As 2008 comes to a close, PBX in a Flash celebrates its Starting time Ceremony and continues to be the only Asterisk® distro that offers users a choice of Asterisk 1.4 or 1.vi in either 32-bit or 64-bit flavors. In improver, you lot tin can cull our Lean, Hateful Asterisk Automobile or a preconfigured turnkey implementation with every VoIP bell and whistle on the planet. It's all about choice and flexibility, and we offer both. For a preview of coming attractions, see the end of this article or have a look at the screen capture below. But today we hand over the editorial reins to some of our PBX in a Flash users to express in their own words why they chose PBX in a Flash and what their return on investment has been. Nosotros remember you'll be surprised past some of the responses. We certainly were.

You Never Know How Things Will Piece of work Out
During the fourth dimension of PBXIAF 1.0, I had been working with Trixbox for about 6 months. By the time PBXIAF 1.1 came out, I had learned enough nearly the way Trixbox can't be updated to develop a salubrious appreciation for the PBXIAF "compile on site, update as prudent" approach.

I happen to exist a techno-nut -– but that notwithstanding, our small business was experiencing telephonic growing pains. After 7 years in business, an opportunity to aggrandize our individual label help desk production was easily ready to overrun the terrible copper lines we had for telephone service.

Since it was obvious VoIP was the simply way to go – nosotros began to explore what was out there. Vonage was riding high, Packet8 and many other competitors all got us around the limited copper into the office, each i we looked at had their own special quirks. All of them were using analog telephone adapters (ATAs) and either regular or slightly customized Analog phones.

We began a year of exploration that started with the BigGreenBox – hoping to learn plenty nearly VoIP and this foreign beast called FreePBX to be able to utilize it. Simply, with time marching on, Packet8's Virtual Office production was selected, and put into apply in a 10-phone system.

Although pretty much always under development, the spider web application that was provided was a little twisted, only worked once you got over its way of looking at call flow – rudimentary band groups could be arranged in such a style as to simulate queues provided nor more than 8-10 callers were on hold. And so it went for a skillful year. We definitely used all our creativity to connect diverse IVR'southward ($xv/calendar month each) to give the caller a good experience, but we were already conspicuously operating at the very limits of flexibility and capacity for the Packet8 organization.

The boilerplate telephone bill during this period was approximately $380 per month (near 1/3 of what copper lines had price) and almost zippo in hardware ($1,000 in proprietary telephones and ATAs).

And then the balance was broken when Packet8 rather arbitrarily stopped supporting a type of IVR transfer that was crucial to our work flow. At the aforementioned moment, the unthinkable happened. The assist desk grew a little more. Less flexibility + fifty-fifty more than demands for not-achievable phone call flow changes was the death knell for Packet8 at our role.

During this same time we had deployed several ISOs of the GreenBox in the lab and with field technicians….Several ISO'south! In a very curt time. So many ISO's, so fast – and a consummate reinstall to go with each one. Yikes. Information technology had become apparent to me that my career would of a sudden change from network technology to "PBX Upgrade and Reconfigure Monkey" if we deployed that distribution. Also – the forums were unproductive and negative much of the time. There are means to disagree and still remain civil. Then, I rediscovered Nerd Vittles. This was virtually the time PBXIAF 1.1 was released.

The difference in the surroundings and team spirit – even when disagreements occurred – is very palatable. The community is full of people who are so wonderfully giving of their feel. The difference in the distributions – well- they tin can be summed up in nearly half dozen words. Ward Mundy, Tom King, and Joe Roper.

This trio has brought together a remarkable set of skills and disciplines that produced a actually, really good distribution, not solely RPM-based and so knuckleheads like me can follow simpler instructions. [Asterisk lawmaking is] updated and compiled right on the box – and fully scripted. Security flaws become stock-still in hours – sometimes minutes (when they find them – at that place's been so FEW), not DAYS like the other guys. And all of it is based on FreePBX, arguably the most evolved UI for managing Asterisk.

Together – they got stability, reliability, and repeatability, and decorated information technology with enough solid features and functions to be a platform whose feature-role-benefit points are all top notch. Linux, Asterisk, Mysql, Apache, Text to Speech communication (ii different flavors), Voice Reminders, Wake Up Calls, Atmospheric condition Reports, Tide Reports, Electronic mail by Phone, Headline News by Phone, and scripts that make it all go together just the mode it needs to be: "stable and reliable".

PBX In a Wink is a gift – an opportunity for our technical staff to acquire a new area of our field, with the camaraderie of some genuine experts in the arena. Nosotros are 8 people, doing the work of 12 – just like a one thousand thousand small businesses. As an old network guy – learning a new skill has been tremendously exhilarating. And this technology is so flexible that I'm continually exhilarated learning new things… and for a long time to come! The professional growth has been keen for all of united states of america.

Now, the money. Way back up in the pinnacle of this [mail], I told y'all the telephone pecker with Packet8 was on a good month $380 with barely the [functionality] needed to practise our professional best.

Today, thanks to PBXIAF, we run 6 queues every 24-hour interval, with tremendous customer and client satisfaction. We employ every part of the organization to provide our customers with the best telephone interaction experience they could get anywhere. While handling virtually 10% more traffic, and with far superior call handling and work catamenia back up, our average phone bill is $120 month.

Hither's the good part. With the $260 a month being saved, the company was able to afford to bring in grouping medical insurance for all our employees. How'south that for positively impacting viii people every single twenty-four hours of their lives?

Ward, Tom, Joe – I could never have washed information technology without you.

–tshif

And so there was this testimonial from a venue that all of us are thinking virtually these days:

Our small public middle school in Washington, DC has to make every penny count. I'm in charge of our engineering science and its meager budget. This by summer nosotros moved to a new and bigger building and needed to migrate our phone system. Nosotros had an existing NEC Aspire system with 15 extensions that worked but fine – zilch fancy – and it hooked upwardly to a single POTS line.

At the new building nosotros needed to double the size to xxx extensions. As the Aspire organisation used VOIP, information technology should merely be a matter of buying the handsets and a little labor to configure them. Right? [Wrong!] $17,000 is what they wanted to hook up the existing equipment that we moved over and add the 15 new extensions. My response: "Hell no!"

I'd wanted an excuse to setup an Asterisk server for a while, simply I had heard how complicated it was. School was shut to opening. I had a lot of other things to take care of. And I needed a solution that would most probable work the first time. I found PiaF and then read up on the wiki and Nerd Vittles. I ordered a ready of Aastra 57i'due south and a used Dell PowerEdge 2650. We decided to go "pure VOIP" for flexibility and signed up with Vitelity.com.

I followed the keen pace-by-step directions for PiaF. I wanted to set mine up inside a Virtual Machine which added some complication, just I found lots of helpful users in the forums that had documented their experiences before me.

Now we're 5 months in. The system has more capabilities than our old NECs. The sound quality is better, and it's easier to use. I had some problems with my server crashing, but I was able to rebuild information technology on unlike hardware and transfer our unabridged configuration in about an hour. Now everything is groovy. I honey that nosotros're implementing more open source tools, open standards, and aren't express to vendor BS when we're ready to expand. Other schools thought nosotros were "crazy" to setup our own organization. Now they desire all the details to try and do information technology themselves.

The best part, of course, is that our whole setup was nether $7K. That's a $10,000 savings. To translate that with regards to the schoolhouse, that savings allowed united states to buy and set upwards four desktop machines in each of x classrooms. At present THAT is making a difference.

Thanks to the PiaF team and community!

–jcasimir

And and so there's this i:

TODAY I TOOK CONTROL OF MY VOIP…..

I've been a happy VOIP user for 4 years running on Vonage. Fifty-fifty got my son hooked up on Vonage while he was in the Ground forces stationed in Japan. Merely, when the lawsuits loomed over Vonage'due south head, I started looking for something else, and I found Nerd Vittles. WOW! Being kind of a gadget junkie to start with and e'er looking for something interesting to do with my PCs, I started with Trixbox from Ward'southward "build" and fumbled along. When PIAF came along I naturally followed.

I have 2 important successes that have made me love this VOIP/PIAF stuff.

1) When my grandson was diagnosed with a heart condition my daughter and her husband were stuck in hospital emergency rooms for hours at a time. Beingness well-nigh 500 miles from both our family and the other grandparents, they had a very difficult time getting news out to u.s. since hospitals usually restrict the utilize of cell phones and don't allow long distance calls from their phones. That only leaves (yuck!) pay phones. In just a few minutes time, I was able to buy a local DID to the hospital and connect it to my PIAF. I then gear up upwardly an IVR that gave them access to a DISA. That way they could telephone call us using a local number or call through the DISA to contact the other grandparents. Keeping anybody informed actually eases your mind when the grandkids are ill!

ii) When I got tired of my wife continuing to ask me for telephone numbers when calling our family and friends, I finally decided to set up up an IVR for her. And then far, both of our kids' dwelling and cell numbers (as well as my cell number) have kept her happy. When she asks for more I'll just add them. So far the "Wife Credence Factor" is high and I'thou having great fun. Hanging upward on recognized telemarketers is great, the Callerid Superfecta works corking, and I similar getting the Weather Forecast from Allison.

The port from Vonage was completed today. I'm using Future-Nine every bit my primary provider. So, like I said, today is the day I took control of my VOIP.

–jeffmac

And, speaking of role reversal…

PIAF to the Rescue!!

Here is a twist for yous.

First, the trouble:

My company has a ShoreTel arrangement in place, 48 extensions. They have 2 PRI's bonded together with dynamic aqueduct allocation. Eight channels are dedicated to the phones, the rest to the Internet. When we have more calls than 8, the system robs channels from the Cyberspace, upward to 23 channels max, and returns them as the phone call book drops. This all works well.

Monday, a pole a few blocks from our office had the transformer catch burn, and the provider's equipment was afflicted. We lost both Net and phones for several hours. Much of our business is time disquisitional. With no incoming phone calls and no e-mail, we most lost out on a take chances to bid on a VERY large deal. Fortunately, the client knew the L.A. branch number and afterward being unable to get in bear upon with us, he called L.A.

Anyhow, now it is critical to management that this NEVER happen again.

The Solution:

Tuesday: I studied the consequence and wrote a proposal.

Wednesday: I fired up a PIAF box, established a ten aqueduct SIP trunk grouping to the ShoreTel system, and got everything setup for intersystem routing, etc.

Thursday: I am picking up a pay-equally-you lot-get service with 10 channels from a VOIP provider with a single DID and setting our Telco service for failover/rollover to the VOIP DID. I am then ordering a second Internet excursion, 2meg ten 2meg, to bring in the SIP trunks from the provider. As presently as that is done, I volition dual-abode the postal service server so that nosotros can get and send email via both Internet providers.

The Cease Result:

If the primary connection fails, phone service rolls over to the DID from the VOIP provider, rolls into PIAF, and cross trunks to the ShoreTel – AUTOMATICALLY!! Email switches to the secondary MX tape and keeps right on rolling. One modify in the firewall for the public NAT address and gateway and Internet [and phone service] is support and running.

Thank Y'all Ward, Tom, Joe and gang for making this possible.

–Greg Keys

And, last merely non least…

Y'all made my Grandma Cry!

My married woman and I are currently living in Germany, and nosotros've been using a Skype-In number and then our friends and family tin call us. For my wife it is important that the solution but works like a regular phone and so I had setup a Siemens M34 to interface with our DECT telephone and it worked, mostly, for a few days until the entire system needed to be restarted. For near of our family, this solution works. Just my grandmother is living in a different expanse code and can't afford to call united states of america as often as she would similar.

I stumbled upon the PBX in a Wink projection a few weeks agone and, later I constitute two quondam Grandstream GXP-2000 in the company junk closet (we are an Internet startup – someone is e'er buying new toys), I installed PiaF 1.2 using VMWare. I set up up a Vitelity DID, the CallerID Superfecta, the Callerid Creep Detector, experimented with band groups, routing, IVRs and was so impressed that I knew our Skype-solution days were numbered.

Last night, I took the plunge, reformatted the Skype system, and deployed PiaF 1.three. The install was so fast and painless. I copied the old configuration information into the new arrangement. And, my new PBX was up and running in nether and hour.

I had and then much time left on my hands that I figured I might as well experiment. I followed another Nerd Vittles tutorial and created a few cell phone extensions for my family dorsum in the states. I went to Vitelity and purchased some other DID. I recorded a quick message, setup an IVR, and a new corresponding route. That'south when the fun started.

I chosen my grandmother and told her: "Grandma, we've got a new telephone number. Will you please phone call me right dorsum at…". She was a picayune surprised when I told her that the number was at present going to exist a local call for her. The real surprise came when she called the number and heard, "Hi Grandma, welcome to your telephone system. For Martin and Ashlee, please printing 1, for Rachel please printing ii,…". By the time she pressed 1 and Asterisk was ringing our home band group, she was in tears.

We talked for quite a while nearly our lives, the Olympics, the hurricane, and everything else. This morning when I got upwardly, I checked the telephone call logs and saw that she had systematically called every single IVR point subsequently we got off the telephone.

I didn't deploy PiaF equally a mission-critical business organization application yesterday–though that day will come up for me, but I did what the open-source Internet ideology is all near in my mind. I used the knowledge and experience others have gifted the community to create a solution that fit my situation.

Thank you Again, PiaF Squad, from the bottom of my centre!

–Martin Modahl

For those of you that withal need a New Yr's Resolution, we hope our fans accept given you lot some ideas. And, when my wife again asks why I continue to work for five¢ an hr, I've got something bully for her to read.

Thank you, everybody. You've fabricated information technology all worthwhile.

Want a Bootable PBX in a Flash Drive? Early in 2009 to celebrate the offset of Nerd Vittles' 5th Year, we'll be introducing our bootable USB flash installer for PBX in a Flash with all of the goodies in the VPN in a Wink organisation featured a few weeks ago on Nerd Vittles. Yous can build a complete turnkey system using most whatever electric current generation PC with a SATA drive and our wink installer in less than 15 minutes!

If you'd similar to put your name in the hat for a chance to win a costless one delivered to your door, just post a comment below with your best PBX in a Flash story.1

Be sure to include your real e-mail address which will not be posted. The winner will be chosen by cartoon an electronic mail accost out of a lid (the old fashioned way!) from all of the comments posted over the next couple weeks. All of the individuals whose comments were used in today'due south story will automatically be included in the cartoon also. Good luck to everyone and Happy New year!!

Nerd Vittles Fan Club Map. We promise you'll take a second and add together yourself to our Frappr World Map. In making your entry, yous can choose an icon: guy, gal, nerd, or geek. For those that don't know the deviation in the terminal ii, hither's the best definition we've constitute: "a nerd is very similar to a geek, only with more RAM and a faster modem." Nosotros're always looking for the all-time BBQ joints on the planet. Then, if you know of 1, add information technology to the map while you're visiting.

Special Thank you to Our Generous Sponsors

FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX take provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertizing, referral acquirement, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Acquaintance and All-time Purchase Chapter, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We've called these providers not the other manner around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding engineering science are reached without regard to fiscal compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are bachelor from multiple sources. In this limited case, we back up our sponsors considering our sponsors support us.

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Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time existence. Our special cheers to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep anybody posted on further developments.

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