Asterisk Business Edition™

Why Asterisk Business Edition?

Asterisk is a complete telecommunications platform and represents a highly valuable piece of software for a number of reasons:

• Extreme cost reduction
• Control and customization
• Flexible dial plan
• Rich, broad feature base

Easy to Install, Configure and Use

Asterisk Business Edition includes a supported rPath™ Linux distribution with an enhanced installer, making Asterisk even easier to install, configure, and use.

To enhance customer interactivity with an Asterisk PBX, Asterisk Business Edition is integrated with the LumenVox™ Speech Recognition Engine and Cepstral™ Text-to-Speech. A trial version of the Cepstral product is included, and one free port of Lumenvox Lite is also available upon request to Asterisk Business Edition customers. The purchase of a separate license is necessary to activate additional functionality of these products.

Performance, Interoperability and Reliability

Digium's comprehensive test program ensures Asterisk Business Edition's reliability, performance, and interoperability with key hardware, software, and protocols. Digium hardware cards are tested for full compatibility with Asterisk Business Edition, as are several select models of servers, VoIP, and TDM devices. All major software features in Asterisk Business Edition are thoroughly tested for functionality and reliability. Test bed systems are also subjected to extreme stress conditions using Empirix™ test equipment to simulate hundreds of thousands of calls in various real-world combinations and configurations.

As a result, customers can rely on their combination of proven Asterisk software and Digium hardware to work together to provide a feature-rich PBX or VoIP system.

Extreme Cost Reduction

Combined with low-cost telephony hardware, Asterisk Business Edition can be used to create a PBX at a fraction of the price of traditional PBX and key systems, while providing a level of functionality exceeding that of many of the most expensive systems available.

Control

Asterisk Business Edition allows you to take control of your phone system. Once a call is sent to an Asterisk Business Edition embedded system, anything can be done to it. In the same way that Apache gives the user fine-grained control over virtually every aspect of its operation (and its Open Source nature gives even more flexibility), the same applies to Asterisk Business Edition.

Rapid Deployment and Development

Asterisk Business Edition allows PBX's and IVR applications to be rapidly created and deployed. Its powerful CLI and text configuration files allow both rapid configuration and real-time diagnostics.

Rich, Broad Feature Base

Because Asterisk Business Edition and is implemented in software, not only does it provide features such as voicemail, voice menus, IVR, and conferencing, which are very expensive for proprietary systems, but it also allows new features to be added rapidly and with minimal effort.

Customization

Through its configuration files and public programming interfaces, virtually every aspect of Asterisk Business Edition can be customized. For example, Asterisk Business Edition's codes for call features could be changed to match an existing system.

Dynamic Content Deployment

In the same way that web servers like Apache allow a user to deploy dynamic content, such as account information, movie show times, etc, on the web, Asterisk Business Edition permits you to deploy such dynamic content over the telephone, with the same ease as CGI.

Extremely Flexible Dialplan

Asterisk Business Edition's unusually flexible dialplan allows seamless integration of IVR and PBX functionality. Many of Asterisk Business Edition's existing features (and desired features of the future) can be implemented using nothing more than extension logic. Asterisk Business Edition supports a mix of extension lengths.

Features Supported by Asterisk Business Edition

AbsoluteTimeout
AddQueueMember
ADSIprog
AgentCallbackLogin
AgentLogin
AgentMonitorOutgoing
AGI
Answer
AppendCDRUserField
Authenticate
Background
BackgroundDetect
Busy
ChangeMonitor
ChanIsAvail
ChanSpy
CheckGroup
Congestion
ControlPlayback
Cut
DateTime
DBDel
DBdeltree
DBGet
DBPut
Dial
DigitTimeout
Directory
DISA
DumpChan
DUNDiLookup
Echo
Endwhile
EnumLookup
Eval
Exec
ExecIf
ExecIfTime
Flash
ForkCDR
GetCPEID
GetGroupCount
GetGroupMatchCount
Goto
GotoIf
GotoIfTime
Hangup
HasNewVoicemail
HasVoicemail
IAX2Provision
ImportVar
LookupBlacklist
LookupCIDName
Macro
MacroExit
MacroIf
MailboxExists
Math
MD5
MD5Check
MeetMe
MeetMeAdmin
MeetMeCount
Milliwatt
Monitor
MP3Player
MusicOnHold
NoCDR
NoOp
Park ParkAndAnnounce
ParkedCall
PauseQueueMember
Playback
PlayTones
Prefix
PrivacyManager
Progress
Queue
Random
Read
ReadFile
RealTime
RealTimeUpdate
RemoveQueueMember
RetryDial
ResetCDR
ResponseTimeout
Ringing
SayAlpha
SayDigits
SayNumber
SayPhonetic
SayUnixTime
SendDTMF
SetAccount
SetAMAFlags
SetCallerID
SetCallerPres
SetCDRUserField
SetCIDName
SetCIDNum
SetGlobalVar
SetGroup
SetLanguage
SetMusicOnHold
SetRDNIS
SetVar
SIPAddHeader
SIPDtmfMode
SIPGetHeader
SoftHangup
StartMusicOnHold
StopMonitor
StopMusicOnHold
StopPlayTones
StripLSD
StripMSD
Suffix
System
TestClient
TestServer
Transfer
TryServer
TXTCIDName
UnpauseQueueMember
UserEvent
Verbose
VMAuthenticate
VoiceMail
VoiceMailMain
Wait
WaitExten
WaitForRing
WaitForSilence
WaitMusicOnHold
While
Zapteller
ZapBarge
ZapScan

Subscriptions

Support for Asterisk Business Edition

Asterisk Business Edition is backed by Digium's professional support team for the duration of your Asterisk Business Edition subscription. Support options vary with the level of subscription purchased (see chart for details). For Gold and Platinum subscription customers, installation, configuration and operational support is available by telephone. All subscription customers receive unlimited e-mail support.

Customers building advanced telephony solutions using the Asterisk Business Edition platform may require assistance beyond the scope of our support offering. Consulting, solutions architecture, advanced configuration, systems integration and custom development can be purchased from Digium's Professional Services.

Support Renewal

All subscriptions are sold on a 12-month basis. Near the expiration date of your subscription your Digium reseller or a Digium Direct sales agent will contact you regarding renewal. Renewal of your subscription is optional but highly recommended. Renewal will provide another 12 months of software updates, support, warranty extension, monitoring and backup services and more. Subscription renewal prices are set at $95.00 for Silver, $245 for Gold and $795 for Platinum.

Subscription Upgrade

Customers who choose to upgrade from one class of subscription to another will retain the remaining value of their original subscription in the form of an extension on the duration of their new subscription. For example, a Silver customer who chooses to upgrade to Gold after 2 months will retain 83% of the MSRP value of the Silver or $79. The $79 in retained value equates to approximately 4 months of Gold service. Thus the new Gold subscription will be extended by 4 months for a total of 16 months of service.

Datasheets & Brochures

2008-04-30 - Asterisk Software Comparison (PDF)
2008-04-29 - Asterisk Business Edition Datasheet (PDF)

Agreements & Policies

2007-03-01 - Digium End-User Purchase and License Agreement (PDF)
2007-03-01 - Digium End-User Purchase and License Agreement (HTML)

Miscellaneous

2008-04-30 - Digium Software Licensing FAQ (PDF)

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