Build Your Own Cloud-Based VoIP Solution... In About An Hour

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Keep an eye on this... could be a useful tool as replacement for now Israeli-Hubbed "Skype". But as long as they loop back to G**gle with their mapping API... they will capture IPs. --CSR


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Welcome To FreeSWITCH
The World's First Cross-Platform Scalable FREE Multi-Protocol Soft Switch

FreeSWITCH is a scalable open source cross-platform telephony platform designed to route and interconnect popular communication protocols using audio, video, text or any other form of media.  It was created in 2006 to fill the void left by proprietary commercial solutions. FreeSWITCH also provides a stable telephony platform on which many telephony applications can be developed using a wide range of free tools. More

http://www.freeswitch.org/node/117

Possible Uses

    Rating & Routing Server
    Transcoding B2BUA
    IVR & Announcement Server
    Conference Server
    Voicemail Server
    SBC (Session Border Controller)
    Basic Topology Hiding Session Border Controller
    DAHDI, Khomp, PIKA, Rhino, Sangoma and Xorcom Hardware Support
    Fax server
        T.38 gateway, termination, and origination mode
        T.30 to T.38 and T.38 to T.30 gateway
        See also: mod_spandsp
    And, of course, a PBX
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SPUD, Simple Unified Dashboard for mesh networks

Published: 13 Jun 2011

We are happy to announce the public release of SPUD (SimPle Unified Dashboard). SPUD is yet another attempt to visualize a wireless mesh network running BATMAN and its users.

During the last couple of months we have written a PHP based dashboard that communicates with the BATMAN visualization server and displays real time wireless link status.

SPUD is written in CakePHP (PHP MVC framework) and uses Google Maps API 1.3 for visualization. <--(TRACK Zone)

SPUD is design to be as simple as possible and to enable teams that install large amount of mesh nodes to visualize their networks quickly. Some of the core features of SPUD are:

Client management: Bulk import of clients from a CSV file, Edit client position with Google Maps, Tracks new clients

Link monitoring: Easy overview of active wireless links, Mesh quality in each direction of a wireless link

Customization: Colors and threshold values for link quality

SPUD code is available at: svn co http://dev.villagetelco.org/svn/village ... pud/trunk/ and the default installation will monitor our demo site in Bo Kaap (Cape Town)
http://www.it46.se/

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Build Your Own Cloud-Based VoIP Solution... In About An Hour
Submitted by mcollins on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 16:02
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You may recall that Twilio launched a "Roll-Your-Own Google Voice" campaign a while back. They took the open-source Asterisk PBX and merged it with their proprietary cloud platform to create a powerful cloud-based communications software platform with handy APIs and a slick interface. This generated a fair amount of buzz, however the costs involved (up to $0.06/minute or more) were a barrier to entry for some. Additionally, the service doesn't offer the ability to use SIP directly. Voxeo also offers a full-featured, cloud-based telecom platform with its Tropo service.
 
Tropo and Twilio are great services indeed. But wouldn't it be nice if there was a 100% FOSS offering that made use of FreeSWITCH? As of today there is! The gang over at the 2600hz project have released an offering they've dubbed "Whistle." It is a truly open cloud-based platform that has many features, among which are native SIP support, service configuration, and much more. Whistle leverages the power of open source: FreeSWITCH, CouchDB, RabbitMQ, Erlang. The result is a platform that can run in the cloud or on your own servers - or both. It allows you to tap into FreeSWITCH's powerful event-driven subsystems across multiple deployments of FreeSWITCH and connect those events to API-driven software, all while distributing components and servers anywhere across the Web.
 
The 2600hz team has evidently been busy. Not only have they produced this software, they have full API documentation on the Whistle system as well as a RESTful abstraction layer called Crossbar. They also have an automated installer that you can use if you wish to avoid the complicated manual install process. They've even built a new website with udpated blue.box documentation. All of this is released under the same OSI-approved license (MPL 1.1) that FreeSWITCH uses.
 
The FreeSWITCH team is happy to see others taking this soft-switch and putting it to creative use. The Whistle platform is a great example of what FreeSWITCH - and indeed all open source software - is capable of producing. It is amazing to think that just six years ago, Anthony Minessale was staring into that empty text editor, contemplating how to build a telephony engine. In just a few years, FreeSWITCH has gone from an idea to a best-of-breed software library. Like the Hemi that moves a large truck, FreeSWITCH is the VoIP engine in a growing array of products: CudaTel, Ooma, and now Whistle.
 
The future of open source telephony is looking good!

FreeSWITCH: No Longer The Best Kept Secret In Open Source VoIP Software
Submitted by mcollins on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 03:51
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We have good news about FreeSWITCH: our community is growing leaps and bounds! The reason we know this is because each day we have new ones coming in and asking lots of questions. Additionally, not-so-new users are also asking lots of good questions about how to put FreeSWITCH to good use in various scenarios. However, we are finding that we just don't have enough hours in the day to help everyone. This is a good problem to have - it means that FreeSWITCH is growing beyond being the best-kept secret in open source telephony.
 
So, how can you help? We have several ways of helping new ones. First and foremost we have our documentation resources: the wiki and the FreeSWITCH book. (We are also slaving away on the FreeSWITCH Cookbook, but that's another story...) We are constantly in need of having our community members update the wiki. The FreeSWITCH developers are constantly adding new features. For example, see the agenda for this week's conference call - all those features were added within the past 3+ weeks, and that's not even the whole of it! As you can see, we have a real need for community members to donate time and energy in keeping our documentation updated.
 
Secondly, we have direct contact within our community. We have two main ways of keeping in contact: via the mailing list and by gathering together in the IRC channel. We also have the weekly conference call. The most important thing that you can do to help the community is to participate in these venues. Our two most pressing needs are: answering questions to the mailing list and answering questions in IRC. This is where your help is needed most and is also where you can have an immediate impact. If you are not subscribed to the freeswitch-users list then please join today. You don't have to read every message, but we encourage you to scan the subject lines looking for threads where you can help out. Likewise, if you have not joined IRC, please do so. Join irc.freenode.net and register a nickname, then come into #freeswitch. Set your IRC client to beep at you when certain key words are mentioned. For example, if you have experience with the event socket library, tell your IRC client to beep whenever "ESL" is mentioned in the channel. You can then scan the conversation and possibly offer your expertise.
 
If you look back at how you learned FreeSWITCH I think you'll have fond memories of how people helped you figure things out. I know I do. I first started asking lots of question when OpenZAP appeared in the summer of 2007. Anthony, Brian, and Mike all gave me individual attention. Even though the project has grown immensely over the past four years, they still give individual attention. But we all know that they cannot spend all day answering questions and still have time build a great project. Let's all give back by paying it forward. Pick one or more facets of the community and jump in. Even if you don't know very much you still know more than those who are just getting started. It is never too early start helping others.
 
Thank you to all who work to make FreeSWITCH such a great project and community. Thank you as well to all of those who read this and decide to give back by helping others. You are the ones who make open source software so rewarding.
 
-Michael

http://www.freeswitch.org/

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A recent version of this is called Freedom Fone:

http://www.freedomfone.org/page/users


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Skype Pulls Plug On Asterisk Integration
Submitted by mcollins on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 17:04
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(See update below.) In a move that is a surprise to pretty much no one with a pulse, the pre-Microsoft-owned Skype has decided not to renew their agreement with Digium, meaning that Skype for Asterisk will no longer be available after July 26, 2011. Existing customers are able to use Skype for Asterisk until at least 2013, after which no one is quite sure what will happen. The cynic in me says that two year is plenty of time for Microsoft to make Skype totally unusable.
 
In the meantime, we will all be keeping an eye on what Microsoft does with non-Windows Skype clients. Obviously the Windows clients will receive the most attention. From a purely business standpoint, Microsoft has little incentive to make sure that the OS X and/or Linux Skype clients are fully functional. One way to change the dynamic would be if Microsoft found a way to monetize each client, regardless of the underlying operating system. Could we possibly see Bingified Skype clients? Time will tell. Meanwhile it seems that the existing clients will still work with Giovanni Maruzzelli's SkypOpen module. Again, time will tell if Microsoft will try to "fix" that. Rumor has it that Microsoft will be Skype-enabling Lync, Xbox, etc. so there is value in keeping the Skype ecosystem healthy. Microsoft's press release says that it will continue to invest in "non-Microsoft" platforms. Evidently anything by those open-source hippies doesn't count.
 
UPDATE: This article at PCWorld is actually pretty balanced and has a non-conspiracy theory explanation for the move by Skype. I can't say that I'm holding my breath that MicroSkype will follow through on their grand interoperability plans, but at least there's some sliver of hope.
 
-Michael