[Asterisk-Users] Am i right by Asterisk?

[Bruno Hertz]

On Fri, 2005-03-11 at 15:32 +0100, Stefan Stolz wrote:
> Hello,
> i tryed to read the Wiki, but i am not sure if i am right with Asterisk.
> Until now i made my phone calls with ant-phone over my ISDN Fritz Card. Now i 
> tryed to search a way to phone from other computers in the internal net over 
> the Fritz Card on the Server. Someone told me Asterisk can do this.
> I read in the Wiki that Asterisk is in special for Voip, but it looked like 
> that it can also make ISDN calls.
> Can Asterisk do this? What do i need to phone with Asterisk over ISDN into the 
> phone net? Or where can i read about this things? I think all i need stands 
> in the Wiki, but it was to much for me to find the right thing out for me...
> I think i need ISDN4Linux, because ant-phone used this and it worked. I read 
> that i need a special Plugin for this because Asterisk per default cant do 
> this?
> Can you help me to get order in my confusion? ;-)
> Thank you very much!

Stefan

to clarify what you want to achieve: you have an Fritz ISDN card and
what to issue calls from several computers on your LAN to the ISDN line,
right?

If that's your question, the answer is yes, asterisk can do this, and
I have exactly that setup

              LAN
--------------------------------
|                              |
 Host1 ->               |-> NAT    <-> Internet
 Host2 -> Asterisk Server 
 Host3 ->               |-> Fritz  <-> ISDN

For the communication between your computers and asterisk, you'll use
some VoIP protocol, like SIP, IAX or H323 and a corresponding client
(SJPhone, Iaxcomm, Gnomemeeting).

Regarding asterisk interfacing the Fritz card you might either use
chan_modem and isdn4linux, which I didn't test myself but it seems
it's not very recommended, or chan_capi and the AVM capi drivers,
which I have running myself and work OK. Another alternative is mISDN.

Finally, you'll need to setup a proper asterisk dial plan to link all
that together. It's not trivial at the beginning, but doing some
reading especially on the Wiki and in mailing list archives will help
you a lot, so it's not too hard either.

Good luck
Bruno