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Linux Considerations

  Linux Considerations 945GV   If you ask anyone at the Free Software Foundation, they will tell you that what we know as Linux is in fact GNU/Linux . All etymological arguments aside, there is some valuable truth to this statement. While the kernel of the operating system is indeed Linux, the vast majority of the utilities installed on a Linux system and used regularly are in fact GNU utilities. " Linux " is probably only 5% Linux, possibly 75% GNU, and perhaps 20% everything else. Why does this matter? Well, the flexibility of Linux is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because with Linux you can truly craft your very own operating system from scratch. Since very few people ever do this, the curse is in large part due to the responsibility you must bear in determining which of the GNU utilities to install, and how to configure the system. If this seems overwhelming, do not fear. In the next chapter, we will discuss the selection, installation, and configur...

Configuring Inbound IAX Connections

  www.chinaroby.com Configuring Inbound IAX Connections The Inter-Asterisk eXchange (IAX) protocol is usually used for server-to-server communication; more hard phones are available that talk SIP. However, there are several soft phones that support the IAX protocol, and work is progressing on several fronts for hard phone support in firmware. The primary difference between the IAX and SIP protocols is the way media (your voice) is passed between endpoints. With SIP, the RTP (media) traffic is passed using different ports than those used by the signaling methods. For example, Asterisk receives the signaling of SIP on port 5060 and the RTP (media) traffic on ports 10,000 through 20,000, by default. The IAX protocol differs in that both the signaling and media traffic are passed via a single port: 4569. An advantage to this approach is that the IAX protocol tends to be better suited to topologies involving NAT. An IAX user is used to authenticate and handle calls comi...

Asterisk: The Professional's PBX from https://www.chinaroby.com

  Asterisk: The Professional's PBX Never in the history of telecommunications has a system so suited to the needs of business been available, at any price. Asterisk is an enabling technology, and, as with Linux, it will become increasingly rare to find an enterprise that is not running some version of Asterisk, in some capacity, somewhere in the network, solving a problem as only Asterisk can. Asterisk - a Professional PBX   This acceptance is likely to happen much faster than it did with Linux, though, for several reasons: Linux has already blazed the trail that led to open source acceptance, so Asterisk can follow that lead. The telecom industry is crippled, with no leadership being provided by the giant industry players. Asterisk has a compelling, realistic, and exciting vision. End users are fed up with incompatible, limited functionality, and horrible support. Asterisk solves the first two problems; the community has shown a passion for the latter. ...

About VoIP --17 Technical details

  www.chinaroby.com   About VoIP Technical details The two major competing standards for VoIP are the IETF standard SIP and the ITU standard H.323. Initially H.323 was the most popular protocol, though in the "local loop" it has since been surpassed by SIP. This was primarily due to the latter's better traversal of NAT and firewalls, although recent changes introduced for H.323 have removed this advantage. However, in backbone voice networks where everything is under the control of the network operator or telco, H.323 is the protocol of choice. Many of the largest carriers use H.323 in their core backbones, and the vast majority of callers have little or no idea that their POTS calls are being carried over VoIP. Where VoIP travels through multiple providers' softswitches the concepts of Full Media Proxy and Signalling Proxy are important. In H.323, the data is made up of 3 streams of data: 1) H.225.0 Call Signaling; 2) H.245; 3) Media. So if you are in London, your pr...

About VoIP -16 Legal issues in different countries

 About VoIP Legal issues in different countries As the popularity of VoIP grows, and PSTN users switch to VoIP in increasing numbers, governments are becoming more interested in regulating VoIP VoIP in a manner similar to legacy PSTN services, especially with the encouragement of the state-mandated telephone monopolies/oligopolies in a given country, who see this as a way to stifle the new competition. In the European Union, the treatment of VoIP service providers is a decision for each Member State's national telecoms regulator, which must use competition law to define relevant national markets and then determine whether any service provider on those national markets has "significant market power" (and so should be subject to certain obligations). A general distinction is usually made between VoIP services that function over managed networks (via broadband connections) and VoIP services that function over unmanaged networks (essentially, the Internet). VoIP services tha...

About VoIP --15 Mobile phones & Handheld Devices

  About VoIP Mobile phones & Handheld Devices Telcos and consumers have invested billions of dollars in mobile phone equipment. In developed countries, mobile phones have achieved nearly complete market penetration, and many people are giving up landlines and using mobiles exclusively. Given this situation, it is not entirely clear whether there would be a significant higher demand for VoIP among consumers until either public or community wireless networks have similar geographical coverage to cellular networks (thereby enabling mobile VoIP phones, so called WiFi phones or VoWLAN) or VoIP is implemented over legacy 3G networks. However, "dual mode" telephone sets, which allow for the seamless handover between a cellular network and a WiFi ...

About VoIP -14 Mass-market telephony -- https://www.chinaroby.com

  About VoIP Mass-market telephony ( https://www.chinaroby.com ) A major development starting in 2004 has been the introduction of mass-market VoIP services over broadband Internet access services, in which subscribers make and receive calls as they would over the PSTN. Full phone service VoIP phone companies provide inbound and outbound calling with Direct Inbound Dialing. Many offer unlimited calling to the U.S., and some to Canada or selected countries in Europe or Asia as well, for a flat monthly fee. These services take a wide variety of forms which can be more or less similar to traditional POTS. At one extreme, an analog telephone adapter (ATA) may be connected to the broadband Internet connection and an existing telephone jack in order to provide service n...