[Asterisk-Users] Calling PSTN lines from VOIP softphone

[Aniket Bhat]

Folks,

I am a newbie to the VOIP world and have a question (might as well
sound silly to some). I would like to set up a PC-to-Phone call from
my desktop to a regular PSTN number. Does the Asterisk PBX itself act
as a VOIP-PSTN gateway or do I have to subscribe to a VOIP provider
for this? Are there any free IP-PSTN gateways which I can subscribe
to? Do I need any specific hardware to set up such calls?

If there is no additional hardware or subscription to a VOIP provider
required, are there any resources that have information about
configuring asterisk for such gateway functionality?

Note: I believe that for receiving calls, you may need some form of a
FXO card or something, but if my requirement is to just make calls
from a softphone on my computer to a PSTN no. and NOT vice versa, do I
still need any additional hardware?

Thanks in advance,

Aniket.