[asterisk-users] Looking for ideas for nice **Asterisk** home phone system

[Steve Totaro]

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 3:39 AM, Per Jessen <per at computer.org> wrote:

> Per Jessen wrote:
>
> >
> >> help? Obviously, different countries and carriers do things
> >> differently, but I don't pay for anything extra, no roaming, nothing.
> >
> > Did you mean to say you don't pay for roaming either??  Wow.  I could
> > do with a subscription like that.  (here roaming means using your
> > phone in another country).
>
> I guess theoretically roaming is using a GSM network other than
> your "home" network, but in Europe that = roaming internationally,
> which is typically very pricey.
>
>
>
> /Per Jessen, Zürich
>
>
RGR that, but cells with SIP mitigate all of that.  Also, multiple SIMs are
another solution that I use.  It is extremely rare, even in the worst
countries that I cannot get WiFi.  Actually the worst countries have the
benefit of starting from scratch.  I was the original guy to help assess how
to rebuild the infrastructure in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea for the
USAID WARP project in the Manu River area of Africa in 2004 for USAID.

All the copper was gone to make pots and pans.  Wifi, VSAT and if lucky, a
some fiber to Senegal, although Sonatel had a monopoly on all of that in
Senegal.

SIP GSM works great over VSAT with the proper tweaking.  I had great calls
from an FOB in a war zone using SIP and GSM over VSAT, G729 was the worst.
VSAT is inherently lossy, jittery, and tons of dropped packets.  Perfect
clarity and security was achieved using Vyatta, OpenVPN and QoS and rate
limiting.  QoS is done by by the port, so OpenVPN turned SIP into what IAX
was designed for, VoIP over one port.  Once callers get used to the lag,
they stop talking on top of each other.  700ms ping times are pretty high.

There are plenty of GSM or SIM boards to accommodate physical lines.  That
is how most of the NGOs I worked with setup their phone systems with the
lack of SIP.  A 16 or less card to hold SIMs in place of E1s, VSAT, or any
copper.

Check out chan_mobile too.  One of the greatest Asterisk Apps.  Besides
allowing your bluetooth phone to become an extension as well as a the
equivalent of an inbound and outbound trunk (depending on your needs), you
can use it to send SMS and data if you have those features on your phone.
The phone is seen as a GSM modem over the Bluetooth link.  I don't use
Asterisk's SMS apps, just like I don't use Asterisk's FAX app.

For fax, I use Hylafax and for text, I use Kannel.  These are WAY more
powerful than Asterisk apps.  With Kannel, I used the Bluetooth GSM modem to
send SMS from my cell.  Kannel is awesome as is HylaFAX

I used the Asteirsk System() app to call lynx with a special URL.  The URL
contains all the authentication, recipient, and SMS body.  Calling that URL
via System(), as I said, I like lynx, causes an SMS to be sent.  Kannel is
extremely customizable.  I once had ten cell phones for for SMS modems.  My
findings with t-mobile were that each phone could send an SMS once a
second.  With ten, using chan_bluetooth, I could send ten SMS per second
using ten phones.  Kannel is very well developed.  Chan_mobile is
incredible.

The same is true with HylaFAX.

Thanks,
Steve T
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20110825/26eb2f82/attachment.htm>