How hard is it to set up VOIP with asterisk?

[John Connor]

I was reading about asterisk and it seems overwhelming. I was reading an article on Ars technica that was written back in 2005 and he said I needed CYGWIN. Do they make a Windows version without CYGWIN?

Can someone make a tutorial on how to get this set up? I guess I need an IP phone? IDK.

 

[PliotronX]

I have been working on a project with FreePBX which is essentially a GUI for Asterisk on top of CentOS. Still a PITA; we still haven't gotten a SIP softphone working as of yet but we got a couple of SIP converted Cisco phones to call each other. I can't imagine doing it all via CLI.

 

[Mushkins]

Might I ask why you want to roll your own VOIP solution?

Even closed source VOIP solutions from Cisco/Mitel/Shoretel/etc are not plug and play, all of them require extensive knowledge of voice communications technologies and network engineering to get up and running properly. If you absolutely need to move to VOIP and you dont know the first thing about it, your best bet is to lease a system and pay for support from a vendor who specializes in it.

So to answer your question, not only is a roll your own solution like Asterisk difficult to configure, but there's not really anyone to call for enterprise-level support when something goes wrong. Working it out and fixing it is on you, or you'd need to hire someone familiar with Asterisk and VOIP technologies to do dedicated internal support.

 

[Binky]

Easy, just install VirtualBox, then install "PBX in a flash" in a virtual machine.

http://nerdvittles.com/?p=5844

 

[stinger608]

Easy, just install VirtualBox, then install "PBX in a flash" in a virtual machine.

http://nerdvittles.com/?p=5844

Very interesting to say the least!

Would something like that work for using an OBihai OBi 100 for use as a regular phone system in home?

I currently use Google voice with said adapter however Google voice is about to expire on May 15th. I am looking for an alternative to Google voice prior to expiration.