Asterisk is an Open Source application, released under the GNU Public License (GPL), providing all the functions of a standard PBX and more. It can be installed with a Web interface (FreePBX) allowing the management of all the telephony features in an user friendly way. With Asterisk your PBX is no more a closed black box, but a set of open telephony features that can be managed and customized very easily.

Advantages

All too often the telephony is a big source of headaches: it is difficult to control and reduce its cost, it is complicated to change the configuration of the PBX, it is impossible or costly to grow in capacity. If our phone is busy or doesn't answer, we are giving a bad image to the caller and we lose opportunities. Asterisk provides a set of functions that equal or even surpass the most advanced PBXs in the market, at a much lower cost. Some of the advantages provided by Asterisk:

• High flexibility: from SME to big corporate environments
• Full scalability: we don't have to pay for proprietary modules in order to expand capability
• Easy integration with the existing infrastructure, such as CRM and old PBXs
• Total integration between old telephony and Voice over IP (VoIP)
• Availability of software modules to add new functions
• Programmable: new custom functions can be added
• Support for the current VoIP standards
• Usage of standard computer as PBX

Serveis

Clarcat provides all the services to deploy and operate an Asterisk PBX to its full potential:

• Design of the optimal phone + PBX configuration
• Installation, configuration and tunning
• Suport, maintenance and training

Funcions

Asterisk includes many functions and new functions can be added by installing optional software modules. The most common functions are:

• Digital receptionist (IVR)
• Personal Voice mailbox with notification via email
• Conferences
• Queue management
• Automatic answering machine, with time programming
• Flexible distribution of incoming and outgoing calls
• Full scalability of lines and extensions
• Can be used with traditional phones or VoIP phones
• Fax reception and routing
• Full integration of fixed, mobile and VoIP telephony
• Integration of the telephony with the information systems and data network

Applications

Voice over IP is the technology that allows voice transmission using the data layer as transport. We can forget about the old telephony cabling, separated from the data network: with Asterisk only one cabling is needed, sharing voice and data. Asterisk allows to link different sites at a cost near zero and to have several telephony gateways (to GSM or to VoIP for international calls) at a cost much lower than conventional PBX solutions.

Asterisk uses Linux as the underlying operating system and can be adapted to meet a wide range of requirements, from a simple corporate PBX to a high availability system. Three common applications of Asterisk follow:

Corporate PBX

Asterisk acts as the corporate PBX. By connecting the telephone lines and the data network, Asterisk provides a complete PBX with services: personal and group voice mailboxes, notification via email, call recording, functions do not disturb and office closed, call rerouting (on busy, not answer or unconditional), privileges per extension number, digital receptionist (IVR), multiconference, time filter, call routing and connection to external VoIP providers and more.
Besides providing all the functions of a traditional PBX, the user can start a call from the address book of Outlook and other mail clients, access to her voice messages and list of calls from a browser and have a full integration with SugarCRM.

Full Helpdesk system

Asterisk can be used to build a fully functional HelpDesk environment thanks to its support for ACD queues. Queues can be accessed according to the dialed number, music and wait messages can be customized per queue as well as black and preference lists, support for dynamic agents and statics and more.

High availability environment

For mission critical systems, continued operation can be guaranteed in case of hardware malfunction or non availability of digital links thanks to the cluster functions in Linux and special hardware to control the lines.

Technical features