Virtual Office Resource

Many businesses and organizations have found the cost of telecommunications spiking in recent years, particularly if they rely on legacy equipment and service. Long-distance phone calls – so easy to make on our mobile phones – still cost and arm and a leg with traditional telephone service. Business features such as call forwarding add still more to the bill. For many companies, switching to a voice over IP system has been a godsend: it allows them to add features while bringing down the cost of telecom, and enables companies to work in a virtual office environment in which remote and home-based workers can use the same phone and conferencing systems.

Asterisk is an open-source communications toolkit, and the basis of many affordable communications solutions today. Asterisk powers IP-PBX (News - Alert) systems, VoIP gateways and conference servers, and is used by SMBs, enterprises, call centers, carriers and governments worldwide. Sponsored by Digium, Asterisk (News - Alert) is free for developers to use as the basis for their own communications platforms that can be customized for end users.  

Asterisk Service, a division of VoIP solutions provider Ecosmob, recently launched a custom Asterisk conferencing solution that it’s marketing to business and industry clients. The new solution has a host of standard advanced features that can be molded to suit the client’s business method.

One video solution may appear just like any other from the front end, but a lot goes on behind the scenes, according to Asterisk Service. It’s customization that holds the key for success of an Asterisk conferencing solution and its ease of use, not only in video, but audio as well. Participants may be conferencing and collaborating in a variety of ways. Some may be participating from a desktop with a headphone-microphone-camera. Others may participate with their mobile devices, or desktop phones.

The message is that with all these methods, the underlying protocols and media codecs may vary, especially if participants are in different geographic regions. In addition, Internet bandwidth and speed can have an influence on the audio and video quality. Asterisk Service incorporates special routines in its customization features to handle such speed disparities.

For all these reasons, business customers looking for an Asterisk-based communications and collaboration platform should ensure they choose a solution that has the right level of customization, and an experienced vendor to tailor the solution to the organization.