[Tfug] New VoIP Class at Pima

[George Cohn]

[Blatant advertisement for a new Pima Community College Class]

After two long years we finally got the Intro to VOIP class on the fall 
schedule at PCC.  Here's the official description of the class:

CRN 15065 CIS 298T8

Introduction to the concepts of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) from 
the history to expected future uses in the workplace and home. Includes 
an overview, digital voice fundamentals, standards, how an Internet 
Protocol (IP) phone call works, protocols and structure, relationship to 
the Open Standards Interconnection (OSI) model, gateways, quality of 
service, and router concerns.

While this sounds pretty generic and boring, the class will actually 
cover the introduction of telephony technology from the analog (stone) 
age to the present.

The first class will be an introduction to telephony and an overview of 
where it came from.  Then we will get into the exciting stuff like 
actually building and programming some telephony servers.

The software used in the class will be Linux, possibly Debian and the 
Asterisk open source application software.  We will cover how to install 
Linux and Asterisk then get into configuring it so you can actually make 
some phone calls.  We will use some soft clients as well as some hard IP 
phones and cover such things as configuring phones from a ftp server to 
hardening the system, security, QOS issues, as well as voice mail to 
your e-mail box.

We hope to get enough students to have 4 or 5 teams of 4 students each 
who will build and configure their server and network them together so 
we can place calls to and from each server and possibly to the outside 
world.

What good is the class?  Well, if you are at all interested in the 
digital world, as I assume many Tfugers are, this is how all of your 
voice service will work in the near future if it doesn't already.

Digium, the company that developed the open source Asterisk offers a 
DCAP or Digium Certified Asterisk Professional certificate.  Since we 
will be using their recommended book, this is a good way to get up to 
speed and possibly get their certification although we don't 
specifically offer that as the goal.

It's only a three credit class on Wednesday night at West Campus from 
5:40pm-08:30pm.  While telephony isn't the most exciting application in 
the world, it's one that is ubiquitous in that everyone has some sort of 
phone service.  ;-)

There are no formal prerequisites although some knowledge of Linux and 
networking would be very useful. If you have any questions, contact me 
off-line and I will be happy to tell you more.

George Cohn