[Bradford] Meeting notes

[Stop Watch Consulting Ltd]

David Carpenter wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> Good meeting last night with I think 13 people there.
> 
> I've done a quick write up at:
> http://bradlug.co.uk/?page_id=259
> 
> There were some links people were going to share around Asterix - aargh
> forgot to write that up in the meeting notes!, and other stuff - so just
> post it folks!
> 
> I've sent the booking form for the room for 2010, so do keep coming!
> 
> Thanks to the room sponsors, especially, John for covering November,
> Nige for last night, and Bernie for picking up last months.
> 
> Is that eveything...
> 
> Cheers
> David 
I counted 14 but hey ho, never was any good at sums. Being a bit of a 
dozey pr*t - hey, I said dozey, not 'doze - I didn't see a way to add 
bits to David's meeting notes so here's what I was waffling on about:

The tidy up of the Asterisk code is FreeSWITCH (referred to as FS from 
here on in) and some of you have already tracked that one down to 
http://www.freeswitch.org/ Well done. It is a great app, Keep a beady on 
it for future developments. Even better, keep a beady on the aggregating 
apps which are using it as a core element, see below. The web site is 
brand new and a hop skip and jump from what it was several months ago 
when we first started playing with it. The documentation was split 
across several sites not coordinated or linked in any logical way but it 
was all there.

One of the best of those incorporating FS is sipXecs, 
http://www.sipfoundry.org/ which is one well put together superbly 
documented OS app. Have a look through. There is no commercial angle, 
you have to configure a billing system to fit and full SIP functionality 
is not there. But what is there is more than adequate for most and it 
works very well. It is where we started off commercially with one of the 
other (not mentioned here) billing systems.

We tried lots of billing systems and it has to be said there are some 
very good ones. The one which stood out for us probably did so more 
because of what we are looking for rather than it being necessarily the 
best. We want the ability to handle agents or resellers. A2Billing at 
http://www.asterisk2billing.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi touched all of our 
buttons very sweetly thank you.

A superb app which incorporates A2Billing but has Asterisk rather than 
FS at its core is one from the high Andes of South America. Breathtaking 
in several senses. Wow, double puns even. Elastix. 
http://www.elastix.org/ Get it. Try it. This is a killer app. Grab it. 
JFDI. Rumour has it a group of devs are trying to marry the next release 
to FS as well as Asterisk. A2Billing is kept. Drool drool. Click on the 
"Extras" button and see what else is available.

We were impressed and absorbed by several more FOSS VoIP apps. Our 
selections are based upon our conclusions for our purposes. Note, I use 
the word our freely. So what are our purposes? We wanted to build a 
solid VoIP platform for distribution to micro, small and medium 
enterprises which would be affordable for them and give us a decent 
return. Planning our strategy we decided that we could build and handle 
the platform, but build and train a base of agents for the sales side 
rather than trying to do the whole thing ourselves.

If any of you want to use VoIP for other purposes I'll be happy to pass 
on some of the other apps we tried insofar as they may suit you. It will 
take some tracking back through our notes so I'm not prepared to offer 
documentation on everything we've tried.

Shameless plug: We are now ready for launch, barring a couple of tweaks 
to a web site or two. Anybody who faces customers regarding web, 
networking, internet, etc. etc. could make a few bob which will grow 
over time and never go away. You are eligible to become an agent of Stop 
Watch Web Telephony services. We set you up with a VoIP connection 
(free) so you can look over our system from an agent and an end user 
point of view. That can also be used for demo to prospective customer 
purposes. We add in training and a few very useful sales aids and 
customer relationship widgets. Contact me if interested.

Finally, an app I mentioned in the pub after the meeting is pfSense. Got 
a spare box? Give it a run. It's router software which comes as a 
self-installing app running on FreeBSD. Once installed it has a number 
of apps which you can install by clicking on the appropriate button. One 
of those is FS.

Cheers,

Mike