What is Asterisk?

In the following article you can get to know Asterisk, many companies use it as their communication network. Every company needs to communicate within and outside of the company to be more efficient. In the sections below you can read about Asterisk, why it is referred to as pieces of Lego and what it can provide for its users.

The Asterisk is a software-based telephone system (a so called console application that is a computer program: it is used via a text-only interface) and it is a PBX: it actually forms your computer into a communications server. It switches calls, manages routes and also connects callers through the Internet Protocol (IP). You can connect your old Asterisk pbx to Ozeki Phone System that can handle many phoning devices such as smart phones, VoIP phones, soft phones, etc. (Figure 1)

what is asterisk
Figure 1 - What is Asterisk?

The Asterisk is like pieces of Lego. You have several building blocks from which you can create different systems (PBX, IVR etc.). It is usually referred to as a tool-kit.

This kit consists of for example:

  • VoIP protocol drivers
  • call detail recording
  • bridging single and also multi-party calls
  • speech recognition

It is an open-source technology and it can be downloaded from the Internet.

It is mainly used by call centres, different businesses and even governments because with the help of Asterisk you can build up a powerful communication solution so the different organisations can improve their reliability and standards.

Asterisk usually replaces ordinary PBXs and allows users to build new phone systems. Asterisk uses channels, like VoIP that can provide high quality services and it supports different kinds of VoIP protocols (SIP, H.323).

Asterisk Can Provide

It has services that a simple PBX has:

  • IVR
  • conference call
  • voicemail
  • call transfer
  • call forwarding
  • trunking etc.
  • new functionalities can be added to it

Asterisk requires you to have a Linux OS (Operating System) which is a great disadvantage because the update on the system is not easy and the administrative cost is high.

Ozeki Phone System provides the same VoIP services and more on Windows than Asterisk provides on Linux. The difference between the Ozeki Phone System and Asterisk is that Ozeki Phone System has a GUI (Graphical User Interface).

Read the following related pages for further information:

If you became interested in this topic, please watch our video:

What is Asterisk? (Video tutorial)

More information