[NBLUG/talk] Linux Telephony - Asterisk PBX - GnoPhone

[Scott Doty]

On Tue, Apr 08, 2003 at 09:07:55AM -0800, Mark Street wrote:
> I just landed a contract for a Napa based company for a small PBX.  I sold 
> them on a Linux box running Asterisk solution with a couple digium telephony 
> cards.  http://asterisk.org  http://www.digium.com
> 
> Any caveats or recommendations from the peanut gallery.

Well, having now successfully associated GnoPhone with an Asterisk PBX
(thanks for the help on that, btw), I do have a comment about the idea...

I don't see any way to get GnoPhone to change codecs.  Seems stuck with that
tu-berlin.de gsm codec -- the quality isn't what I would consider
telephonic.  (More like a bad digital cell phone connection -- there was
also some lag, reminiscent of talking over a satellite.)

You might want to go with something else that supports g.711, like linphone,
which is rumored to work with Asterisk.  However, I haven't had much success
getting linphone to work with Asterisk PBX -- indeed, my current config
segfaults, apparently just after registering with the PBX.  (I've already
emailed their "bugs" contact, no word yet.)

Meanwhile, the SIP phones (which are using g.711) have no distortion, lag,
or jitter.  They sound like an ordinary phone call.  The Cisco ATA186 goes
for $160 and supports two POTS lines.  The cost of the terminals, of course,
are offset by the cost of the PBX -- and I definitely think Asterisk PBX is
the way to go.  It is quite flexible.

 -Scott