In 2003, when Indosoft started migrating its call center software to Asterisk, we knew it was the right move because we had switched over to Linux in 1999 and seen its benefits. We were not quite sure of the magnitude of change unleashed by Asterisk and its impact on the PBX market. After all, we were selling contact center solutions and were looking to get more control of the costs associated with development and support. When we look at Asterisk, it is from this narrow perspective of call center requirements even though we realize that Asterisk serves a very large community with a broader range of requirements.
Skype has been another bright spot in the world of IP telephony. Today most of Indosoft’s recurring telecom costs are spent on Skype and we are extremely impressed. The incumbent controls the last mile and we still may good money to them for the remaining PSTN lines. The low bandwidth usage and the higher voice quality makes Skype an outstanding carrier. The fact that they can connect to existing PSTN as well as provide incoming DID makes them extremely relevant for business users.
Skype for Asterisk is like icing on a cake. It is a one time license fee that allows Asterisk servers to use Skype network. There are great benefits. Skype provides Business Control Panel to manage the Skype accounts. We see some great potential benefits by using Skype for Asterisk in our contact center solution deployments. The two obvious advantages are the low long distance tariff without the need for long term contracts and the use of Skype to Skype user connections. Asterisk world is expanding and this is an assertion of the domination of Asterisk in the PBX domain.
Skype offers fantastic value for trunking calls, but when we get into the fancy stuff that passes DTMF tones for applications within asterisk such as voicemail, ACD, MeetMe conferencing and 3rd party transfers, we have problems.
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