|
Anticipating a your site getting Slashdotted, or succuming to the Digg effect? Mirror your site for free with LynxCache.
Team Think mobile edition
mirror of http://blogs.zdnet.com/Greenfield/?p=214
Team Think mobile edition
TEAM THINK
-------------------------
Latest Post [1] | Last 10 Posts [2] | Archives [3]
-------------------------
PREVIOUS POST: IBM and Linden Partner on Enterprise-Class Second Life [4]
NEXT POST: The one thing Asterisk has been missing [5]
AN OPEN SOURCE CLASS-FIVE SWITCH
Posted in:
VoIP
Open source projects have revolutionized operating systems, web servers, web browsers,
and so why not carrier switches? The FreeSwitch open source project [6] released its
Release Candidate 1 (RC1) yesterday providing and by early accounts the software rocks.
“We replaced a cluster of 10 Asterisk servers with a single FreeSwitch server,” said
Chris Parker, director of systems for a large publicly traded CLEC. Parker says he’s
getting several hundred concurrent calls on a single, dual-core box that’s also doing
all of the media processing, a computationally intensive task.
The software was first cooked up Anthony Minessale [7], an early Asterisk developer, who
wanted to create an Asterisk 2.0 project back in 2005. When that didn’t gain acceptance
he set off to build FreeSwitch. Today, the FreeSwich projects relies on the work of some
16 developers and testers.
The software is a high-speed call switching engine that telcos or businesses can use to
switch calls, build a media gateway, or a media server to host IVR application. Commercial
softswitches provide those features, but they run tens of thousands of dollars. FreeSwitch
is a free download.
Aside from high-speed switching, the software provides built-in IVR, multilingual
voicemail, conferencing, and presence. The software will handle SIP and wideband codecs
for high-fidelity voice calls.
FreeSwitch will most likely shine on the backend. One application will be to help
business reduce calling costs by directing calls to the cheapest carrier. Ken Rice, a
voice consultant and owner of tollfreegateway.com, a voice termination service, says his
FreeSwitch “cherry picks the rate centers” and chooses the least-expensive carrier for
delivering 40-45 million minutes per month.
In theory, FreeSwitch could become the platform for a new carrier, but there’s far more
to building a carrier than just purchasing a switch. Purchasing and integrating the proper
billing and management systems are bigger changes. What’s more FreeSwitch lacks the huge
range of features of commercial softswitches, such as Broadsoft, will offer to deploy
consumer services.
That was one of the reasons why Parker chose to use FreeSwitch instead of Broadsoft, he
says. The price didn't hurt either.
posted by Dave Greenfield
April 8, 2008 @ 1:43 pm
PREVIOUS POST: IBM and Linden Partner on Enterprise-Class Second Life [8]
NEXT POST: The one thing Asterisk has been missing [9]
-------------------------
LAST 10 POSTS:
HD-Telephony: Hip or Hype? [10] (04-14)
The one thing Asterisk has been missing [11] (04-11)
An Open Source Class-Five Switch (04-08)
IBM and Linden Partner on Enterprise-Class Second Life [12] (04-03)
Google to Buy Skype? [13] (04-02)
The 3-D Web Goes Thin [14] (03-31)
Avaya Changes the UC Game [15] (03-17)
The Longtail of IT Governance [16] (03-14)
VoIP: Cisco Goes to Number Two [17] (03-02)
Microsoft to Enter SaaS [18] (03-02)
more Posts (Archives) [19]
WordPress Mobile Edition [20] available at alexking.org.
powered by WORDPRESS [21].
All content mirrored on this site is generated from the open-source browser, Lynx. Ads are included simply to pay for our bandwidth in supplying this free service. All content is copyright the original owner (see mirror of: in the header).
|
