Setting up a PBX for Israel<->US communication

[Ori Berger]

Some information that may be useful if anyone is still interested:

- I can recommend grnvoip's termination service: They have good routes, 
good rates, competent technical support. They do not officially support 
IAX2 termination (only SIP and H323), but they will provide it if asked 
(supposedly; I'm using SIP termination). I heard great things about 
voipjet, but apparently they now actively require you to be a non-person 
entity (read, company) to join.

- The cheap setup described by Arik is perfect for call _routing_ so 
long as the asterisk server is only there for routing, and can "step 
out" of the communication chain once call routing is finished. 
Otherwise, at least with a Xen setup on vpslink, the CPU slice is not 
regular enough to provide acceptable quality, even for things like a 
voicemail app. (Everything works, but sound is occasionally choppy). 
OpenVZ might be better; Lylix.net might be better; I only have 
experience with Xen, and it's NOT good enough.

- In order to enable Asterisk to step out of call routing (and network 
routing), the DID mapping protocol and the termination protocol must be 
the same -- either both should be IAX2 (when using VoipJet) or both 
should be SIP (when using grnvoip). Otherwise, asterisk will need to 
remain "on the line" to do protocol translation.

- Asterisk rocks! It takes a little effort to configure, and looks weird 
at first (at least to my originally telephony-uninitiated self), but in 
most cases, there's a good reason for the way it needs to be configured. 
I think it's worthwhile to try to understand why Asterisk is built the 
way it is, rather than just look for an easy to configure GUI.

Ori Berger wrote:
> FWIW, I asked DIDWW about the disappearing numbers (03 numbers are not 
> there either at this moment), and they replied both 077 and 03 be back 
> shortly (but I don't know what "shortly" means). Diamondcard still 
> offers 03 numbers for $10/year. (Do note that their DID costs are 
> competitive, but their termination rates are not).

Israeli Numbers appear and disappear -- apparently they do not replenish 
their inventory regularly anymore, and you can get a number when someone 
gives their one up. However, if you want to use DIDWW -- talk to their 
sales team, they may have a DID for you even if it's not visible in the 
online shop. A US number is cheaper at diacmondcard. Israeli numbers 
were more available at DIDWW a month ago.

Ori.