Asterisk's path to the future: 3.0 _ 0001

Original article: asterisk's path to the future: 3.0 _ 0001

Chapter 1: telecom technology revolution

 

At first they ignored you, then they laughed at you, then they challenged you, and finally you won.

--- Mahatma GANHDI

 

 

Five years ago, when I first planned to write a book about asterisk, I predicted that asterisk would change the communication industry. Today, the change I predicted has been fully realized. Asterisk is now the most successful PBX and has been accepted by the telecom industry.

 

Unfortunately, in the past five years, the telecom industry has been lost and our communication methods have changed. 20 years ago, telephone calls were preferred for long-distance transmission. Now, the general method is through IM and email. Telephone calls seem to be on the verge of death, especially in the ever-changing era.

 

Asterisk maintains an admirable technology and we believe that it is always our hope to integrate telecommunications and other technologies.

 

For Asterisk, no one will tell you how your phone system will work, or what technology you are restricted to use, as long as you think of it, you can have it. All concepts of Asterisk are standard, and Asterisk is a new thing that can be freely developed by itself. If you want to implement it, asterisk does not impose any restrictions.

 

Generally, this flexible scalability comes with a certain price:

Asterisk is not a simple and easy-to-configure system. It is not because it is not logical, confusing, or hard to understand. It is very clear and practical, when they first saw the dial-up plan and began to think carefully about the possibility, they began to become happy. However, when there are multiple methods to achieve a single result, this process requires additional efforts. For example, building a house makes components easy to understand. However, if you can implement task a and Task B, you need development skills and practical exercises, this book is about this topic.

 

Asterisk and VoIP: a bridge between traditional and VoIP

 

VoIP is generally considered not better than free long-distance calls. In fact, its real value lies in the communication of voice over the data network.

 

Sometimes, we seem to have forgotten that the phone number is for the purpose of communication. It is just a simple goal. In fact, we should use it in a more flexible and creative way. Asterisk has lowered the barrier for entry into this industry.

 

 

Thezapata telephone project

 

When asterisk (1999) was just started, an open-source telephone project already exists. Asterisk integrates the Zapata telephone project to provide support for the PSTN network. At that time, combining traditional pure network software with the actual telephone network had a milestone.

 

The Zapata telephone project was initiated by Jim Dixon. Jim Dixon is a communication consulting engineer who is inspired by the speed of development in the CPU industry. If there is only one original interface with the telephone network, some of the DSP content is implemented through the CPU, which enables a more economical telephone system. This increases the CPU burden, but the low cost of CPU is more attractive than the expensive DSP. More importantly, as the CPU processing capability increases, the cost-effectiveness is also improved.

 

Similar to the need for dreamers, Dixon believes that other people have seen this opportunity, but he only waits for others to create it and he expects a significant increase. Some years later, he noticed that no one had created such a card and it seemed that no one was willing to do it. At this time, he will complete this reform, and he will start to implement it on his own. The Zapata project is born.

 

This event is revolutionary and will cause a great sensation in the industry. I think starting with the motive of the Mexican revolution, we should name this technology and organization in the name of the Mexican Revolutionary emilano Zapata, I decided to call it tormenta, which means a storm in Spanish, but it is often considered a disaster, such as a similar disaster like a hurricane.

 

Maybe we should be called asteristas. In any case, we would like to express our gratitude for Jim Dixon's contribution. Part of it is to discover this opportunity, and part of it is to initiate this revolution, most importantly, he contributed to the open-source community to facilitate the arrival of the asterisk PtSn engine.

 

After several years of development, the Zapata project has been modified and improved by Asterisk. The dahdi telephone interface currently in use is a derivative product of the Zapata project.

Asterisk's path to the future: 3.0 _ 0001