[viddler id-896b9d1 h-333 w-437]

I started recording this section with John Todd’s slide Multi-Dimensional Niche: Mobile! Open BTS for example is a GSM bay station. This was available to cell phones at Burning Man via the IP side. Calls went out over Asterisk and then to a WIFI trunk and then to a SIP termination provider. Check out more information on telephony at Burning Man on Brad Templeton’s website at http://www.templetons.com/pq/.

Stand-Alone Niches

1. Analog to SIP

2. Failover as core or edge

3. SBC-ish tasks

4. Multi-tenant aggregator

5. Semi-intelligent edge router (E911)

6. H323 to SIP

7. SIP/ISDN to SS7

An asterisk machine goes for $500 with 24 channels… session border controller-ish tasks, hide topology, protocol conversion …

You’ve got to listen to his description of a customer of SIP and ISDN and their success using the latest version of Asterisk with 8.6 million calls in 10 weeks with no down time. Who are the Asterisk-based providers serving? Call centers, calling card platforms overseas, alternative to traditional PBX, They are often a part of the Asterisk developing community. They have hired many of the original developer hackers of the Asterisk community.

Find out why Asterisk is more relevant than ever. Watch the four clips I recorded at ISPCON in San Jose, CA in November 2008.

(My colleagues Anne Tredway and Bryan Coburn and I recorded 50 or so videos of ISPCON participants. ISPCON holds a secret stash of telecommunications intelligentsia. This was the first time we attended, and we look forward to next year.)

[viddler id-87857867 h-333 w-437]

John usually talks to audiences who are very unhappy because they don’t own the network nor have control over QoS, but WISPs and other ISPs attending ISPCON are in control and do own the network. The voice they sell can be as good or bad as they are willing to enable with the power they have.

Asterisk is a viable tool to provide voIP. Often used as a telephony toolkit, as voie application, set of APIs, and PBX. Decide to make the call go over SIP or PRI or SS7 link. The APIs give call control over other interfaces for web 2.0 apps, pre-existing database to make calls out… The PBX is very popular worldwide.

“You’re using Asterisk. You just don’t know it.”

Asterisk experienced more than a million downloads in 2008. Watch the video for more info and stats. This video was recorded by me Suzanne during ISPcon 2008.

If you the ISP or WISP is not using and selling Asterisk-based product, who is? That’s a question Todd posed. I would say, “Someone is. No, many are.”

[viddler id-bb2837a0 h-333 w-437]

This is first of four recordings of John Todd presenting on Asterisk at ISPCON 2008.

“Asterisk is the hammer for all voice nails,” says John. He encourages the audience to be skeptical and test the thoughts and ideas he shares at ISPCON in San Jose, California during 2008.

This if the first of four video recording of John Todd’s talk on Asterisk at ISPCON.