[asterisk-users] How are you using Asterisk at Home ?

[Gleim, Jason]

I setup Trixbox on an Dell Precision 360. I ported my old POTS line over
to a pay-as-you-go through Teliax because we weren't using more than 500
minutes a month on the home line.

When a caller rings in, I screen the call with time-of-day routing. In
general, if the call comes before 7:30 AM or after 10:30 PM, it isn't
going to ring through (we had 'problems' with my father-in-law calling
us at 7:00 on Saturday to see what we were doing). Instead, they get a
voice menu with me politely telling the caller we're not accepting calls
at that time. But, I added a code of '111' to that menu and gave it to
the family. If they are calling with an emergency, they enter that code
and it rings all the extensions in the house plus both of our cell
phones. The first one to pickup grabs the call.

If calls aren't restricted by TOD, they have to get past privacy manager
and blacklist before they will ring some of the extensions (did this
with a ring group). If nobody picks up, they are dropped into a voice
menu that allows them to leave either of us messages or transfer to our
cell phones. This way we can just give everyone a single number and not
worry about letting out our cell phone numbers. Of course, calls to the
cell phones are confirmed so when one comes in, we have to hit 1 on the
cell if we want to accept the call... otherwise its back into VM for the
caller.

Of course, voicemails are sent via e-mail to my wife and I and I also
setup an Aastra 57i on my desk at work that connects to the company
server on line 1 and to the home box on line 2.

I even got a second line from Teliax in August and set it up to only
ring the phone at work. I used this line while I was setting up the
wife's surprise 30th birthday party. It was brilliant because guests
could call me and there was no trace of the call on my cell phone where
she might see it and it didn't ring the home phones.

I'm not doing anything really cool like pausing the TV but the setup has
worked very well and has given us control over the phone. Instead of us
being slaves to when people call, they get through at our pleasure now.
It has been a big improvement. (plus it has impressed some of my
friends!)

Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of D4rk F1ber
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 6:54 PM
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Subject: [asterisk-users] How are you using Asterisk at Home ?

I am very new to Asterisk, it was a weekend project of mine that I
jumped into this weekend.  I have it up and working on a box at home,
and I am nearly half way through the book I purchased friday
"Asterisk: The Future of Telephony 2nd Edition".

Anyway, I started this out so I could help a friend who wanted a VoIP
PBX solution for his small business.  I have been working with Cisco
Callmanager for about 6 years now, and prior to that did help manage
other PBXs as well as work on various Motorola VoFR projects as well.
My friend came to me and well everything I deal with is really for
larger businesses, and since I had heard about Asterisk in the past I
thought it would be a good reason to finally jump into it.  And what a
jump it has been.  Only scratching the surface with this thing and
well I am very impressed with what I have seen so far.

The main point for me writting others is to find out how others are
using Asterisk for the home?  Bit of over kill for most I am sure, and
to be honest we (Wife, kid and I) don't even have a home phone
anymore.

After playing with this though, shesh I could have fun with it at
home.  :-)  Thinking about getting a SIP line or trunk or something to
tie into this for home usage.

One of the next projects for me personally is to get a SIP client for
my Cingular/AT&T 8525, it has wifi and hsdpa running Windows Mobile 6
and I am certain I have run across SIP clients before for these
things.  Be fun to play with and get working.

So yes I am asking because I am unimaginative and need ideas on
selling this to the wife.  :-)  That and I am just curious about what
others feel are useful uses for it within the home, and what others
get excited about regarding it all.

_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--

asterisk-users mailing list
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users