Scott Berkman wrote:
Asterisk also makes for a very powerful and scriptable IVR platform if you are willing/able to put the work in.
I was about to say - it makes an excellent feature box. My only major concern relates to its scalability; not even so much the amount of concurrent calls per box that it can handle as how much that amount might be reduced by a weighty, complicated dial plan with database backing, etc. On the other hand, the ability to stick it on commodity PC hardware far outweighs any of these downsides from a cost perspective; per-port cost with Asterisk is among the lowest for applications, especially if you bother to do it right (i.e. centralised logic controller, nothing too host-wise). SEMS (SIP Express Media Server) from IPTel/Tekelec is another viable alternative that might scale better. Obviously, it's a pretty bad choice for doing a simple SMB-oriented IVR; it's at least 100x more difficult than doing it with the Asterisk dial plan, and requires using some poorly documented C++ and/or Python APIs. However, if it's something really esoteric and requiring the flexibility of integration and/or data acquisition paths that Asterisk can't provide, or requires a higher degree of real-time call control (i.e. continuous deduction of prepaid balances and termination of call if they have expired, for example), I think it's a pretty good platform. Also makes a great generic signaling-only B2BUA, using ann_b2bua app for exaple. Definitely not the right thing for *basic* IVR, though. -- Alex -- Alex Balashov Evariste Systems Web : http://www.evaristesys.com/ Tel : (+1) (678) 954-0670 Direct : (+1) (678) 954-0671 Mobile : (+1) (678) 237-1775