[LUAU] A better flavor of Asterisk and a great little box

[Matt Darnell]

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Jeff Mings <jeffm at lava.net> wrote:
> Hi All!

>
>     Faced with a sudden need to implement PBX alternatives for a few clients
> with 5 or 6 locations, FreePBX is the way to go.
>

Jeff,

Be sure to check out Elastix, http://www.elastix.org/.  Like 'PBX in a
flash' it bundles FreePBX but it also includes other things like
openfire for Instant Messaging.  It is trivial to get openfire
integrated with Asterisk to provide computer and telephone presence.
The fax integration is straight forward as well.  It certainly isn't
perfect but a great solution for the right business.

We install Elastix on Atom boxes that cost about $400, the customer
usually has a PRI or analog trunks and we have had much better
experiences with Digium cards than external adapters.  Use soft phones
and startup is very inexpensive.

If you want to have some fun (using fun very loosely), put micro
elastix, http://uelastix.org/, on a rev B raspberry pi.  There is a
bug that it only recognizes 256MB of RAM but very cool that you can
get it running for less than $55 inclusive.

-Matt