[Asterisk-Users] Skype-to-Asterisk(SIP): progress

[John Todd]

I'm sitting in the Emerging Telephony Conference, so this seems a 
particularly apt place to pre-announce this...

I've wanted to be able to gateway calls between Skype and Asterisk 
for a while, which of course would require some type of protocol 
converter (IAX or SIP to Skype, probably.)  This of course is 
directly not in Skype's interest, since they would like to keep the 
network closed (boo!) so that users are forced to use their PSTN 
gateway and other revenue-generating systems.  On the other hand, I'm 
trying to crack this open so that any VoIP channel can talk to any 
other VoIP channel.  Asterisk provides the ideal platform for this 
type of conversion, if only Skype were accessible...

Please hold flames about how Skype is the enemy of open telephony 
standards.  I don't disagree.  However, for a small sub-set of users 
that I work with, Skype is a channel that is preferred for audio in 
some circumstances, and I feel that it's worthwhile to have some 
ability to connect with users who have expressed that preference.

There exists a commercial program called "PSGW" 
(http://www.rsdevs.com/) which runs on (booo!) Windows and does SIP 
to Skype conversion.  It's about $29 USD.  It uses the Skype API to 
create calls in both directions, and then uses somewhat of a kludge 
using software audio "cables" between a SIP/RTP driver system and the 
Skype API.  It works reasonably well, but to date has been somewhat 
limited because it will only terminate calls to a specific Skype user 
on the far end which is mapped in the program itself.  This has been 
somewhat limiting, since that means I can't arbitrarily specify a 
user in the SIP invite to whom I want to communicate.

I have contacted the company (programmer) that sells this software, 
and I've negotiated a payment to him to patch the code such that PSGW 
will allow arbitrary specification of Skype-side user choice, as I've 
asked that this be released as part of the general distribution of 
this commercial software.  He says that this should be ready within 
the next week or two for testing by me, and then I've asked that the 
code is released into the next versions of PSGW.  So basically, I'm 
putting out a press release about someone else's commercial software, 
but I think it's worth noting because of the usefulness of this when 
used in conjunction with Asterisk.

I'll keep the list updated with the progress of the code and tests 
with Asterisk.

JT