PBX in a Flash

PBX in a Flash – The best PBX on the Planet. (and its Free and Open Source)

Info – here

In 1999 a very smart man called Mark Spencer created a software based PBX. This code opened the floodgates for hobbyists and VAR’s to implement this technology with proprietary hardware – phones, PC based appliances, PSTN interface cards and gateways, GUI’s and management portals. At that time IP telephony was for Telco’s, US military and large corporates only and beyond the reach of the average person or IT / Telephony hobbyist who more than likely worked for a Telco or IT company and had experience in the Telecommunications industry.

Asterisk itself at that time and to a point presently, was a little hard to install and use successfully unless you spent a lot of time reading up on it and had some command line experience. It also ran natively on Linux and at that time only hardcore geeks and programmers really grasped the Linux thing while the rest of us were mainly windows people. So you had to get your head around Telephony and Linux, which understandably involved some steep learning curves for most of us. Because of this, at some point, some other very smart people who donated their time and efforts (the Open Source way) decided to combine asterisk with some other software to create a package that ordinary people could use, enter Asterisk @ Home, info – here

“Asterisk @ Home was created to make installing Asterisk easier. Experimenting with Asterisk should be fun and not take hours or days to set up”

I got involved with Asterisk @ Home when it was about version 0.9 and stayed with it until 1.5 and learnt a heck of a lot along the way, initially installing it on small form factor Compaq boxes with analogue Digium TDM400 PCI cards and some cheap  IP phones and standard DECT cordless phones. Installing it in my home and using it for my home based business was a natural progression, although not without a few headaches along the way and some complaints from my wife and friends. Eventually Asterisk @ Home turned into Trixbox and from that point on some of the open source community noticed some changes taking place that weren’t entirely in the spirit of the Open Source community, plus also the software had turned into a bit of a monster. Some other very smart people decided to make their own asterisk based distributions in the mold of the original Asterisk @ Home but with some changes. Enter PBX in a Flash. (PIAF) is one of these and is what we have used for our company for over 6 years now.

As a project it is as simple as it is complex – all of the hard work has been done, even down to hardware compatibility, free add on software, an excellent administrative GUI – FreePBX , free PC based phones, connection to free service providers for calls, connecting remote offices, built in reporting software, Operator GUI options, the distribution now runs on windows, linux and Mac - its quite hard to believe that you can create a business grade Telephone System for nothing – yes thats FREE.

We all know there are no free lunches, so if you want to play with this technology you will eventually have to spend some money on hardware, depending on what you want to do. In some countries, people have made a business out of installing this software for other businesses – us included – to use as their PBX system. This requires a good background in a lot of different things – Telephony hardware and protocols, Computer hardware, networking and protocols, programming skills, routing and firewall technologies , voip and a lot of common sense.

Unfortunately some companies have made the mistake of using cheap hardware and not complying to some fundamental computer networking and telephony best practices, resulting in some very poor installations and support. This has resulted in a perception from some business sectors that certain free Open Source technologies are not very good and shouldn’t be trusted. We use, sell and support this software ourselves as well as installing commercial big name telephony solutions from huge global companies because that’s the business we are in – you can’t fairly compare PIAF to the likes of Cisco or Avaya for good reasons but the Open Source community and PIAF does offer a free package for you to build your own system with functionality similar to the big guns. I can say from experience that there is possibly no better starting place for learning about a whole lot of technical disciplines in industries that really need good people with basic fundamental skills then by experimenting with this software.

If you want to experiment then lets start.

Basic things to know

  • PIAF (PBX in a Flash) can be freely downloaded and will run on various hardware like a standard pc as a stand alone box or as a virtual server on a server specification hardware.
  • Cheap hardware and phones will always just be that – cheap. Fine for learning only.
  • You will need to be reasonably computer literate with an understanding of networking and various hardware and software terms and functionality. Its a real bonus if you have telephony skills and know about phones or PBX’s.

What will you need ?

  • If you want to spend nothing, then go and read up on everything - here
  • If you want to push the boat out a little bit and connect to the PSTN and have an existing PC that you can use just for this purpose, look at purchasing one of these – here . There are cheaper and other brand alternatives but these just work and they have an echo cancellation option. You will need 1 x FXO module for an analogue telephone line and 1 x FXS module for a standard analogue phone. Google around for a TDM400 as pictured on the right, they don’t have the hardware echo cancellation option but still work well and you may be able to find them cheaper on Trade Me or similar.
  • If mucking around with PCI cards isn’t your thing then get a gateway – Linksys SPA400 FXO gateways work well or you can get Paton or Grandstream in varying combinations of FXO and FXS. Also an ATA (Analogue telephone adaptor) is fine for standard phones, Linksys make some good ones and we use the PAP2′s.
  • I recommend you use a standalone PC to get started even though you can set up a virtual server. If you don’t have a PC you can use then try the likes of Trade Me or Google around for an ex-lease machine. It doesn’t need an OS as you are going to install one. Get one with a reasonable processor, a spare PCI slot, CDROM drive and as much RAM as you can afford. Spend $200 – $250 or so. Check to make sure the PCI card is compatible with the PC you are using – is it standard PCI or PCI express ?
  • If you use a Digium TDM400 card in one of the PCI slots then you will need to power the FXS module. They take 3.3v or 5v from memory – check first. You will need a power splitter cable, get one from – here
  • Download and burn the ISO image from – here – to disc. (Check and see which version you want first)
  • A standard phone, cordless or fax machine. Or if you want to purchase an IP phone look at the Linksys SPA series for good starter hardware.
  • If you want a great IP phone then get a Cisco 7971. The 7912, 7940 and 7960 are also good phones to use - we use them as well.
  • How about a video phone ? We can recommend the Nortel 1535 videophones.

What to do ?

Whats next ?

  • If you have got this far – pat yourself on the back.
  • A lot depends on what you want to do – If you want to use it for your home then everything above would suffice. If you want to use it for a small business then its really just a matter of scaling the hardware mentioned above to suit the situation.
  • If you are here in NZ and using ISDN, then you would be better to look at a different kind of PCI card or use a suitable gateway. We have used the Epygi ISDN units for BRI installations and the Linksys SPA400 for analogue connections.
  • If you are going to stick with a PC based system then you need to consider a raid set up for a business or even an appliance based system with no physical hard drive. A hosted solution would work fine depending on how you scale it.
  • Phones - we use Cisco IP Phones because they work very well and are very good quality, that doesn’t mean they are easy to set up or cheap, but if you have got this far you will know of the alternatives out there. PC based clients are getting to be mainstream now but you will never beat a good desk/wall phone or cordless handset.
  • As time goes by there are more options for connectivity to the PSTN (Telecom, Telstra) networks here in NZ with providers offering SIP trunks and DDI’s delivered over broadband so that you can have a mixture of fixed line, Digital or IP lines, Cellular and SMS access, WiFi, even connectivity to other internet based networks like Google Talk, Skype, Twitter and the like.
  • WiFi access is a reality but using your cellular phone as your only handset may not suit and also opens up potential costs and handset integration issues. The technology works fine as we have found with an old Nokia N80, but some cellular manufacturers aren’t including WiFi or specifically a SIP client with new phones for commercial reasons. Also WiFi isn’t as big here in NZ as it is in the US or Europe.
  • QOS – Quality of Service will be an issue if you are sharing an internet connection for voice and data and have a multi site environment. If you can afford it use a dedicated circuit just for voice – ADSL2 here in NZ is fine if you are on full up and full down. If you can’t, get a router that supports traffic shaping or QOS. On corporate environments you can get the WAN service provider to provide QOS.
  • QOS issues can also surface on your local LAN, check your switches, AP’s and preferably use separate equipment for voice. This is OK in a small network like at home but on a large network you will need allow for switches with VLAN capability and possibly PoE depending on your handsets.
  • The major Telcos here in this country still have a monopoly and continue to do thier own thing – at our cost. Have a look at this article – here and others throughout this site.

Any questions, just get in touch.