Chapter 1. A Telephony Revolution
It does not require a
majority to prevail,
but rather an irate, tireless minority
keen to set brush fires in people's minds.
Samuel Adams
An incredible revolution is under way. It has
been a long time in coming, but now that it has started, there will
be no stopping it. It is taking place in an area of technology that
has lapsed embarrassingly far behind every other industry that
calls itself high-tech. The industry is telecommunications, and the
revolution is being fueled by an open source Private Branch
eXchange (PBX) called AsteriskTM.
Telecommunications is arguably the last major
electronics industry that has (until now) remained untouched by the
open source revolution. Major telecommunications manufacturers
still build ridiculously expensive, incompatible systems, running
complicated, ancient code on impressively engineered yet obsolete
hardware.
As an example, Nortel's Business Communications
Manager kludges together a Windows NT 4.0 server, a 15-year-old
VXWorks-based Key Telephone Switch, and a 700-MHz PC. All this can
be yours for between 5 and 15 thousand dollars, not including
telephones. If you want it to actually do anything interesting,
you'll have to pay extra licensing fees for closed,
limited-functionality, shrink-wrapped applications. Customization?
Forget itit's not in the plan. Future technology and standards
compliance? Give them a year or twothey're working on it.
All of the major telecommunications
manufacturers offer similar-minded products. They don't want you to
have flexibility or choice; they want you to be locked in to their
product cycles.
Asterisk changes all that. With Asterisk, no one
is telling you how your phone system works, or what technology you
are limited to. If you want it, you can have it. Asterisk lovingly
embraces the concept of standards compliance, while also enjoying
the freedom to develop its own innovations. What you choose to
implement is up to you-Asterisk imposes no limits.
Naturally, this incredible flexibility comes
with a price: Asterisk is not a simple system to configure. This is
not because it's illogical, confusing, or cryptic; to the contrary,
it is very sensible and practical. People's eyes light up when they
first see an Asterisk dialplan and begin to contemplate the
possibilities. But when there are literally thousands of ways to
achieve a result, the process naturally requires extra effort.
Perhaps it can be compared to building a house: the components are
relatively easy to understand, but a person contemplating such a
task must either a) enlist competent help or b) develop the
required skills through instruction, practice, and a good book on
the subject.
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