Patrick’s Blog(2)

The FreePBX project has released version 2.3. This release fixes more than 250 bugs in 2.3 and earlier releases. It is also the first release to support Asterisk 1.4. Read more about FreePBX here and download FreePBX here

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer of monkey dance fame showed an interesting little gadget at the 3GSM show in Barcelona. A Skype like VoIP application on a mobile phone running some Microsoft OS that uses WiFi to make free VoIP calls using the Internet. Read more at TheBusinessOnline.com.

So you have figured out too that after a long conversation on a GSM phone your listening ear starts getting hot and you feel like your head is in the microwave? It’s time to be able to have a conversation without having to hold the GSM phone to your ear, use a wired headset or even a bluetooth headset. The bluetooth headset would be fine but just isn’t cool enough since it doesn’t do anything with the VoIP part in the title of this article :)

So what’s the solution? How about a server running on Linux (you know Microsoft’s worst nightmare) and the Asterisk Open Source IP PBX. The secret sauce is that you need a GSM phone with Bluetooth support and the cool chan_bluetooth module from Theo Zourzouvillys. It is unlcear at this point if Theo is still developing the module but in good community spirit someone else has already picked up where Theo has (temporarily) left off. David Woodhouse of Red Hat has been adding code and collecting fixes in his own up2date chan_bluetooth cvs tree over at infradead.org. First get David’s latest code by checking it out from cvs:
cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs at cvs.infradead.org:/home/cvs login
(password is ‘anoncvs’)
cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs at cvs.infradead.org:/home/cvs co chan_bluetooth

Make sure you use Asterisk from cvs HEAD and then build and install chan_bluetooth. The config files are pretty self explanatory. Enjoy!

Voice over IP (VoIP) is an innovative and disruptive technology that has matured quite a bit over the last couple of years. But, as is usual in telecommunications, it comes at a price. Or not? Thanks to Digium there is the Asterisk Open Source PBX that will allow you to trial VoIP without the considerable investment that comes with solutions from vendors like Cisco. For a test setup all you need is a decent PC (Pentium III will do) with Linux, the Asterisk software and a soft- or hardphone. The Firefly softphone is quite popular and runs on Windows. The Polycom SoundPoint phones (model IP300, IP500 and IP600) are very popular given their attractive price and wealth of features. You can find a mirror of the Asterisk software here. If you would like to discuss a VoIP implementation based on Asterisk then do give us a call.

Thought I share this little gem with you. Given the industry’s uptake of Voice over IP as usual the level of cluelessness will rise significantly. Anyone who has been involved in VoIP or any other emerging technology can attest to that. So enjoy!