Setting up a PBX for Israel<->US communication

[Arik Baratz]

Hey Ori, long time.

2009/1/31 Ori Berger <linux-il at orib.net>:

> - VPSLink is still the cheapest VPS host at $8/month (or $80/year) for
>  64MB of memory. It seems like the OpenVZ package is better suited
>  than the Xen package, being less resource intensive. And from past
>  experience I would bet on Debian -- however, can anyone here share
>  their experience (Arik?). Will "apt-get install asterisk" be enough,
>  or will I have to compile everything myself?

I have installed Ubuntu and not Debian. I installed Asterisk from
packages, I didn't compile anything. In fact I don't have any dev
tools in my machine and I doubt they will run with only 64MB of RAM.
Heck I have to stop Asterisk when I want to run some commands, like
for example apt-get...

> - grnvoip still seems like the cheapest termination service - but
>  only provides SIP connection, whereas voipjet, still competitive,
>  provides only IAX2. Any recommendation here? IAX2 is supposed to
>  be less resource intensive than SIP, but I don't know if that'll
>  matter on a 64MB machine routing at most two calls.

I use voipjet/IAX2. Viopjet claim that they are not to be used by end
users, and I simply ignore that. So far I haven't asked for support
and haven't gotten any. They have the occasional downtime, if you use
a DNS name for the host and not an IP you will usually not feel it
because they change DNS records to compensate. You have to have more
than $20 in your account at all times or else you can't use most of
their servers.

> - didww.com is competitive on DIDs ($3/month for 077- number in IL,
>  $10/month for 03- number, $2/month US number), but other such as
>  diamondcard.us provide same prices, and also do termination (although
>  not as cheaply as grnvoip or voipjet).

I use didww.com. I did not check out any others. I have a number in
the US, in Israel and in Australia. I used to have a number in France
but some stupid French decided to limit VoIP numbers to the physical
region they seem to be from, so lacking an address in Paris I had to
give that number up.

> - Any positive or negative experiences routing SMS between those
>  systems?

Didn't try it, I have no idea if it will be successful. I know Nir
Simionovich and Oded Arbel have messed around with SMS quite a bit,
and I think they are both on the list.

> Does anyone have experience, specific software versions and/or configuration
> scripts to share with regards to such a setup?

I can share my extensions.conf with you if you want.

-- Arik