The book is organized into these chapters:
This is where we chop up the kindling and light the fire. Asterisk is going to change the world of telecom, and this is where we discuss our reasons for that belief.
Covers some of the engineering considerations you should have in mind when designing a telecommunications system. Much of this material can be skipped if you want to get right to installing, but these are important concepts to understand, should you ever plan on putting an Asterisk system into production.
Covers the obtaining, compiling, and installation of Asterisk.
Describes the initial configuration of Asterisk. Here we will cover the important configuration files that must exist to define the channels and features available to your system.
Introduces the heart of Asterisk, the dialplan.
Goes over some more advanced dialplan concepts.
Taking a break from Asterisk, this chapter discusses some of the more important technologies in use in the Public Telephone Network.
Following the discussion of legacy telephony, this chapter discusses Voice over Internet Protocol.
Introduces one of the more amazing components, the Asterisk Gateway Interface. Using Perl, PHP, and Python, we demonstrate how external programs can be used to add nearly limitless functionality to your PBX.
Describes how external applications can connect to Asterisk to manipulate or monitor various aspects of the system. Also included in this chapter is a gentle introduction to the Adhearsion framework.
The Asterisk GUI Framework, new in Asterisk 1.4, is a framework system that allows web developers to create graphical interfaces with minimal interference to the standard configuration files.
Walks you through setting up Asterisk to work with ODBC databases.
Discusses issues regarding how to best manage your Asterisk phone system, including CDR, logs, and prompts.
Briefly covers what is, in fact, a rich and varied cornucopia of incredible features and functions—all part of the Asterisk phenomenon.
Predicts a future where open source telephony completely transforms an industry desperately in need of a revolution.