[Asterisk-Users] Newbie has a few basic questions please.

[Daryll Strauss]

Because, the phone companies want to make money. They don't provide
all this infrastructure for free. It costs them money to run it and
maintain it.

No there is no protocol or way to access the PSTN for free.

Vonage is a phone company. They pay other phone companies every time
they want to take a call from their users and connect to the PSTN, and
other phone companies pay them when the call goes the other way.

TNSTAAFL

- |Daryll


On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:22:22 -0500, Bruce <bruce at bruce.homelinux.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for the replies.  I do have vonage phone service and they have
> provided me a motorla device I plug into my broadband and also plug my
> phone into to make calls. this is a nice service for 30 bucks, but as
> with all things linux, why cant one connect to the PSTN for free? I
> mean isnt there a protocol one can use to get access to the pstn?
> What does vonage use to do this?  Or do they have to pay for access to
> the pstn.
> Bruce
> 
> 
> 
> > For what you want to do asterisk isn't really the right solution.
> > Asterisk is a PBX. It doesn't provide a way for you to connect to the
> > PSTN.
> >
> > To do what you want, you need to buy VOIP service from any of the
> > providers (broadvoice, vonage, packet8, etc). They will provide you a
> > device that you connect to your broadband connection and a analog
> > telephone and it lets you make calls to anyone on the PSTN. They  all
> > have a some sort of unlimited calling plan that might save you money
> > calling your family.
> >
> > You said you wanted the phone connected to your Linux box. Why? From
> > what you describe as your goal, that's not necessary.
> >
> > You also asked, about the purpose of Asterisk. Once you've got a
> > connection to the PSTN (VOIP service, a card in your linux box, or a
> > gateway box of some sort) Asterisk can be useful. It would let you
> > plug one or more phone lines into your Linux box and have multiple
> > extensions. It can provide voicemail and voice menu systems. It can
> do
> > call logging and monitoring. All useful stuff, but none of it lets
> you
> > call the PSTN for free.
> >
> > - |Daryll
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 14:25:25 -0500, Bruce
> <bruce at bruce.homelinux.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I think I am missing the whole purposes of *. i see that it can do
> > > mainy things, but in laymans temrs I am not sure what it does.
> > > I am very proficient in Linux and would like to use * for the
> > > following:
> > >
> > > 1) I would like to get rid of my landline(verizon) and use voip as
> my
> > > main means to communicate on the telephone.  I would like to be
> able
> > > to plug in my plain old phone into my linux box and be able to
> make a
> > > phone call to my family who has a plain old telephone line going
> into
> > > thier house, using voip and then I guess connecting to the pstn.
> Can
> > > i do this?  If so, how? What hardware do I need? Can anyone
> connect to
> > > PSTN lines for free? Or do I need to pay some phone company
> somewhere?
> > >
> > > thanks to anyone who can help.
> > >
> > > Bruce
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