Timothy C. Hain, MD

Professor of Neurology, Otolaryngology, and Physical Therapy/Human Movement Science, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago IL, USA.

EMAIL ADDRESS: t-hain@northwestern.edu

This space holds helpful information about software and hardware and vendors that Dr. Hain has discovered by trial and error. Perhaps if enough of us do this, searches on these devices or companies will bring up more relevant information.

Asterisk Telephony

1/31/08

Asterisk is a very good idea, but it is not yet appropriate for serious use.

Telephone lines are very expensive, and at some point in a small business one realizes that everyone can't have their own personal telephone line. At this point, one gets a "PBX" -- which is a switch-box-computer that allows you to share your lines with many telephone users, none of which are hopefully all talking at the same time.

Asterisk is an "open source" project, which attempts to use VOIP - -voice over IP, as the methodology of implementing the switch. Telephone conversations are broadcast over the internal internet connection, and telephone-like computers pick out which signal belongs to them.

While the idea sounds good -- I have had just endless problems. Nearly anything that can go wrong with a telephone has. These problems include:

• Terrible connection quality -- that fluctuates depending on the load on ones network !
• Dropped and lost calls on a daily basis
• Terrible telephones that not only break but also crash ! Imagine -- rebooting your telephone !
• When the phone breaks, so does your local internet connection !
• An collection of unmanageable and unworkable management utilities, designed for use by Unix gurus

Asterisk may be fine for a small internet startup trying to save money and with a never-ending source of IT support. It is not a viable system for a small business without these features.