Jason Harris wrote an article here on how to get VoIP on your Mobile Phone.

It’s a nice info for end users because they may avail of the cheap solutions that VoIP offers through mobility. It would also allow them to maximize the services they pay for.

I’ve been surfing the net for voip news and guess what?

Will you succumb to the software giant’s move on VoIP? Will it be safe of BSOD’s? Will you trust your conversations will be secure?

It’s entirely up to you. They have the trial version in their site.

Good luck.

Asterisk cards come with different number of ports – and they do for a reason. There are different needs for different applications and manufacturers aim to address them. If you’re a beginner, you can order a single port Asterisk card, which is configure with having 1 FXO module. Basically, you would have the functionality of receiving incoming calls, then transfer that call anywhere in your IP network. Of course, while that call is live, your line then would be busy since you only have a single FXO (a single number from your telco as well) handling that call.

A basic setup for you play around with would be a 4 port Asterisk card, with 2 FXO modules and 2 FXS modules. This kind of setup would allow you to receive 2 calls from 2 numbers coming from your telco then transferred to your 2 analog phones connected in your FXS modules, or to an unlimited number of IP or soft phones in your network. Remember that you only need X number of FXS modules for X number of analog devices you have (1:1 ratio). As for IP phones or soft phones, there is virtually no limit. Just make sure they are connected in one network with your Asterisk card.

Now if you’re really into, why not order an 8-port card? It basically expands your 4 port supporting much more modules for your applications. If you have 2 lines from telco and have 6 analog phones, simply get an 8 port card, 2 FXO modules, 6 FXS modules, then you’re good to go.

The kind of card you need would really depend on how many devices you would connect to your VoIP network. I hope this helps you figure out how many ports do you really need for your Asterisk implementation.

With the emergence of broadband connections and the internet, applications for the use for this technology has expanded throughout the years. From simple intranets to the evolution of the internet, from traditional telephones to VoIP, from local video to online video and many more.

Triple play comes in with these applications in mind. According to wikipedia:

In telecommunications, the triple play service is a marketing term for the provisioning of the two broadband services, high-speed Internet access and television, and one narrowband service, telephone, over a single broadband connection. Triple Play focuses on a combined business model rather than solving technical issues or a common standard.

There are of course implications for this type of technology. 1Gbps of bandwidth is huge..and I mean really huge! For businesses, if you have a fiber-optic backbone for your network, you may well run over 1Gbps of data in your network. Internal VoIP calls, video, and data transfer within your network are fast. If you can extend your backbone with such throughput over a larger area, so much the better. Ideally, this would be the kind of setup we would like as consumers. Company players, however, would find it rather difficult to deal with with all the negotiations and implications of the technology. From wikipedia, we read:

There are multiple and intense regulatory battles over triple play
services as incumbent telcos and incumbent cable operators attempt to
keep out new competitors — since both industries historically have
been regulated monopolies, regulatory capture
has long been as much a core competency for them as have been prices
and terms of service. Cable providers want to compete with telcos for
local voice service, but want to discourage telcos from competing with
them for television service. Incumbent telcos want to deliver
television service but want to block competition for voice service from
cable operators. Both industries cloak their demands for favorable
regulatory treatment in claims that their positions favor the public
interests. In March 2007 cable operators scored a major victory when
the FCC overruled two state public service commissions by ruling that
incumbent local exchange carriers must connect to VoIP services [1].
Regulators in South Carolina and Nebraska had been allowing local
telcos to block Time Warner Cable from offering local phone service in
their states. In the other direction, also in March 2007 the FCC
limited the powers of municipalities and states over telcos that want
to compete with cable TV companies [2];
consumer groups expressed displeasure with this FCC ruling because they
fear telcos will only offer service to the richest neighborhoods (a
major bone of contention between telcos wanting to offer television
service and local governments is that local governments typically
impose “build-out” and community access requirements so a cable
provider is forced to wire the entire town within a specified period of
time). All three Republican members of the FCC voted for this decision,
while both Democratic members voted against it and one predicted either
Congress or the courts would overturn it.

Sad as it is, we as consumers would have to wait for their action regarding the issue.

Going back, the boom of Youtube as an online video platform may imply advancements for the implementation of VoIP video conferences.

For now, we would have to do with what VoIP presently offers, which is no doubt good already. Small and Large Scale businesses alike make use of the technology already. If you are starting up a small or home business, you may want to consider investing in a VoIP system that would work for you.

People in PBXEQ would be able to help you in finding the kind of hardware you need for you business. Simply go to their website and chat with their representatives so you would know the voip hardware you need.

Asterisk hardware – particularly asterisk cards – have been around and options just keep on growing. Like my previous post here, we’ll take a look at CTO Tom Keating of TMC Labs had to say about them:

Let’s see — you have Digium cards, Aculab cards, Dialogic cards, PIKA cards, Rhino, and Sangoma cards that all work on Asterisk-based systems. (You also have ZAPMICRO and OpenVox which are Digium-cloned cards.)

Some cards work more seamlessly and have better driver support than others. For instance, I’ve heard it is difficult to get Dialogic channel drivers to work on Asterisk. I recall hearing that the Dialogic driver was licensed such that it could only be used with Asterisk Business Edition. In any event, with so much hardware competition for the Asterisk platform, how does this affect Digium, the corporation behind the open source Asterisk movement? A lot of their revenue comes from their hardware business, so with so many choices will this leave Digium “high and dry”?

Tom Keating goes further:

As SmithonVoIP points out, Sangoma’s stock has been going like gangbusters when he points out, “Sangoma posted their Q3 earnings today, which showed a 24% increase in revenues over the previous quarter of this year, a 68% year over year increase in sales revenues, a 69% year over year increase in net income, and a 56% year over year increase in Net earnings.” Relatedly, Rich Tehrani and I were discussing Sangoma’s phenomenal stock growth a few weeks ago and both of us planned on writing about it. I believe Rich has an article planned for Internet Telephony Magazine highlighting Sangoma. Obviously, Sangoma has been riding the “hockey stick curve” of Asterisk, which has been dramatically boosting Sangoma’s revenue. (they sell other hardware as well)

Then you have OpenVox, a company based in China offering “Digium-cloned” hardware. They use the same hardware reference design that Digium uses. In fact, they look nearly identical. While they also suffer from the same hardware interrupt issues as Digium hardware, they’re 20% cheaper – or more. OpenVox was probably the first Digium clone and I believe is the largest. Similarly, another Chinese-based company, ZAPMICRO is also offering Digium-cloned hardware.

Adding to Tom’s review on alternative asterisk hardware, Zapmicro is sold at nearly 40% off in PBXEQ. If this is the case and you would prefer working with Digium-similar asterisk cards, better go for Zapmicro then. Meanwhile, Sangoma is highly favored in the article and if you have the budget for it, it would be a good choice for your asterisk implementation.

You may read Tom’s full article on Asterisk hardware options here, and his review on Sangoma VS Digium.

Googling for voipsupply would lead you to their website. But the troubling thing about voipsupply is this blog post. Sure looks like someone was not happy at all about Voipsupply’s service.

If it isn’t obvious, customer service and satisfaction is important especially when your resources is out there on the line: whether it be money or your time. Customer experience plays a vital role in the success of your business. You would not want to go through hassle and difficult people to deal with. You would want someone who would understand where you’re coming from and someone who would attend to you fully.

PBXEQ.com offers the best customer service out there. When you talk about convenience, they’re the VoIP store to talk to. I have heard and read stories about people ordering via telephone and the representative tells them to just buy online instead. Isn’t it in the customer’s prerogative where he’d like to purchase? Anyway, PBXEQ deploys 4 ways of ordering your products:

• Online Cart
• Telephone – 877-88-72937 (PBXEQ)
• Chat online
• Email

What’s great about this is that they have used every channel possible in order to make the experience convenient to customer. Truly, any other VoIP hardware store out there with this kind of customer service is hard to find. Whether you are looking for asterisk cards, asterisk hardware, digium cards, digium compatible hardware and the like, the people in PBXEQ would gladly help you choose your hardware.

Did I mention they also have after-sales-support? You’re never left behind even after you’ve payed them. Beat that!

Have you ever wondered how to turn your home landline telephone into a professional VoIP service circulating into different rooms all over your house?

It’s pretty simple:

With a simple PBX box, you can run your own asterisk at home setup. You just need to simply install Asterisk in your Linux machine and have your analog card installed and your good to go. In this illustration, the FXS modules (green modules) connect to the analog phones. They have a 1:1 Ratio, 1 FXS module per 1 analog device (RJ11 phones and fax machines). The FXO module connect to the telco line, which the line coming from the wall socket of your telephone service provider. All modules are connected to a base board (like a motherboard for modules). In this illustration, we have Zapmicro’s ZMA400P base card.

You can configure extensions and local numbers from within your own Asterisk home network and call each other up without affecting the outside line.

If you’d like to see more Asterisk hardware that are priced lesser than Digium’s, check out PBXEQ.com.

We know that there are a lot of alternatives out there that can measure up to Digium’s releases of Asterisk cards. Why Digium charges so much with their cards are beyond me, when for the same functionality and the same quality, customers can avail of alternatives for a relatively lower cost. Quality asterisk hardware need not be expensive.

Question is where? Where do we look for such alternatives?

First, are you even open? Being in the open source community, you should be. Techies have a mindset that whatever gear they’re after, it has got to be good. But in order to be good, you have got to be established. Digium’s done that. And now they charge their cards at rates they can dictate and control. Again, are you open?

If you are, here is a list of known good Asterisk cards that offer the same functionality as their Digium cards:

• Zapmicro
• Yeastar
• Rhino
• Sangoma

Those are the ones in my list so far.

Zapmicro offers a pin-to-pin compatibility with their Digium counterparts. Meaning if you have a Digium card already and would like to expand it with either FXS or FXO modules, you can buy Zapmicro’s modules and have absolutely no problem making it work with your Digium card. This works vice versa. If you have a Zapmicro base card and would like to expand it by using modules, you can use your Digium made modules as well.

Standard drivers for Zapmicro’s 4-port card, the ZMA400P, can be used with asterisk. Non-standard cards such as the 8 port version, ZMA800P, requires a driver download so you can make it work with Asterisk. It is a guaranteed working driver.

Yeastar’s Asterisk cards are uniquely done for their own. The Yeastar TDM800 base card sports an 8-port capable card but only has 4-ports physically present. What do I mean? See, their modules come in pairs. You have physically one module, but within are 2 modules. So they have a module with 2 FXS in it, 2 FXO’s, and 1 FXO / 1 FXS pair with it. So there are combinations available as well. For starters, here are the module models:

• S2 – 2 FXS modules equivalent
• O2 – 2 FXO modules equivalent
• SO – 1 FXS and 1FXO equivalent

Don’t get lost, it’s pretty simple. If you want a 5 FXO card and 3 FXS card, use this config: 1 TDM800P base card + 2 O2’s + 1 S2 + 1 SO. Got it? You should. Yeastar cards are not pin-to-pin compatible with Digium and you would need to download their driver from their website in order for it to work with Asterisk as well.

Rhino asterisk cards are also for Rhino modules. They sport their own hardware for echo cancellation, which is very important for VoIP applications. Echo cancellation basically is a method of removing noises caused by IP traffic and other factors that are involved in a VoIP telephony transaction. Texas Instruments make their echo cancellation chipsets. Rhino manufactures both analog and digital cards, as well as industry scale channel banks (a lot of FXS or FXO found inside an external box!).

Lastly, Sangoma cards are known to be expensive but reliable. Not that the other cards aren’t, but they sure give that impression with their “Because it must work” tagline. Sangoma is an established engineering firm and have designed their cards to be justified with the reputation the company has. If you’ve got the budget, go!

Now, where do you buy these?

There are plenty of online stores that you can choose from when purchasing VoIP hardware. I’ve found one interesting though. PBXEQ.com. Unlike any other hardware store, the site gives a customer focused appeal, instead of the usual “Get the hardware you need and leave” kind of thing. The site also features live chat where you would have to simply click and you get a customer representative on the other end who is knowledgeable with the hardware they are selling. The site also features other VoIP products such as IP phones, gateways, Analog Telephone Adapters, and the like.