FreePBX ?

T

tangoseal

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What exactly is it?

And do you have to pay money to still use telephony when using it?

Or is truly free?
 
technically, freepbx is just a GUI web front-end for asterisk, which is FOSS telephony software...

freepbx is also free and open source but is sort of organized under Bandwidth.com, but they keep a hands off approach to it...

together, freepbx+asterisk+linux(and variants)+pc/server hardware make up a PBX (wiki) basically a phone system out of a computer

from there you can add phones (using standards a lot of PBXs use nowadays) or even softphones (phones running as software on any network connected device) to connect to the PBX via your network, or... adapters to interface with analog equipment...

by itself it doesn't offer free phone calls through a normal 7/9 digit POTS number until you add service from a service provider... whether it be a ITSP (internet telephony service provider) through like SIP trunks, or analog, through T1s or just plain standalone phone numbers (with adapters, like network gateways or add-in PCI(e) cards...)
 
So basically it allows you full control of a telephony system without the high fees and associated cost such as Shortel, Nortel, Comcast, ATT PBX services etc....

But in the end of the day you still have to pay for the POTS or VOIP line (number) in the end of the day I assume?

Thanks... sounds great if you wanted a very low to no cost full control telephony system for a small business.
 
tangoseal said:
So basically it allows you full control of a telephony system without the high fees and associated cost such as Shortel, Nortel, Comcast, ATT PBX services etc....

But in the end of the day you still have to pay for the POTS or VOIP line (number) in the end of the day I assume?

Thanks... sounds great if you wanted a very low to no cost full control telephony system for a small business.
Click to expand...

pretty much...

there are ways of interfacing google voice as an ITSP though for example... i don't know that i'd call that "free" but it's a no-cost solution if you're willing to deal with the issues associated...
 
As Goodcooper said, FreePBX is just the web-based front end configuration engine for Asterisk ( althought I seem to remember a fork working on integration with FreeSwitch as well). FreePBX would be installed on top of a properly installed and compiled Asterisk installation. Typically what more users do is find one of the MANY AIO self configuring distros out there combining the major PBX features with Asterisk as the core, FreePBX as the config engine, SugarCRM and a host of other features and customizations.

Just a few of the major distros:
Trixbox (the evolution of the original Asterisk@Home)
Elastix
AsteriskNow
PBXinAFlash (My personal favorite, if nothing else the author has some WONDERFUL scripts available on the site, and the community is fairly active as well)

Basic parts that you'd need to build a your first starter system. (Yes I know there are other possibilities, but this meant as a learning system design.)

* SIP-compliant IP Phone (Hard phone of soft phone) I'd start with a cheap used Grandstream phone to test with and the free 3CX soft phone
* A Box with at least 512mb ram (Can be virtual, but for inital learning purposes I'd use a physical) The baby Atom-based book-PCs work great.
* Asterisk distro
* Some interface to the outside world. As mentioned earlier in the thread, can be an analog phone line in which case you'll need an FXO card to allow access to the phone line. Or you can create a SIP connection to an outside ITSP for CHEAP calling. My favorites are Voip.ms and Vitelity. Both have good configuration help on their website and can offer Local phone #'s as well.

Some common gotchas: Dialplans, Dialplans, and Dialplans.
More to come as I get some downtime at work.





This topic really ought to be a sticky :D
 
also on the discussions of distros, the FreePBX distro is sort of becoming the de-facto standard... it's what i use...

trixbox is dying or dead... the only ones i would suggest are PBX in a flash or the FreePBX distro...
 
Good point about Trixbox. Seemed like Fonality REALLY did everything they could to piss off the users. I just listed it because of the name-recognition.
 
I still run Trix in a VM and have done for a long long time now. Was quite surprised when I went to look up an issue I was having not long ago and found on the forums, people who previously were very involved basically saying it was dead :(

Sad times. Will be trying out FreePBX next if I need to redo it.

I've used various Cisco, Swissvoice and Mitel hardphones with mine, along with Linksys PAP2 ATA. For outside lines I use SipGate :) Very few problems with them over the years.
 
NickTheSloth said:
I still run Trix in a VM and have done for a long long time now. Was quite surprised when I went to look up an issue I was having not long ago and found on the forums, people who previously were very involved basically saying it was dead :(

Sad times. Will be trying out FreePBX next if I need to redo it.

I've used various Cisco, Swissvoice and Mitel hardphones with mine, along with Linksys PAP2 ATA. For outside lines I use SipGate :) Very few problems with them over the years.
Click to expand...

Yealink phones are good :) love mine with freepbx..
 
I run IncrediblePBX at home, and love it. It's an add on for FreePBX. I've got 5 google voice accounts on it, 2 SIP trunks and 14 extensions total (thanks to site-to-site VPN and some friends).

That being said, google voice is not all that reliable for inbound calls, even though it is free.

I have had 0 downtime with IncrediblePBX, it never crashes or gives me any trouble. Get a VOiP provider and run SIP trunks and you'll love it.

Another good thing about IncridblePBX is that you don't have to have ANY ports routed to the machine and open to the outside world. It's awesome.
 
They don't look at all similar.... do they? :rolleyes:

They may be great, but to me they look like cheap knock offs. I'm not in the market for a new phone, but if I were, I'd be dubious of them.
 
they look no more like a cisco phone than an aastra, polycom, grandstream does... i tested A LOT of phones and was almost settled on the 504G until i tested the T22/26, they're perfect, and the 26 is fantastic because MOAR BUTTONS... they integrate with asterisk a lot better than the cisco's do too, naturally...

i've set my xml based company-wide phone book up on it as well, it's quite snazzy.... HD audio is very nice... i will say the polycom's sounded EVEN BETTER, and the 504G does have a slightly better speakerphone...

but the yealink's are great phones for the money (they're great phones full stop), and when i asked a die hard aastra fan why he didn't like them i got some BS excuse about how the power supplies on them don't last...

mmmmmm ok....

the yealinks were just the total package when i was out looking for phones
 
So you're telling me the T28 doesn't look anything at all like a 7960/61/62/whatever they're on now?

Like I said, they may be great at what they do, I won't dispute that until using one myself.
 
MikeTrike got me hooked on them, i love my phone it's awesome. Upgraded the firmware its nice phone for sure. I used my china 48V POE and it works perfectly..
 
NickTheSloth said:
So you're telling me the T28 doesn't look anything at all like a 7960/61/62/whatever they're on now?

Like I said, they may be great at what they do, I won't dispute that until using one myself.
Click to expand...

there are some similarities for sure, but the softkeys and the line buttons are sort of ubiquitous anymore... imo...
 
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