This is an article I wrote for 2600 magazine that appeared in the issue 22:4 (Winter 2005-2006).

A short introduction to the Asterisk PBX by zeitgeist

Recently I got the chance to work with the Asterisk software. The Asterisk software is an open source PBX (private branche exchange) which is kinda like a swiss army knife if you want to offer VoIP or traidional telephony services or if you want to make a bridge between them.

In this article I want to give a quick overview over the capabilities of the software and help you set up your own Asterisk server purely for VoIP (SIP protocol), connecting the PSTN to the Asterisk box is beyond the scope of this article but is also not too difficult once

General

For years I've been using a very old phone. The W48 (german Wikipedia link). Since I got started with Asterisk I wanted to connect that phone to the Asterisk box and be able to make and receive calls with it, either over VoIP or over the PSTN. One of the main goals however was to only have one phone in order to receive calls so that I don't have two phones standing around or switch between a headset and a phone back and forth.