[Tfug] Asterisk PBX

[George Cohn]

I don't know how many folks on this list are interested in Asterisk, the 
open source PBX.

I've been talking to Harry and Ron Evans at PCC, trying to get them to 
offer a class.  The problem with offering any new class is getting 
enough people to sign up to make it worthwhile.

The target would be 10-12 confirmed students.  Anyone interested, drop 
me a line and I will put together a list and see if we can talk them 
into offering it.

In the meantime, I've built at least a half dozen Debian based Asterisk 
boxes.  One even had a T1 card in it and was interfaced to a Nortel Opt 
81C PBX via primary rate ISDN over a T1. I was able to provide complete 
functionality including conference rooms and an interface to their wi-fi 
network so I could receive all my office calls on my UTStarcom wi-fi 
phone anywhere on campus.

I don't work there any more but if anyone is interested in building a 
box, I would be happy to help.  If the PCC thing doesn't work out, maybe 
a few people would be interested in meeting somewhere on a couple of 
weekends and learning a little about it?

All we need is a box with a small hard drive and can load Debian from a 
net install.  I have a spare Digium FXO-FXS card we could use or we 
could just use ztdummy and use something like one of the free or cheap 
soft phone services like Broadcom to demonstrate interfacing to the PSTN.

George Cohn
Tucson