sucking g711 codec -- 64kbit/s, more like 90 with overhead) and iaxtel -- and both of those offer free service to toll-free 8xx numbers.

for most of december, Jeff Pulver did this excellent holiday treat where FWD users could call for free into the US PSTN, as well as into several other countries.

cheers

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## fleed

So you're the ebuilder, eh? Thanks!!!

I'm going to try hooking up a modem (maybe the AMI-IA92 since it seems to be very similar to the single-port FXO that digium sells) to my * setup to see how lucky I get. Thanks!

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## jonnymalm

Thanks for the info funkmankey.  Great site by the way, I recommend checking it out for anyone who wants info on VoIP.

Check it out:

http://voxilla.com

(A plug for your site, not so shameless since it is not my site)

I have a couple of questions:

If I were to buy the SPA-2000 and then use a service like voicepulse, could I still use a asterisk pbx as a gateway to my house?  I ask because it has a lot of great features and plus it seems like a great way to learn VoIP.

I think I just found out my answer by reading the asterisk wiki site and the answer is yes, I can use the SPA-2000, asterisk as a gateway with the voicepulse connect service.  Can anyone confirm this?  It seems to me like voicepulse is one of the cheaper VoIP companies out there.

Is anyone else using something else?

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## fleed

I use * with iConnectHere and it works fine. Haven't setup a sipura or fxo ports yet.

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## funkmankey

yes, it's totally possible to use the spa-2000 with asterisk and voicepulse-connect, that's what I do at home. my sipura box talks ADPCM (g726) over SIP to my asterisk box, and my asterisk box talks iLBC over IAX to voicepulse-connect's server (which is also asterisk, I believe...)

you can buy the spa-2000 from FWD/pulverinnovations, or you can buy it from voxilla (comes with 1 free month of voicepulse or broadvox consumer service). my relationship with voxilla is as an unpaid admin/developer/techwriter -- I don't get any direct benefit by referring people to them, other than the possibility of a paying job down the road ^_^

not sure where else you can buy the spa-2000, except from voicepulse themselves. and right now they have some pretty attractive offer where you buy a year of unlimited service at a discounted price and get the spa-2000 for a discounted price. which does sound tempting to me.

however: any "unlimited" monthly plan you see a company offering, will most certainly not be compatible with asterisk. so, iconnecthere, vp-connect, nufone, and a couple others are sort of the only choices if you want to use asterisk. when I bought my spa-2000 from voxilla, I used the free month of voicepulse consumer service then cancelled and went back to  using vp-connect with asterisk.

iconnecthere has more attractive prices and plans. vp-connect has ilbc and runs over iax, doesn't require any monthly commitment. just a question of deciding which one is better for you, I know a lot of people who are happy with either.

I pay $0.0295/min for vp-connect service, no other fee or contract. fleed probably pays less than that on average, by paying for 400 or 1000 or some number of minutes per month. again, it's a question of what suits you. I find that, quite often, what's right for me is not right for a lot of other people ^_^

while I believe in supporting digium by buying their cards, I will admit that after I bought the tdm devkit from them, I bought that intel modem to use as my second FXO (and then bought the asterisk sticker-pack to sort of balance out karma ^_^)

hint:

```
{ 0xe159, 0x0001, 0x8085, PCI_ANY_ID, 0, 0, (unsigned long) &wcx101p },

+{ 0xe159, 0x0001, 0x8086, PCI_ANY_ID, 0, 0, (unsigned long) &wcx101p },
```

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## fleed

Thanks for the code snipet, I'll either do that or try to change the resistors so the board is even more compatible (no difference whatsoever expected, just for cleanliness). Yeah, I was also thinking of buying the sticker-pack or just donate directly if possible and if everything works fine. I think this is a much more efficient way of supporting them anyway. They must have some undue overhead in changing resistors around...

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## funkmankey

good luck with the cleanliness ^_^

I'm not bad at soldering, but when it comes to smd work...I usually end up burning the pcb.

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