New Open Source VoIP PBX

dsginter writes "It looks like Asterisk isn't the only open source PBX game in town anymore. sipX, as the name implies, is a SIP-only PBX project released under the LGPL. A noteworthy feature is the inclusion of an out-of-the-box web-based management console. Read more about the release over at Voxilla."

Asterisk is also a gateway

[Anonymous Coward]

SIPx appears to be a PBX only, with no way to attach real phones. Asterisk's primary appeal is that it integrates POTS and SIP. Who uses SIP and SIP alone?

There's at least one other open source PBX

[SizL]

And it's PBX4Linux. http://isdn.jolly.de/ [jolly.de]

Re:There's at least one other open source PBX

[hoppy]

And a second:
http://gnu.teleglobe.net/software/bayonne /index.ht ml

Re:There's at least one other open source PBX

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice, but PBX4Linux is mostly an ISDN PBX with VoIP in H.323 flavor (which is basically ISDN over IP) as a bonus. These days VoIP means SIP, and PBX4Linux doesn't do that.

Re:There's at least one other open source PBX

[fuzzbrain]

YXA [stacken.kth.se] is another open source sip server. This one's written in Erlang [erlang.org] which strikes me as a very good fit for this purpose (Erlang was originally developed by Ericsson for the specific purpose of developing high availability telephony applications). There are I believe some plans to integrate this with ejabberd [jabber.ru].

Re:Which means what?

[Anonymous Coward]

*buzz* its Session Initiation Protocol

thanks for playing. =)

Here's more of'em

[Anonymous Coward]

The only? What is this, IDG?

I can think of at least two right away:

• SER
• Yxa

There are probably others, feel free to add...

Re:And "open source PBX _game_ in town anymore."

[Anonymous Coward]

It is an English saying.

"Only Game in Town" refers to the only option available, or preferable.

You could, for instance, say "Windows XP Home is the only game in town for novice computer users."

[Although this is not technically accurate, the sentence makes sense.]

I hope this does not sound patronising.
This post is meant as an FYI.
I know not all /. users are native English speakers and I feel it is useful to help out those who may get confused by colloquialisms, idioms and assorted sayings.

Keitaro

Includes VoiceXML support!

[Alistair Cunningham]

What's particularly interesting with this product is that it includes a VoiceXML browser.

For those who aren't aware, VoiceXML [integrics.com] is a cross platform markup language, visually similar to HTML, for writing IVR [integrics.com] applications. VoiceXML pages can be served from any web server, and converted to voice on an VoiceXML browser. It interfaces seamlessly to Text To Speech and Voice Recognition servers.

My company, Integrics Ltd [integrics.com], does Asterisk, Cisco Call Manager, and SER installations. Up to now, we've done IVRs using Asterisk AGI for smaller systems, and VoiceXML on Cisco 2800 routers for larger systems. Being able to run VoiceXML on a free platform on Linux is going to be very interesting our customers. Needless to say, we're getting up to speed on sipX, and will be offering installation and development services as soon as it's mature.

Re:Which means what?

[Anonymous Coward]

SIP - in this context is Session Initiation Protocol - basically a signalling protocol.

Jargon Buster

[Jack Taylor]

There seems to be some confusion over the acronyms on this topic, so I thought I would clarify some of them:

PBX: Private Branch Exchange - this is basically a computerised telephone switchboard, allowing even fairly small organisations to manage their own telephone networks at low cost.

SIP: Session Initiated Protocol - this is the protocol that is standard on most voice-over-IP devices.

COWBOYNEAL: Circulation Of Worthless Broadcasts Over Your Nearest External Authentication Location - this is a special extension to the voice-over-IP standard allowing fast delivery of esoteric technological news to compliant devices. It also has the convenient property of always being last on selection fields in the user interface.

Copper 1 pair, actually

[n4vu]

Enjoyed your post, but should point out that only one pair is needed for telephone communication, including ringing. The two pair is a more recent wiring standard.

Re:Two Stones, One bird

[bastion_xx]

Try asterisk@home [sourceforge.net] for a good distro that should do most of the easy stuff "out of the box".

Re:Jargon Buster

[CounterZer0]

Actually, SIP is 'Session Initiation Protocol', as specified in RFC 3621 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3261.txt)