Julie Webb
Digium
+1 (256) 428-6203
jwebb@digium.com

Laura Kempke
Schwartz Communications
+1 (781) 684-0770
digium@schwartzcomm.com

Digium® Releases Asterisk® 1.8, the Newest Version of the World’s Most Widely Used Open Source Telephony Platform

Incorporates more than 200 notable new features into the software that has received more than two million downloads over the past 12 months

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., October 21, 2010-Digium®, Inc., the Asterisk® Company, today announced the release of Asterisk 1.8, a significant update to the software that developers, integrators, resellers and others around the world use to create customized, feature-rich and cost-effective business phone systems. Asterisk 1.8 includes more than 200 enhancements, including new security features, integration with IPv6 and extensive additions to ISDN-BRI functionality. Asterisk 1.8 is designated as a Long Term Support release, indicating four years of support from Digium. Hundreds of members of the open source Asterisk community will take an in-depth look at the software's new capabilities at next week's AstriCon Conference & Expo (http://www.astricon.net), which runs from October 26-28 near Washington, D.C.

Technologists working with small and large businesses, government agencies and municipalities, call centers and carriers have downloaded Asterisk more than two million times over the past 12 months. It can be used to create nearly any type of phone system or voice application, with  some of the most popular uses being IP PBXs, voice gateways, voicemail, interactive voice response (IVR), conference bridges and automatic call distributors (ACD) for call centers.

"Asterisk 1.8 is the first Long Term Support release since version 1.4," said Russell Bryant, Digium's lead Asterisk developer. "It includes hundreds of enhancements, many of which will help community members building large-scale solutions. The Asterisk community has, as always, been absolutely integral in the development of this major release. Now that it's available, we're rolling our development resources to work on the planned set of Asterisk 1.10 features."

Stefan Wintermeyer, founder of AMOOMA GmbH, a German systems integrator specializing in Asterisk, contributor to Asterisk 1.8 and Digium partner, commented: "The new ISDN features in Asterisk 1.8 are a big step forward for the European Asterisk community. We've been waiting a long time and are pleased that Digium went the extra mile. Even without the ISDN enhancements, the pure performance jump in 1.8 is significant. We can save money on hardware because more calls can be handled by a single Asterisk installation."

Multitude of New Features Boost Security, Scalability, ISDN-BRI Support

Asterisk 1.8 includes contributions from hundreds of community developers, as well as the Digium development team. For a comprehensive list of additions and changes, and to download the new version, visit http://www.asterisk.org. A few of the updates include:

• Secure real-time transport protocol (RTP) support-New end-to-end VoIPencryption of signaling and media to compliment the existing encrypted signalingsupport.
• Security event framework-Modular capability for collecting and distributing security events within Asterisk.
• Extensive additions to ISDN-BRI functionality-Call completion services, connected party identification, ETSI advice of charge (AOC), message waiting indicator (MWI), call rerouting and call deflection.
• Session initiation protocol (SIP) changes-Substantial increase in the speed of registrations, transport layer security (TLS) improvements and more flexible network address translation (NAT) handling.
• IPv6 support-Integration with next-generation networks.
• Calendar integration-Support for Microsoft Exchange, CalDav and iCalendar.
• Channel event logging (CEL)-Enhanced call tracking and logging for better audit trail and billing purposes.
• XMPP distributed messaging-Better scalability for message waiting and device state.
• Improved internationalization and localization-Asterisk offers improved handling of concatenated audio playback (dates, numbers).
• Google Talk and Google Voice support-Inbound and outbound support for Google Talk and Google Voice calling.
• High-resolution timestamps for call data records (CDR)-Carrier and enterprise users can track call times to the microsecond.
• Better support for voice codecs-16 kHz signed linear media streams are now supported. Additional HD voice codecs supported.
• PacketCable NCS 1.0 support-Allows cable companies to use Asterisk as an option to create business services.
• Default de-noise for conference bridge calls-Conference calls will sound clearer.
• ConfBridge application enhancements-DAHDI hardware is no longer required to use this software feature. New call conferencing application that does not require the DAHDI kernel interface to operate.
• Pitch shift functions-The pitch of audio, including of callers' voices, can be manipulated.
• Multicast RTP paging-Extremely efficient and scalable method for handset paging.
• Faster development and more robust unit testing-Digium has implementedAgile development and a new automatedtestingframework.The Agile process streamlines development and gives Asterisk users a better view into development plans.

Asterisk 1.8 is released under the GNU General Public License (GPLv2). It is free of charge and available for download at http://www.asterisk.org.

About Digium

Digium®, Inc., the Asterisk® Company, created, owns and is the innovative force behind Asterisk, the most widely used open source communications software. Since its founding in 1999, Digium has become the open source alternative to proprietary communication providers, with offerings that cost as much as 80 percent less. Digium offers Asterisk software free to the open source community and offers Switchvox IP PBX software to power a broad family of products for small, medium and large businesses. The company's product line includes a wide range of hardware and software to enable resellers and customers to implement turnkey VoIP systems or to design their own custom telephony solutions. More information is available at http://www.digium.com.

 

The Digium logo, Digium, Asterisk, Asterisk SCF, Switchvox, Asterisk Business Edition, AsteriskNOW, Asterisk Appliance and the Asterisk logo are trademarks of Digium, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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