AboutMatt Blecha Expertise I can answer questions pertaining to most Linux daemons, Apache, Sendmail, SpamAssassin, vsftpd, Asterisk and others. I do not deal with Qmail, Postfix, or other MTAs, and have minimal experience with Procmail. I am very in depth with Samba and Linux/Windows integration and Asterisk based PBX systems. I also have considerable experience in both PHP and MySQL (installation, administration, and programming of both.) I am also considerably familiar with kernel systems, and networking stacks.
Experience I've been working primarily with Linux since 1994. I have worked with various different flavors, starting with Slackware in High School, and moving to RedHat during my senior year. Deciding that my experience probably outweighs most of the RedHat support people, I decided to go with the Fedora branch when RedHat decided to close RHEL and release Fedora Core.
Education/Credentials Though I have no official education in Linux, I have spent approximately, 12 years administrating Linux and continuing to widen my knowledge.
Expert: Matt Blecha Date: 7/3/2008 Subject: Starting a voIP
Question Hi my name is walter. I am a fresh high school graduate who is doing an internship with a tech company.
My big job for the summer is looking up how to start an voIP phone system for the company, using a server and asterisk. I have a reference book for asterisk, but currently i am afraid that the material is above my understanding.
I know this is a big task, and i wouldnt imagine asking you to tell me how to do it, but if you could give a point in the right direction.
My job isnt to create it on my own, but to figure out a general idea how to do it, how much it would cost compared to having a company like Cisco set one up and lastly ease of implentation.
Thanks in advance. Any amount of information would be appreciated.
Answer Walter,
Actually, you've come to the right place! The company I own manufactures an Asterisk based PBX, so myself and several of my people are quite in depth with Asterisk. I'd be more than happy to help you out whenever you've got an Asterisk question.
If done properly, Asterisk can be an entertaining, cheap and extremely reliable PBX solution.
The first thing I would suggest is to find and obtain a copy of "Asterisk: The Future of Telephony." The beginning is a really good read and will give you some good information about VoIP. The last bit of it is a slightly outdated --but still useful-- application reference.
The second thing I recommend is picking good phones, otherwise troubleshooting issues, audio quality and features can really suck. We recommend, in order of preference, Aastra Telecom, Cisco, and Polycom. Stay away from Grandstream, Swissvoice, Fanstel, Linksys or Snom. Most of them are okay phones, but they don't have well rounded products, are too young in the industry to have a mature product or simply make a really lousy phone because it's not their primary business.
The third thing I would suggest is to shoot me a private question and I'll be happy to give you other ways to contact me.
If you'd like, I can also provide you with a preconfigured disk image containing Asterisk, the Realtime database setup and some useful applications as well as a base configuration that will work with most VoIP proviers out there that will get you well on your way.
Good luck with your VoIP endeavor and I look forward to hearing from you again!
