Asterisk is Popping Up Everywhere

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I am continually amazed by the ubiquity of Asterisk.  Asterisk based carrier class systems are popping up like mushrooms.  Why? The expense of deploying one of these systems is truly disruptive.  Built on commodity hardware, they can be deployed for amounts less than $0.50 per subscriber, and scaled for even less.  Compared to traditional TDM based systems, they are ten times less expensive to build.

For example, over the last couple of months, I’ve seen numerous companies building carrier grade platforms around Asterisk, each with a different strategy for scaling.  For instance, Teresto, has approached the problem from the point of view of compartmentalizing every feature of their system. Need ringtones?  That’s on one Asterisk server.  An IVR?  That’s on another.  They’re demonstrating the flexibility of Asterisk, while isolating individual functions in a highly fault tolerant architecture. 

David Troy’s PopVox proposes an open source telephony platform, which he calls AMFORA, based on Asterisk.  AMFORA is: Asterisk, MySQL, FreeRadius, OpenSER, Ruby on Rails, and Apache.  At this point, he’s on his fourth generation of best practices deploying this platform, with successful installs in Brazil, the US, and Europe, including an install at Cogent. 

Because Asterisk based systems can be built and scaled so easily, new services can be crafted and test marketed with minimal expense. If it takes off, then scale it.  If not, then you know you built the wrong thing.

The giveaway that a system is using Asterisk? Allison Smith.  If Allison is the voice of a new service, then chances are it’s built on Asterisk.  For instance, the much-promoted Jajah is built from a foundation of one Asterisk feature, the outgoing call spooler. Radio Handi‘s voice conferencing service?  Built around Asterisk.  PhoneGnome?  Asterisk in the back end — you can hear it in PhoneGnome’s voice mail system. 

Asterisk has given these developers a huge advantage by providing cheap, workable call control, in source code.  It allows them to focus on building innovative customer services, while the open source community takes care of the nuts and bolts of the platform.

Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.