ClearFoundation

Hi All

I currently using SME Server with an asterisk based PBX (SarkPBX). My problem is that I want to a skype as a trunk and don't have a great deal of know how to do this.

Have looked at ClearOS and even had a friend suggest ClearOS.

What I am interested to know is there anyone working on this as I am looking at switching to ClearOS if I can get the skype trunk to work.

Anyone looking at this problem?

Thanks
Adrian

ps this is addition to the normal sip and iax2 trunks and extension that are normally used

There are a few issues to consider.

You can have QOS issues with bandwidth control, what you can not do is control loads and disk i/o that well. When I had asterisk running on my old clark connect box, if the machine got hit hard with lots of i/o, the calls would get crackly. So keep that in mind.

As far as getting skype going, there are a couple of ways to do it.

I would suggest you look at pbxinaflash.com and nerdvittles.com . PBIAF is a asterisk distro that just works and they are heavy on opensource and low to no cost.

There are two ways to get skype to work and the first is through digium and spending $66 for the skype asterisk addon. That is per channel. There is also the skype->sip situation you can do directly with Skype. However that has to be done with skype for business.

On the nerd vittles site they have a walk through that will show you how to get skype coming inbound and pushing it to an extension. It costs zero, but you are limited to one channel. So for example, if clearfoundation had a skype number of clearfoundation and wanted 30 callers to be able to call at once . . . . that will not work for free and they would have to chose to either 30 skype channels from digium at 66 per channel or do some skype to sip through skype.

I know this may not be the answer you are looking for, but it may get you going in the right direction.

Good luck.

DavidBer wrote:
There are a few issues to consider.

You can have QOS issues with bandwidth control, what you can not do is control loads and disk i/o that well. When I had asterisk running on my old clark connect box, if the machine got hit hard with lots of i/o, the calls would get crackly. So keep that in mind.

As far as getting skype going, there are a couple of ways to do it.

I would suggest you look at pbxinaflash.com and nerdvittles.com . PBIAF is a asterisk distro that just works and they are heavy on opensource and low to no cost.

There are two ways to get skype to work and the first is through digium and spending $66 for the skype asterisk addon. That is per channel. There is also the skype->sip situation you can do directly with Skype. However that has to be done with skype for business.

On the nerd vittles site they have a walk through that will show you how to get skype coming inbound and pushing it to an extension. It costs zero, but you are limited to one channel. So for example, if clearfoundation had a skype number of clearfoundation and wanted 30 callers to be able to call at once . . . . that will not work for free and they would have to chose to either 30 skype channels from digium at 66 per channel or do some skype to sip through skype.

I know this may not be the answer you are looking for, but it may get you going in the right direction.

Good luck.

Can't you setup VLAN's to fix most of the crackling calls up using ClearOS? I ran vonage for quite some time using ClarkConnect and had no problems with this once I setup a vlan for the phones.

Can't you setup VLAN's to fix most of the crackling calls up using ClearOS? I ran vonage for quite some time using ClarkConnect and had no problems with this once I setup a vlan for the phones.

Could you explain the advantage of using a vlan? I run IPlex on a number of CC / CL boxes and I'm always interested in tweaks to increase call quality. But I'm not connecting on the advantages of a vlan.

Thanks!

Sure.

A vLan is simply a virtual lan that is separate from other vlans on your network. If you separate your voice devices from standard data devices using a vlan, those voice devices do not have to contend directly with all the broadcasts and other traffic from data devices. +1 on no competition.

Another advantage is that you can mark an entire vlan as priority (QoS). Think of that! You don'thave to mark ports for QoS, instead you just mark a vLan...much simpler.

Here's a many part article on vLAN's and why they are important. I'm not saying it's easy to do...it's just something that you might think about...having a data vlan and a voice vlan is far less problems than the 30 I have at work! www.formortals.com/an-introduction-to-vlan-trunking/