Woohoo!!!!!11!!!1

After years of trying to grok the Asterisk open-source PBX app, I’ve finally got my head wrapped around it! And this thing is sooo damn cool! I now have a fully-featured PBX installed in my desktop PC. I have a phone jack USB adapter on my desk that I can use to actually dial out to the world. What’s more, I can make and receive calls on my Sharp Zaurus using a SIP-based application called tkphone. I’ve turned my $300 PDA into a $50 wireless phone! 🙂

Seriously, though, I was jonesing for a way to cut the cord for my office conference calls. I’m the kind of guy who likes to walk around while I’m talking, so the traditional wired headset seems more like a leash. A wireless headset can be had for $50, but install a SIP-based app on my Z and my PDA becomes a $300 VoIP telephone. And wireless, too!

With a few more tweaks to my home firewall, I will be able to place calls directly over the internet to my Packet 8 telephone. It will never cross the Public Switched Telephone Network. The Packet 8 terminal adapter has the capability to automatically register itself with my Asterisk PBX (instead of Packet 8), if I chose to cancel my Packet 8 subscription. That might be an option in the near future, now that I’ve got Asterisk ironed out.

I was telling one of my friends last week about the revolution in telephony that SIP and other network-based phone technologies are bringing. Tonight’s success really lights up the possibilities in my mind. Amazing stuff!

I’ve got to put together a presentation for a TriLUG meeting so that my fellow geeks can be wowed by this technology. The world’s phone systems might never be the same!