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by Tom's Networking has posted a review of a new product called Asterisk@Home that allows you to install your own PBX Switch at your house. The results of the review, in addition to explaining the installation process, showed that a 200MHZ Pentium Pro machine with 154MB of RAM was able to provide processing for up to 5 seperate lines. All that the software requires is an account with a VOIP provider, a linux machine, and VOIP phones.
What this means for the average user is that you can easily now run your own professional "voice server" that will allow you to have your own on-hold elevator music, numbered menus, and voices saying words that don't match in tone. Could this possibly do to VOIP what NAT did for broadband?
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There's a sense of irony in much of the technology used for VoIP. Say for instance you're a Vonage customer. They usually provide you with a Cisco ATA/186 or ATA/188 device to convert IP telephony into the traditional POTS analog voltages. How do these devices work? It's a modem in reverse! Asterix can do the same thing with sound cards and old school modems.
Where once upon a time, modems were used to pass data networks on voice lines, now they are essentially used in reverse to carry voice over data networks.
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NAT/AAH Analogy by markmcb :: NR7 :: on 31 August 2005
I think your NAT/AAH analogy is dead on. I don't use VoIP, but my understanding is that you pay for it much like a broadband connection in that it's a flat fee not based on usage, right? I knew hanging on to all of these old computers would come in handy some day.
...now to get started on my collage of voices saying words that don't match in tone! :-)